2013.05.03 (Fri)
Note: See the pictures at the top of the article for my exercise bench, some of my dumbbells, and some of my other exercise tools. I use a local and safe public-park's playground bars to perform pull-ups and dips, and I use the park's field for power-walking, jogging, and sprinting. When walking and jogging, I wear basketball shorts, low-cut socks, and tennis shoes (I do not wear a t-shirt or any upper garment) to simultaneously exercise and sunbathe.
According to various public sources, industry statistics, and various analyses, Americans spend the most money on physical recreational activities:
* Professional sports (e.g., basketball or the NBA, football or the NFL, baseball or the MLB, hockey or the NHL, soccer, boxing, mixed martial arts, professional wrestling, golf, and tennis)
* Amateur sports (e.g., amateur and private sports-clubs/training-facilities plus various sports programs at schools from elementary school to college)
* Gyms (e.g., fitness clubs and home gyms)
* Extreme sports (e.g., parachuting, skiing at dangerous locations, cave diving, and scuba swimming)
Americans allegedly spend the most (by far) on medical services, too. Despite these record high costs, Americans have mediocre overall-health. Physical health is a very complex topic that covers many branches of science. I'll give some quick tips on affordable and effective exercises.
My 4 foundations for physical fitness essentially involves (1) eating healthy, (2) getting adequate rest every day, (3) safe and healthy lifestyle, and (4) exercising correctly. I'll try to give some quick tips about these 4 topics.
Eating healthy fundamentally involves eating natural, organic foods or ingredients. Synthetic ingredients tend to be insidious. Hydrogenated vegetable oils are commonly found in store-bought pastries (cookies, pies, & cakes), peanut butter, and various processed foods. The problem is that hydrogenated vegetable oils probably cause various health problems such as cardiovascular clogs. Artificial colors and synthetic flavors could create various long-term health problems and they do not offer nutritional benefits. You obtain nutritional benefits from natural pigments like lutein (found in green vegetables and fruits such as kale, broccoli, cabbage, & asparus), zeaxanthin (found in yellow and orange plants like yellow bell-peppers, orange bell-peppers, & cantaloupe), and lycopene (found in red plants like tomatoes and red bell peppers). Natural pigments are used by your eyes and are potent antioxidents. Natural flavors also have various nutritional benefits.
Wash away pesticides from your vegetables and fruits, and then consume the plant. Pesticides will cause various long-term health problems. You also want to wash away sickening microbes.
Protein, fats, and carbohydrates are also important. Again, stick with the natural, organic stuff. They should have significantly less hormones, medications, and synthetic ingredients.
Some experts claimed that eggs are unhealthy due to the high cholesterol. However, some scientists proved that eggs are very healthy for most people (or people without any special vulnerabilities to eggs). An egg's cholesterol is almost entirely filled with the good types of HDL and LDL cholesterol. In addition, some scientists discovered large populations that ate one to three eggs per day without any health problems.
Like everything out there, customized solutions are the best. Find the diet that works best for you. One-size-fits-all solutions tend to have mixed results from bad to average to good. Customized solutions also apply to your resting pattern, safe and healthy lifestyle, exercising regimen, clothing, art, electronics, etc. Customized solutions tend to be the most difficult to find, but one-size-fits-all solutions are usually the easiest to obtain. It's a matter of quality vs. quantity. I usually prefer the former over the latter.
Over the long run, the cost of eating healthy should be A LOT less than the cost of eating unhealthy. Medical services, treatments, drugs, tools and devices, and diagnostics are expensive and a major cause of bankruptcies. In addition, modern medicine is still not good enough to completely fix all of your health problems.
Regarding rest or recuperation, the general idea is to (1) rest a bit when you are a bit tired, and (2) rest a lot when you are exhausted. If you feel a bit tired in any body part, then take a 2 minute break. If you are very tired, then take a nap or a full 8-hours of sleep. You're body from the cellular level to the macroscopic level requires rest to restore its nutrients, get rid of accumulated waste, to repair itself, and to improve itself. If you do not receive adequate rest, then you'll over-train or stress yourself out. This will result in injuries. You are much better off resting for one day than spending many days recovering from an injury or spending lots of money on medical treatments that may or may not fully restore you.
You need a safe and healthy lifestyle. Stay away from pollution, or minimize your exposure to pollution.
