Stress Management Program: What's your blood pressure?

Dr. Mehmet Oz & Dr. Michael Roizen authors of ‘You: An Owner’s Manual’ Say blood pressure is the most important number when it comes to health.

Here are their suggestions and what to work on:

• Manage your stress
• Exercise 30 minutes a day
• Maintain a healthy weight
• Eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables - every day.

High levels of stress are directly linked to:

• heart disease, increasing cholesterol levels
• diabetes
• obesity
• depression and a weakened immune system hindering the healing process.

A well balanced stress management program focuses on:

• acupuncture/acupressure treatments
• diet
• stress reduction techniques and physical conditioning.

As an ex-commodities floor trader I understand stress - unfortunately too well.

Keeping and/or improving the physical condition of the body is imperative to reducing and managing stress levels.

Proper physical exercise and breathing techniques along with acupuncture/acupressure, dietary and/or herbal therapy will produce long lasting results.

Most importantly, the education and inspiration you receive from sessions will improve and change all aspects of your life.

Reducing your stress and maintaining appropriate blood pressure can be the single most important thing you can do for your health and the health and welfare of your family.

Acufit Programs by Max Dente, L.Ac. visit us on the web at: http://maxdente.com

Muscle Soreness: Your Key to Improvement

Your muscles should feel sore on some of the days after you exercise. If you go out and jog the same two miles at the same pace, day after day, you will never become faster, stronger or have greater endurance.

If you stop lifting weights when your muscles just start to burn, you won’t feel sore on the next day and you will not become stronger. All improvement in any muscle function comes from stressing and recovering.

On one day, you go out and exercise hard enough to make your muscles burn during exercise. The burning is a sign that you are damaging your muscles.

On the next day, your muscles feel sore because they are damaged and need time to recover. Scientists call this DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness.

It takes at least eight hours to feel this type of soreness. You finish a workout and feel great; then you get up the next morning and your exercised muscles feel sore.

We used to think that next-day muscle soreness was caused by a buildup of lactic acid in muscles, but now we know that lactic acid has nothing to do with it. Next-day muscle soreness is caused by damage to the muscle fibers themselves.

Muscle biopsies taken on the day after hard exercise show bleeding and disruption of the z-band filaments that hold muscle fibers together as they slide over each other during a contraction.

Nobody really knows how these hard bouts make muscles stronger, but the most likely theory depends on the fact that hard exercise damages muscle fibers.

Then other cells release chemicals called cytokines that cause inflammation characterized by soreness (pain), increased blood flow to the injured fibers (redness), and increased flow of fluid into the damaged area (swelling).

The damaged muscle cells release tissue growth factors to heal the damaged muscle fibers, and if the athlete allows the muscle soreness to disappear before exercising intensely again, muscle fibers become larger and increase in number by splitting to form new fibers.

If the athlete does not wait until the soreness goes away before exercising intensely again, the fibers can be torn, the athlete becomes injured, and the muscles weaken.

Next-day muscle soreness should be used as a guide to training, whatever your sport. On one day, go out and exercise right up to the burn, back off when your muscles really start to burn, then pick up the pace again and exercise to the burn.

Do this exercise-to-the-burn and recover until your muscles start to feel stiff, and then stop the workout. Depending on how sore your muscles feel, take the next day off or go at a very slow pace.

Do not attempt another intense workout until the soreness has gone away completely.

Most competitive athletes exercise at low intensity during recovery, rather than taking days off; this makes their muscles more fibrous and resistant to injury. If you’re not interested in competing, you can take one or more days off until your muscles feel fresh again.

If your muscles are sore all the time and do not recover, please read my report on Chronic Muscle Pain

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties.

Spouse Won't Exercise? Here's What You Can Do

How can you get your spouse or other loved one to get more active if they’re not the least bit motivated?

It's always hard to get someone else to move from couch potato to dynamo; the excuses are endless.

But couples who exercise together have the lowest drop-out rates of all new exercisers. So find something you and your partner can do together, even if one of you is much more fit than the other.

Ideally you can find something that is fun for both of you, but if you can't, for now you should cater to the possible interests or whims of the partner who is inactive.

You can both go to an aerobic dance class even if you feel silly. YOU can take the initiative for everything; get the memberships or equipment, clear the schedule, find a babysitter, do the dishes, remove every possible obstacle you can think of.

Then go!

Coach your loved one using all the techniques for starting a new exercise program gradually.

And be a cheerleader: "You’re doing great!" "That color looks wonderful on you!" "That was a really hard move!" Or whatever nice things you can think of to say.

The best activities for couples are those that have a social aspect: a club, class or just a group of friends makes the whole effort more fun and more likely to inspire the inactive person.

One sport that is ideal for couples who have very different levels of fitness is riding on a tandem bicycle.

