Effective Exercises For Back Pain Relief

September 4th, 2008 at 08:48pm Under Misc

Exercise is very good for you, as you no doubt already know, but it’s especially beneficial for chronic back pain relief, providing you follow a handful of easy to follow instructions, and do the low impact routines. Here’s a list of easygoing and effective exercises that should help with back pain relief and offer some welcomed chronic back pain relief:

Shift and lift: This is a very simple exercise that really can tone up the muscles around your lower back and glutes (your butt) (in particular) while sitting on your chair. This is therefore something that you can practice while you are at work, owing to the nature of the ‘lifting’ part of the exercise, I would not really recommend that you do this while you’re having a conversation with others, for example. They may get the wrong idea about you!

Regardless of that, this is a very effective exercise for reducing any stiffness or soreness that usually happen from sitting for an extended period of time, and it will help strengthen those muscles too!

While sitting in your chair, relax then clench one buttock and hold for several seconds, lifting your cheek slightly as you do so. Relax and rest for 1 or 2 seconds and then do it again. Do this 15-20 repetitions on each buttock.

Hip sway: This is neat little exercise to do if you have to stand up for any length of time, as it alleviates the stress in your legs and invigorates the circulation throughout the whole of your lower body. It also helps to avoid getting the lower back pain that afflicts some people if they are required to stand up for long periods of time.

Stand up straight, let your right knee relax and soften, and at the same time pushing your left hip out to the side. Pull the hip back in again, and repeat the same action 15-20 times. After that, relax your left knee, and force your right hip out in the same manner.

Lifting: This exercise needs a bag - a supermarket carrier bag, or anything else that has suitable handles for lifting will be good enough. Put something fairly heavy in the bag - again, it is fairly irrelevant exactly what it is, so long as it is at least a 3 or 4 kilos (water bottles are perfect for this, because you know that a liter bottle weighs just about a kilo).

Place your arm straight down the side of your body, bend your knees until you can reach the bag on the floor and then straighten your legs and lift the bag. Lift until your legs are once again straight, hold the upright position for a few seconds, and then bend your legs until the bag touches down again.

Repeat this exercise 15 times for one side of your body, then repeat it on the opposite side. By making sure you bend your legs and not you back - this exercise is excellent for strengthening the middle and lower back, glutes and hips, and an added bonus is that it will help tone your arms and legs.

Shrug Off: This is a very simple exercise that not only helps keep your lower back in great shape, it is also a powerful approach for discharging the tautness that builds across the back of your shoulders. As an added benefit, this exercise is also great for working your shoulders and arm muscles. Because you can do the exercise sitting or standing you can perform it pretty much anywhere.

To start, just pull up your shoulders to as close to your ears as possible, then extend your arms sideways from your body until they are parallel to the ground and turn your palms so that they are facing outwards. Lastly, lean your head till it touches your shoulder then hold for a few seconds. Return to the start position and do the whole thing again, but this time, tilt your head to the other side.

By Kym Add comment

Quick Weight Loss Tips

August 31st, 2008 at 03:27pm Under Misc

Today’s video lifestyle is often to blame for the gain of unwanted weight. That’s a fact you really can’t argue with. How to lose the unwanted weight, however, is open for debate.

One of the liver’s main functions is the conversion of energy from stored fat. For this reason, it’s important that your liver is always functioning at its best. Another function of the liver is to help the kidneys do their job if they’re dehydrated. The solution to keeping your liver converting fat to energy is to drink more water! It is crucial to drink water to maintain a healthy body. In summation: drink more water and consume fewer dehydrating beverages.

Just existing requires the expending of calories. No matter what we expend in a twenty-four hour day, we constantly require energy. We all know that. What you may not know is that your resting metabolic rate is dictated by the amount of muscle you have on your body.  The fastest way to lose weight is to increase your metabolic rate. If you increase your muscle mass, even by a tiny amount, you increase your resting metabolic rate, which means you will constantly burn more calories throughout the day.

To benefit from increasing your metabolism, you don’t need to lift weights two or three hours a day. I certainly don’t have that kind of time to spare in my day, and you probably don’t either.

To add lean muscle mass, remember to start slowly with simple exercises like squats and push-ups. It doesn’t require more than five of each exercise every day. It won’t cost you a dime to do both of these exercises at home. Does wanting to do more than just push-ups and squats mean you’ll need to buy a set of weights? Quite simply, a pair of rocks will do the trick - even if they only weigh three or four pounds each.

You must keep your entire body constantly rebuilding and repairing muscle to gain more muscle very quickly. Does that mean working everything: back, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, quads, glutes, calves, hamstrings, and abdominals? It sure does. To accomplish this, do you need to kill yourself every day at the gym? Absolutely not. Remember, squats and push-ups. Every muscle in your body will be exercised by those two movements (if time allows you to focus on individual muscles, so much the better).

Diet - the last factor of weight loss or weight gain - is also very important. Eating a double cheeseburger, large fries, and a calorie-loaded regular soda three times a day means you’ll find it hard to lose weight no matter what exercises you do.

While there is no limit to the number of diets claiming to be the best (all fruit, no meat, low carbs, low fat, etc.), not everyone reacts the same to the same food. Our bodies are not equal when it comes to how each metabolizes food. What is good for me could harm you.

So how do you know what kind of diet works best for you? Count the number of calories you consume daily. It’s important that your calorie count is the correct amount for your current body weight. Next, pay attention to how you feel emotionally and physically thirty minutes after you eat. Do you feel lifeless? Want to flop on the nearest couch for a nap? Or have you instead found your energy redoubled? You’ve probably figured this out already because your body always tells you how it feels after you eat.

Sufficient water consumption, a diet that fills you with life and energy, and light exercise are what you need to lose weight. Be sure you include all three of the above factors, you will successfully lose weight and live healthier while doing so!

By Kym Add comment