Get moderate sunlight. You do NOT want too little or too little sunlight. Sunlight's ultraviolet radiations A and B power-up and regulate your skin's production of Vitamin D3, which is actually a very potent and essential hormone. Ultraviolet A and B allegedly stimulates your eyes to strengthen your eye against myopia. Obviously, you should NOT look straight into the sun or at uncomfortably bright objects. Go outside and look at wildlife or objects at various distances to give your eyes a workout. Sunlight also stimulates blood flow in your skin's capillaries, which is good for your skin.
You could find various ultraviolet radiation measurements on the Internet. A good website is "http://www.uvawareness.com". A UV index rating between 4 to 8 is good for most people. This website uses scientific analyses and measurements to estimate the sun's radiation intensity throughout the week.
Avoid sunburns. You know you are getting excess sunlight when a body part feels too hot under the sun, a body part turns red and sensitive after sun exposure, and/or your skin develops freckles or age spots. A simple and usually effective way to measure the sun's intensity is to look at your shadow. If your shadow is directly underneath you, then the sun is directly above you. This means the sun is most intensely emitting radiation onto you. If your shadow is long, then the sun is striking you at a diagonal angle. This means the sun is less intensely discharging radiation onto you. The longer your shadow is, then the less intense the sun's radiation is and the closer the sun is to the horizon.
When you sunbathe, aim for sunlight that creates a shadow length that is 0.5 times to 1.5 times your body's height. This usually means the sun is not too intense or too weak.
People with lighter skin or less pigments in their skin need less intense and a briefer duration of sunlight (e.g., 10 minutes). People with darker skin need more sunlight. If you wear your swimwear (e.g., swimming trunks for men or one-piece swimsuits for ladies), then you need less sunlight than someone wearing a t-shirt with pants. In other words, the more skin that is exposed the sunlight, the less sunlight you need. If you live far away from the equator (e.g., New York city), then you'll have lots of months with low intensity sunlight, which means you need longer durations of sunlight exposure. If you close to the equator, then you'll have lots of months with moderate to high intensity sunlight, which means you need shorter durations of sunlight exposure.
Regular, clear glass windows block out most of of the sun's ultraviolet B radiation. You need both ultraviolet A and B for proper sunbathing. Many experts insist sunlight is bad for you, but other experts have proven that moderate sunlight exposure is very healthy for you. Inadequate or excessive sunlight exposure is unhealthy for you. Sunscreen lotions usually contain various toxins that are unhealthy for you. You could easily read about these toxins at various websites.
Going back to safe and healthy lifestyles, work in safe conditions and with good posture. Use the correct tools and devices to work safely.
Live, work, and exercise in low-crime areas. This is very important for females. Exercise with groups of people when you are exercising at a park. The people could be strangers exercising with you in the same area or friends working out with you in the same area.
Exercising is the most popular part of being physically fit. It involves moving your body in certain ways to improve its strength, speed, flexibility, agility, timing, distance control, aerobic stamina, and anaerobic endurance.
According to mainstream science, your body has 3 types of muscles. The first type is used for actions that involve low efforts, low speeds, long durations, and high repetitions. This is cardiovascular or aerobic stamina. The THIRD muscle type is for actions that involve explosive efforts, high speeds, short durations, and a few repetitions. The SECOND muscle type is a combination or a middle ground between the first and third muscle types.
If you have a full-time job, then do NOT push yourself too hard when you exercise. Your net-total daily stress should NOT overwhelm you. Do not overtrain. Do not work yourself too hard. In the long run, you'll gradually damage your health, possibly beyond repair. Enjoy physical fitness. Don't turn it into something that makes your life too stressful and/or boring.
Try a weekly workout routine that exercises all 3 muscle types, because you use all 3 muscle types. You don't want a weak link in any of your muscle types.
To exercise your first muscle type, try power-walking and jogging. When you power-walk, you are never airborne or you are barely airborne. In other words, at least one foot is always touching the ground. When you step, you land on your foot's heel, and push off with the balls of your foot. If you are carrying a weight or overweight, then power-walking is much safer and healthier than jogging. When you jog, you land on the balls of your foot and push off with the balls of your foot. You use the balls of your foot, calf muscles, knee, and upper-leg muscles as springs that absorb impact for landing and release energy for pushing off.
When jogging, some people land on their heels and push off with the balls of their feet. This is fine, but less fast than landing on the balls of the foot and pushing off on the balls of the foot. If you never used the latter technique before, then start very carefully. Your calf muscles are probably too weak to handle this. Thus, if your are a beginner with the latter jogging technique, then try jogging 0.75 miles with the former technique. Then jog 0.25 miles with the latter technique. If you push yourself too hard, then you could suffer extreme cramps in your calf muscles or severe tears in your calf muscles and Achilles tendon. One you feel comfortable with this jogging routine, increase the distance.
