Christine demonstrates an exercise on the Clara barrel that can help lengthen the abdominal muscles.
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one of my fav songs, hope u like it too Fitsugar works on your abs with a Pilates Single Leg Stretch As the holidays approach, a feeling of dread creeps in. Not only is money getting tighter, but your pants are, too. It’s the same old story. Colder weather keeps you stuck indoors, while the yummy holiday cooking fattens you up. Not this year. Not me! I refuse to gain those holiday pounds and you can, too. No, you don’t have to sign any contracts at an expensive gym. You can get the body you want on a limited budget. You may not realize it, but workout videos are more fun and exciting than they used to be. Workout videos are also much less expensive than a gym membership or buying home workout equipment like a treadmill or elliptical trainer. If the thought of buying workout videos reminds you of leg warmers and striped leotards, you’ve got some catching up to do. You’re not stuck with the boring workout videos of the 80s and 90s anymore. Believe it or not, the same sought-after trainers who get paid the big bucks to train celebrities can be on call to train you in your own home for pennies a day. Some of the newest fitness trends are available on video. Ballet: Have you always envied a ballet dancer’s lean and graceful body? Several ballet videos are now available as workout videos. One of the most popular choices right now was created by the famous New York City Ballet. Although you won’t learn to be the next prima ballerina training with exercise video at home, you will shape and lengthen your muscles for a graceful body. Yoga or Pilates: If you’re looking for a sleek, lean body, firm core, or more flexibility, then there are hundreds of yoga and Pilates videos to choose from. You’ll find yoga for adults as well as yoga for kids. Yes, kids get stressed, too. Yoga is a great way to teach them to relax. Exotic Dancing: You read that right. If you’ve ever thought it would be fun to learn sexy moves, then this is for you. In the privacy and safety of your own home, you can bump and gyrate to your heart’s content. I have also heard that laughter is good for your abs, so you’ll have that covered as well, especially if you have a mirror in your workout room. Belly Dancing: Shimmy your way to a great waistline. Whether you want an instructional video to teach you proper belly dancing technique or you just want to exercise with belly dance moves, you’ll find a wide variety of videos available. Fitness videos for kids: Oftentimes kids can be the best motivators. If you put in a Sesame Street dance video and your three year old asks you to dance with Elmo, you can hardly say “no”. Once you’ve chosen a trend or video you are interested in, set a specific time each day to “meet” with your personal trainer. It’s best to rotate at least two different forms of exercise (or videos) to avoid repetitive use strains. You can do different videos each day, or alternate a walk, bike ride or other activity you enjoy on your non-video days. As long as you are moving, you’re keeping those spare pounds from firmly attaching to your body. So, don’t sign that costly gym membership agreement just yet. Blow the dust off the exercise videos in your cabinet, get some good walking shoes, or check out the hottest trends at your favorite online store. It’s the frugal way to go. Tina Titas is a columnist for http://www.FunExerciseVideos.com From belly dance to pregnancy exercise, you’ll find exercise videos at a great price. Most people think that for a workout to be effective it has to be long. That is not always true. In many cases a short workout can be just as effective, if not more effective, than a long workout. There is not always a need to spend hours sweating away in the gym. You can do effective short workouts and still reach your fitness goals. The Key to Effective Short Workouts A short workout needs to have certain characteristics if you want it to be just as effective as a longer workout. For a short workout to be effective it needs to be intense. This is the key to getting your body really burning fat and calories. You do not have to kill yourself, though. Often when people hear the word intense they think it means pushing themselves until they can barely move. This is actually going overboard. You do want to give your body a real workout and get your blood pumping, but pushing too hard can cause injury and do more harm than good. The key here is balance. With shorter workouts every minute has to count. You need to be working at your top level. That means you are really focused and every move you make is serving a purpose. You can’t simply just “get through” a short workout. You have to really be thinking about how your body is working and how your body is benefiting from the exercises you are doing. Short Workout Tips Here are a couple tips that will help you ensure your short workouts are just as effective as your long workouts. Make sure that you are pushing yourself through the whole workout. Keep increasing the intensity level each workout. Try using a heart rate monitor to ensure that you are getting your heart rate up during your workout. Vary your workout. Doing different exercises stops your body from adjusting to the workouts and keeps it guessing. If you do the same thing everyday your body will adjust and you will have to work harder and longer to get benefits from it. Stay focused through the whole workout. Make sure that you are focused on form and on doing the exercise correctly. Good form is essential for really getting the most from an exercise move. Do strength training, too. Building muscle helps your body burn more calories and makes losing weight or maintaining weight easier. The more muscle you have, the less time you have to workout to get a good calorie burn. Any fitness expert will tell you that it is not really the amount of time your workout that matters. The true test of a workouts effectiveness is the intensity. Give it your all for 20 minutes and you will be doing just as much good for your body as you would if you were only giving 50% in an hour long workout. So, forget the hour long workouts and try intense