Tag Archives: healthy lifestyle

9 Health Reasons to Start Swimming Today

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Ever wish you could roll the calming, strengthening and flexibility benefits of yoga, the cardio burst of running, and resistance training all into one convenient exercise method? Well, you can if you take up swimming. It is indubitably a great workout for people of all capabilities, ages and fitness levels. Here are 9 of the many health benefits regular swimming can provide:

  1. Regular swimming helps increase stamina and lung capacity. Some studies even show that athletic swimmers tend to perform better on lung function tests than runners. It can help those suffering with lung diseases such as asthma increase their capacities as well.
  2. Most anyone can swim, no matter what physical limitations they may have as it is an easily modifiable activity. You can swim like an Olympian or simply move your limbs in the water with floatation aids.
  3. Swimming can be a great cardiovascular workout as it keeps your heart rate up and the water provides great resistance to movement, making your heart work harder than performing the same actions on land.
  4. It is a low impact workout, making it much easier on the joints than running. For this reason, swimming is a great fitness choice for pregnant women, the elderly or those afflicted with arthritis or chronic joint pain.
  5. Unlike many sports such as cycling, that target one or two areas of the body, swimming can provide full-body conditioning. Moderate swimming utilizes your core, arms, legs, back muscles, and glutes to propel you forward.
  6. Frequent swimming can increase your flexibility as you stretch your limbs to move forward in the water in different swimming strokes that utilize different muscles.
  7. Regular swimming helps strengthen and build muscle as well as tone your body to help you become leaner.
  8. Swimming can help you burn hundreds of calories (depending on the length of time and intensity level), and can be an effective weight loss tool when performed routinely in combination with a healthy diet.
  9. Swimming can be great for your mental health as well, not only because it releases endorphins which help manage stress and pain (while making you feel fabulous), but is also calming to move gracefully through the cool water. Research also illustrates a link between regular swimming and easing symptoms of depression. So, forget the tensions of the day with a trip to the pool or lake!

Well that concludes our look at some of the many health benefits of swimming. Did our list make you want to find a lake and become a fish? Thanks for visiting DocChat, stay healthy and happy!

 

 

 

 

Here’s Why You Should Try Getting Fit With HIIT!

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High intensity interval training (HIIT) is taking off as of late as a favored exercise method. It combines low-to-moderate activity intervals with high intensity ones. HIIT also allows people to work as their own personal trainer, incorporating a variety of different exercise moves into each workout.

How Does HIIT Work?

HIIT consists of very quick bursts of intense exercise, usually between 20 seconds to 2 minutes, followed by a short 10 second to 1-minute recovery period that is slower-paced, or sometimes even stationary. This activity pattern is often repeated for 20-45 minutes.

Is HIIT Effective for Weight Loss?

Yes, very. Because HIIT keeps your heartrate up while kicking your metabolic rate into overdrive, your body will be burning calories long after the workout has ended. If executed correctly, HIIT can actually burn more fat in less time than many other straight-cardio workouts.

What About Different Ability Levels?

Herein lies the true beauty of HIIT, nearly anyone can do it because it is 100% modifiable. If you have exercise induced asthma, arthritis or another mobility impairment, you can stick to more conservative exercises within your range of ability for the high intensity portions that still keep the heartrate up enough to make the exercise beneficial. Conversely, if you have no physical limitations, you can go full-on-pro-athlete during the intensity intervals!

What Types of Exercises Can You Incorporate in HIIT?

You can basically work any moves into HIIT, which is another perk. Some of the popular intensity moves are:

  • Incline push-ups
  • Jumping squats
  • High knees
  • Jumping jacks
  • Bicycle crunches
  • Sprinting

What Are Some of the Other Benefits?

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, some benefits of HIIT include:

  • Aiding cardiovascular health
  • Increasing stamina
  • Helping burn fat while retaining muscle

One last benefit of HIIT is the convenience. It is a workout that can be completed in as little as 20-30 minutes, which is an amount of time that almost anyone can spare daily. It also can be done anywhere; you don’t need a pricey gym membership to get fit with HIIT! So why not give it a try today? Thanks for visiting DocChat!

 

Sports With Added Benefits For Kids

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Unfortunately, more children lead sedentary lives than ever before and the childhood obesity rate is rising higher and higher because of this (check out our post about that here). One third of American children are now overweight or obese, so it is more important than ever to get your child moving for at least an hour a day. We’ve investigated some great activity choices for children:

  1. Martial Arts – martial arts is one of the best activities for children and teens of any ages. Some of the benefits of martial arts include:
  • Mental focus and self discipline – sports like karate can be very good for hyperactive children who struggle with a short attention span. Karate instills a deep sense of self discipline, as it is a challenging and rigid sport. These skills, which often translate into other areas of the child’s life such as school and homework.
  • Learning to accept accomplishment and defeat graciously – there are often competitions where some children win medals and others do not, which can help the child learn to cope better with winning or losing.
  • Total body fitness – Martial arts are physically challenging and involve full-body exercise as opposed to sports like running where the child is only utilizing muscles of the lower half of the body.

 

  1. Dance – is a great sport to start your kids in at a very young age. Most dance studios offer classes for children as young as 4. Despite its reputation as largely a “girl’s sport” dancing is a great unisex activity. Dance teachers are pros at working in roles for boys as well as the girls of the class. Some added benefits to dance are:
  • Whole-body conditioning much the same as martial arts. Specifically, children will increase flexibility, range of motion and balance through dance lessons.
  • As dancing is a performative art, it gives children the added outlet of being creative and expressing themselves through movement they won’t get from other physical activities.
  • Children can combat stage fright and shyness in dance, as most dance schools have year-end performances for children to show off their skills to parents and the community. This can also help build self confidence.

 

  1. Swimming – is great exercise and teaches children valuable safety skills. Other benefits include:
  • Great cardiovascular exercise which can also benefit the lungs.
  • It is much more difficult for children to sustain a sport-related injury participating in swimming than most any other sport.
  • It caters to children of all ability levels, including those with physical disabilities who otherwise may not get chances to participate in physical activities.
  • swimming teaches life-saving skills that can potentially help the child save their own or someone else’s life.

 

  1. Tennis – this is a great summer sport. Some particular benefits include:
  • It gets your child outside for some vitamin D (make sure they are sun-blocked up)!
  • Tennis can help build teamwork and social skills. Kids have to learn to share, take turns and help others who may be having trouble.
  • Tennis provides skills such as balance, precision and agility. This physical conditioning will translate to virtually any other sport.
  • Children can get better at handling individual success and failure when competing in matches.

 

  1. Softball – is a good, non-violent team sport. Softball has many advantages for children and teens such as:
  • It gets children and teens outside
  • Team sports encourage children to learn and value working with others toward a common goal, this will help in school projects and later in the job market.
  • Softball helps the child learn and play different positions whereas some sports the child just gets one set position
  • Practicing, improving and working toward fitness goals such as speed and precision can help harbour physical self-discipline

Other good team sports include basketball and volleyball. We didn’t include hockey or football in this post because they can get very rough, but they still have their merits. Thanks for visiting DocChat today! We hope you return again soon.