To exercise your second and third muscle types, try sprinting and weight training. To speed up your workout routine while making it as effective as possible, pick exercises that (1) complement one another and (2) train multiple muscle groups. Here are some examples:
* Sprinting: ensure you use the balls of your feet as a spring to absorb energy for landing and to release energy for pushing off. If you never did this before, then only sprint like 2 times to take it easy on your calf muscles and Achilles tendons. Once you feel like 2 repetitions are too easy, then increase the repetitions. In addition, try transitioning from power-walking to jogging to sprinting to jogging to walking to a full stop. This gradual change is easier on your body than suddenly explosive starts and suddenly forceful stops.
* (1) Push-ups and (2) bent-over lateral raises. When doing the bent-over lateral raises, follow these critically important tips to protect your spine and knees: (1) keep your spine straight, (2) bend at the hips, (3) keep your knees pointing more or less forward, and (4) shift your butt backwards to keep your body's and dumbbell's center of mass as close as possible to the area above your feet.
* (1) Military press and (2) pull-ups or horizontal dumbbell-rows.
* (1) Dips and (2) upright rows. You can perform dips by using two sturdy chairs. Move two sturdy chairs to your left and right sides. Rest each palm on each chair. Stick out your legs in front of you or raise your legs up to your chest. Then use your arms to push yourself up and down.
* (1) Crunches with leg raises and (2a) good-morning lift or stiff-legged deadlifts. When doing good-morning lifts or stiff-legged deadlifts, follow these critically important tips to protect your spine and knees: (1) keep your spine straight, (2) bend at the hips, (3) keep your knees pointing more or less forward, and (4) when you bend down, shift your butt backwards to keep your body's and dumbbell's center of mass as close as possible to the area above your feet. You want your center of mass and the dumbbells' center of mass to be evenly distributed on your knees. You don't want too much stress on the front side of your knees, on the left or right sides of your knees, or on the right side of your knees. An evenly distributed weight results in safer stress on your body parts.
(2b) Donkey kicks to work out your hip-extension muscles (and other muscle groups). Crunches and raising your legs to your chest trains your hip-flexor muscles (and other muscles). The opposing muscle group is the hip-extension muscles. You can use ankle weights to increase the difficult of your leg raises with crunches and to increase the difficulty of your donkey kicks.
You want to be physically fit in both directions, or else you'll suffer muscle imbalance. This results in one muscle getting tired faster than the opposing muscle group. If you exercise complementary muscles groups, then you'll have balanced muscles. In other words, if you push in one direction, then pull in the opposite direction.
* You can perform exercises that train your neck and, yes, face muscles. These exercises are non-standard, so I'll leave them out.
* The vast majority of weight-training exercises train only two sides of your forearm, even though you have muscles on all 4 sides of your forearm. You could use a display sword to somewhat safely train your other two muscle groups on your forearm. Again, I won't talk about these unorthodox exercises.
Concerning repetitions and sets, just perform two sets of each exercise once per week. Aim for 5 to 20 repetitions per set depending on your needs and desires. Try 20 repetitions for your first set with a lower weight. Then try 5 repetitions on your second set with a heavier weight. Exercise when you are watching TV or watching some show on the Internet. I recommend the Internet, because it contains vastly superior content control and content variety than the TV.
Very importantly, do NOT sacrifice your health to gain extra performance. Professional athletes push themselves as hard as possible to score more points than the other team. They are physically talented and enjoy access to very expensive doctors, fitness trainers, food, rest and recreation facilities and servics, ridiculously high salaries, etc. Nonetheless, professional athletes still suffer lots of minor to major injuries. You either exercise for health or for performance. You could never both at the same time. I strongly recommend exercising for your health. Many scientific studies demonstrate for the healthiest people enjoy moderate exercise. The least healthy people either do not exercise enough or exercise too much or too intensely.
Anyhow, exercise tools should not cost much. You could easily buy an exercise bench with incline and decline features and dumbbells for a few hundred dollars. They will easily fit in your living room or family room. Treat them well, and they'll last you for many years. This is a lot more affordable, sanitary, and time-efficient than driving to fitness clubs, waiting for equipment used by other people, putting up with surfaces covered by other people's sweat, driving home, dealing with fitness club contracts, paying for the fitness club's facilities, etc. I do not recommend exercise machines, because they tend to limit your range of motions, provide inadequate training for your stabilizer muscles, cost too much, and take up too much space.