short workouts for a real change in your body. Nico Gonzalez gives us some specific Pilates exercises geared towards helping cyclists. Nude Pilates And Nude Exercising Isn’t For Everyone But The Au-Natural Workout Is Gaining PopularityNude exercises. Nude Pilates. Nude Yoga. Drop your inhibitions at the door. Exercising in the buff is becoming a trend! With who? While researching this article, I’m fascinated, no…shocked, at how many forums there are for nude exercises. Now, I’m no prude. I’m merely curious. Here are a few descriptions I’ve read on the forums of people describing their au-natural workouts. Uninhibited. Ok…obviously. Freeing. That comes up a lot. Productive. Productive? Let’s explore that one. When exercising in your birthday suit, there is nothing to hide. When doing Pilates nude exercises, this means even more. Pilates is a detail oriented exercise method with great attention paid to your form. How better to see your form than to do naked Pilates! You can’t possibly cheat. Your belly will be in. Your shoulders will be down. Your bottom is going to be engaged. Yes, your workout will be more productive. Does this mean your local Pilates studio is going to start offering nude Pilates classes? Probably not. My Pilates studio won’t mainly because no one would come. I live in New England. We cover up most everything around here. I think most people are practicing their nude workouts in the privacy of their own home or at a nudist camp. Is it safe to exercise naked? I have to believe that most exercising can be done nude, however, watch out for those high impact exercises. Breasts and testicles need a little extra support, thank you. What about the cleanliness factor of exercising naked? What boil producing germs are going to be getting into places where they shouldn’t be? Even the cleanest Pilates equipment may carry a certain amount of germs. This thought definitely has a kind of yuck factor. Ok…let’s spin this subject a bit. What is the naked truth about Pilates? What are some myths? Myth: Pilates is just for women. Myth: Pilates is like Yoga. Myth: Pilates is too hard to master. Whether nude exercises are your thing or not, give Pilates a try. With or without your clothes on, Pilates is a great choice. Susannah Marchese is a certified Pilates fitness instructor and a senior contributing writer to Susannah Marchese – http://www.everything-about-pilates.com If you’re much of a fitness buff, you’re probably constantly alert for fun and challenging workout videos and products. Pilates is a phenomenon that is catching the attention of many because of the results experienced by certain Hollywood stars. Many community colleges, adult education and recreation centers, and gyms are now beginning to offer pilates classes. Pilates is a non-aerobic system of floor exercises that strengthens and firms the body while it promotes flexibility and coordination. It was invented by health and fitness guru Joseph Pilates in the early 20th century and became especially popular among professional dancers. Pilates works the abdominal and the back muscles, which are referred to as the “core” muscles of the body. The core plays an important role in nearly all fitness related activities, so a strong, but flexible core means less risk of injury and enhanced performance in other workouts. Unlike many forms of exercise however, pilates requires great concentration. Because proper form is so crucial to success, you’re forced to pay special attention to how your body is moving. In this way, it is actually quite similar to yoga and there is a lot of crossover between people who practice both. It is advantageous that pilates is great for all fitness levels, even for beginners. With the many videos that have been produced, you can even do pilates at home. When you first work out to winsor pilates tapes, you may be quite surprised at how challenging the seemingly-simple movements actually are. That is because pilates works muscle groups you probably aren’t used to exercising. If you keep up your workouts however, you will adapt quickly. Don’t assume that just because it is difficult the first time that it will be impossible. You will get much better with practice. Working out to the winsor system can be a great way to get in shape. You get a 20 minute workout and the longer, more challenging 50 minute accelerated body scultping video. So, once you’re proficient in the basic moves, you have an additional video to keep you challenged. The instruction is clear and friendly, and modified moves are demonstrated for those who have a weak back or neck. It is convenient that the mari winsor pilates workout tapes do not require extra equipment. The exercises can be performed comfortably on a carpeted floor. If you have hard floors, you will want to get a mat. One drawback to these tapes is that once you know how to do the exercises, the instruction can seem too wordy. You get a better workout if you don’t take breaks in between the exercises, but Mari frequently pauses the workout to explain how to do the next move. One solution is to hit fast forward; another, is to write down the sequence of moves and do them without the video once you’re familiar with the exercises and comfortably know what to do. The bottom line is, the winsor pilates videos are effective, especially when combined with a healthy diet and aerobic exercise. Kathy Hildebrand is a professional writer who is easily bored with her “day job” assignments. So, she researches anything and everything of interest and starts writing. Writing about an extremely wide variety of subjects keeps her skills sharp, and gives her food for thought on future paid writing assignments. More of her research and articles can be found at www.lasertargeted.com/pilates [http://lasertargeted.com/pilates] and other sites around the internet. O.K. I was skeptical for about 4 or 5 years when I heard about the Pilates exercise system. “Here we go again,” I thought. “The movie stars are doing it do it must be the end all be all. Besides something that dancers and actors do seemed to effeminate. It was strange enough that I had started instructing women’s kick-boxing. I mean who would have thought that there was such a demand? But I digress. I had heard bits