One major DON'T: Never buy a piece of exercise equipment as a surprise gift in an effort to inspire your non-exerciser. It will probably be taken as an insult and will just gather dust.

Trying out and choosing exercise equipment should always involve the person who is going to use it. If it's a family investment, take everyone along when you shop.

By Dr. Gabe Mirkin

Senior Exercise: What's Safest and Best?

If you are thinking of starting an exercise program late in life, the safest exercises are cycling and swimming.

A study from Japan shows that people with heart pain on exercising feel chest pain when they run and not when they pedal because it takes far more energy to run than to pedal.

Running also causes more wear-and-tear injuries than pedaling. When you run, your foot hits the ground with a force greater than twice your body weight. This is transmitted up to jar your muscles, joints, and bones. Place your hands on the quad muscles in the front of your upper leg while you run. When you feet hit the ground, your quads shake like jelly.

Pedaling and swimming are safer because you pedal in a smooth rotary motion and swim with the buoyancy of the water dampening forces on your muscles.

If you have a hard time walking up stairs, or getting out of a chair without using your hands, your thighs are weak and you can strengthen them by pedaling stationary bicycle.

You become weak because you do not use your muscles, not because you age. You use your thigh muscles raise you up stairs, and you strengthen these muscles by pedaling, skating, and skiing, not by walking or running. If you wobble, stumble or walk with your feet wide apart, you probably have weak thigh muscles and can strengthen them on a stationary bike.

Pedal every other day until your legs feel heavy or hurt or you feel tired. Then stop. You should be able to gradually work up to the point where you can ride for thirty minutes, three times a week. Then walking up stairs and raising yourself out of a chair should be as easy as pedaling a bike.

By Dr. Gabe Mirkin

How To Choose The Right Personal Trainer

There are literally thousands of "personal trainers" in New York City alone claiming that they have the ability to help you with improving posture, bodybuilding, nutrition, coping with the stress of everyday life, sports specific training among many other things.

While many of these trainers are without a doubt qualified to help, Far too often, a client will put him or herself in the hands of a trainer who may potentially do more harm than good.

This article will briefly describe some things to look for when selecting a trainer.

There are many factors to take into account when selecting a trainer.

• Education
• practical experience
• and personality

are some of the many things that may be taken into account but there are some basic requirements for any trainer.

First of all, any trainer that you work with should either have a degree in a fitness related field or be certified by a major certification body.

There are many "personal trainer" certification programs and the best ones are the NSCA, CSCS, NASM, ACSM, ACE.

The trainer should also have current CPR training as well as insurance if they are not an employee of a health club.

Another hugely important thing to take into consideration is your own personal health history.

Are you injured or have any previous injuries? Any illness or disease? If there are any existing medical problems, you should make sure that your trainer has adequate experience and knowledge in dealing with it.

Beyond those basic requirements, the rest is somewhat subjective.

Personality is a huge thing to take into account. Some people want a drill sergeant, others want someone laid back.

The best thing to do is sit down with any potential trainer, talk to them and try out a couple of sessions before committing to a long term package.

Always be weary of anyone making claims that sound too good to be true because they probably are.

This is by no means an exhaustive essay on selecting a trainer but a few things to look for in any trainer with whom you may potentially start working with.

By Ryan George

Get That Flat Stomach Look? Get Rid Of Big Tummy, Pot Belly And Beer Belly Fast

By exercising your Transversus Abdominus Muscle.

This is the muscle in your abdomen that holds your stomach in giving you the flat belly look.

This muscle acts like a corset around your tummy by holding your tummy in and if the muscle is weak, your belly will be distended more easily making your tummy looking much bigger than it should just like having a beer belly.

This is one of the reasons why people have pot belly or beer belly besides simply blaming it on tummy fat. This is the muscle that can help you get that flat stomach look. If you want to get that flat stomach look, you must strengthen this muscle.

Just to have a feel of how this muscle work, try blowing out all the air in your lungs and pull your tummy in. There, you have just used your transversus abdominus muscle to execute that movement.

Start the exercise by exhaling all the air from your lungs hard. At the same time, pull in your tummy as tight as you can and at the same time visualizing your belly button is about to touch your spine. Do breathe lightly in that position and hold the posture for about 45 seconds.

Then repeat the exercise for a few more sets. You will then be teaching your abs muscle to continuously hold your tummy in giving you flat stomach look.

The beauty of this exercise is that you carry it out everywhere and anywhere without ever going to the gym. It is so discreet that people will not even notice you exercising even when you are waiting for the office lift or at your desk at work.

A more effective version of this exercise would require you to be on all fours in a crawling position. Then execute the exercise as described above except that this time, you are on your hands and feet.

Do both exercises every other day and when combined with a fat loss routine of a proper diet, weight training and cardio exercises, you will get that flat stomach look in no time along with that glorious six pack abs.

By Chris Chew is a fitness personal trainer of actors, male pageant winners and fashion models. Check him out at