and pieces of Pilates this and Pilates that. But, I never really took a serious look until some of my women’s kick-boxing trainees started talking and demonstrating these “Pilates” moves. O.K. some of it looked difficult… I mean challenging. So, I practiced some of the movements without much thought. Then one day, this pretty, a bit-over weight lady showed up after several months of absence. Wow. She had completely trimmed down and did she look hot! It almost challenged my professional attitude just looking at her. So, what happened? Was it the great nutritional advice that I gave her. Well, a bit (I’d like to think anyway). “Pilates training,” she explained. So, I asked her to demonstrate this style of exercise. It was kin of weird, but it made sense. Strengthen the muscle STABILIZERS and the big muscles will be O.K. So, I signed up for the $900 instructor’s course. There I was one of two guys in a class of women. Almost as awkward as when I took my aerobics instructor training. Except with the aerobics, I could wing it with my runner’s stamina. Not so with the Pilates. Everyone else in the class was some kind of dancer, physiotherapist or gymnast. So, I was the awkward dude. To complicate things, I was also experiencing back and hip pain and was visiting a chiropractor, acupuncturist and physiotherapist. At over 44 years, I had run too many miles on pavement and thrown too many round house kicks. Plus my old motorcycle accident just kept acting up. But, a few weeks into the Pilates instructor course something started to happen. No, I did not start getting more girlfriends and Hollywood fame. My hip pain started going away. I could also do a squat or clean with weights without falling to one side. I was getting stronger in the lower body without the use of weights. Go figure. I also seemed to have lost a recurring muscle pain behind my right should blade. My Pilates instructor, Monique, explained that many of us were born imperfect and these imperfections come to light later in life. Well, I was sold on the Pilates and started teaching it. Later, I also learned and taught power yoga. While I admit that the Pilates can get as dry as watching grass grow, the stuff works. It is also a relief to know that the inventor, Joseph H. Pilates was a smart, tough dude, who had trained former world heavy weight boxing champion Max Schnmeling. While Pilates will not develop kick-butt stamina and muscular endurance, it can strengthen your overall structure and keep the older athlete in the game. It does make you look better and more confident when you are standing taller. When people stand taller, they look leaner. I also attribute Pilates training to assisting me climbing Mt. Rainier while carrying a 60 pound back pack. I highly recommend the following exercises: Roll like a Ball, Roll up and sawing. For more information read the download: Stomach Flattening Doug Setter holds a Bachelor’s of Food and Nutrition. He has served as a paratrooper and U.N. Peacekeeper, has completed 5 full marathons and climbed Mt. Rainier. He held a welterweight kick-boxing title at age 40. He consults clients in alcohol reduction, stomach-flattening, kick-boxing and nutrition. He is the author of Stomach Flattening, Reduce Your Alcohol Craving and One Less Victim. Visit his website: http://www.2ndwindbodyscience.com The Bodyweight Exercise Mentality. In many ways Bodyweight Exercises are like intense Yoga, or Pilates. We use all of our limbs along with the secret ingredient that is gravity to strengthen, condition and tone our bodies without the use of external apparatus. This makes us self-sufficient, independent and self-determining. We don’t wait for someone to finish working on a machine, we just get on with what we are doing, and do it. It reflects an inner knowing that everything we will ever need is within us now. We don’t need anything else. There are no excuses. It couldn’t be more simple, we didn’t say “easy” but simple – yes. 1. Decide what you want in terms of physical fitness, set a major goal, with minor milestones to guide you to achieving the goal, 2. Write down what you need to do to hit your milestones, and then your goal, 3. Resolve to do whatever it takes to succeed. Simple. Among the most effective Bodyweight Exercises are - The Chin up – while viewed as one of the traditionally harder exercises, this is one of your bodyweight enthusiast’s favourites, and we regularly challenge our students to set as one of their milestones the ability to do the same number of chinups, as their age. If you’re 35, then you want to be working on doing 35 chin ups. Talk about changing someone’s mentality. When this is one of your goals, you’re going to be getting younger not older, in terms of strength, conditioning, vitality and self-belief. To find out if you have what it takes, then go to http://www.TrueCoreStrength.com and get your Free 7 Part Report on Bodyweight Exercises For Abdominal Conditioning – a feast of bodyweight exercises to kick butt, and get you into the best shape of your Life. |
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Standing in the wind and rain, Im underneath your wheel tonight, Was underneath your heel tonight, this truth has brought us to our knees, Waiting here out in the street a prisoner under these lights, Was holding fast not holding tight, will time reward us some reprieve. And its a lie we both believed (fall down) Now youre lying there with me (fall down) (fall down) Just lay your head down Reading through the news today, Im picturing your fading smile, Im picturing your frozen eyes, those dreaded words slip from your lips, Could we please just start again, without this sense of pending dread, These thunderclouds lie overhead, without this cage around my bed, love Its a lie we both believed (fall down) Now youre lying there with me (fall down) (Fall down) Just lay your head down Its a lie we both believed (fall down) Now youre lying here with me (fall down) Can we try to make it clean (fall down) Its a secret thats unspoken, t’was the cause of all your tears, Wed rip the night wide open, twas the morning that we feared, Theres glass upon this playground, theres cocaine in your church, Is there water in this desert, is there water in this desert? Fall Down