Why Physical Fitness? Is exercise really for me? Perhaps you have a negative attitude toward exercise. Through no fault of your own, past physical education or athletic experiences may have created this outlook.  Although the most opportune time for developing lifelong fitness habits is in the childhood years, it is in the late teens and early twenties that men and women develop a fitness consciousness. At this stage in life you have reached physical maturity; your body is at its natural peak of physiological efficiency and health. However, observe friends in their late twenties and early thirties. In many of them this natural fitness has begun to disappear. Lack of exercise is beginning to show its effect. An increase of body fatness, a loss of muscle tone, and a lessened breathing capacity are some of the obvious signs of physiological deterioration. These middle-aged characteristics begin to reveal themselves in many Americans in their mid to late twenties. Unfortunately, our bodies are not programmed to stand the stress of sitting or of being inactive.

You don’t have to be athletic to be physically fit. Traditionally, organized athletics have tended to develop super-fit competitors for the entertainment of a physically inept society.

Our modern life-style fosters unfitness. Many technological advances are intended to eliminate physical exertion from everyday activities. The automobile and television are key contributors to our sedentary lifestyle, and we have become accustomed to other automated energy savers: elevators, riding lawn mowers, motorized golf carts, snow blowers and various remote control devices. The eighties brought us the home computer. Such advances enable us to carry out our everyday chores more easily. Microcomputers not only enable us to keep our home or business records in order but also provide hours of enjoyable play with computer games of many kinds. Or just surfing and chatting. However, the rapid repetitive movements required in manipulating the controls and/or keyboard does little for physical fitness.

Overeating, addiction and laziness are other detrimental characteristics of a sedentary life-style. At the same time, we live in a competitive society characterized by pressing domestic problems, business obligations and deadline tensions. All of these have an impact on the physiological systems of the body and appear to affect our state of health. Your emotions, nerves, glands, and mental state along with your heart, lungs, and muscles are all fused into a complex, wonderful organism — your body. Thus, there is a dire need, more than at any time in the history of humankind, to seek out stimulating exercise that will offset the perils of modern living. In fact, working out regularly to maintain a high level of fitness enables you to enjoy the privilege of all our modern gadgets and our computers.

Many men and women feel that their daily work provides them with enough exercise for fitness. Running up and down stairs or standing all day at a job seems to be physical exertion. It is exertion, of course, but such limited activities do not use the lungs fully or provide adequate stimulation for the heart to produce a training effect. If normal, day to day activities leave you fatigued at the end of the day, then you need the increased energy and vitality that comes from regular physical exertion. You must use energy to gain energy. In other words, regular stimulation of the total body through vigorous exercise produces increased strength and endurance, characteristics associated with good health.

These attributes cannot be acquired from sitting at a desk all day, watching sports on television, riding elevators, or snacking.Now that inactivity has been recognized as a threat to physiological well being, some authorities have suggested that exercise may be the cheapest preventative medicine in the world. Researchers in medicine, nutrition, psychology, physiology, and physical education agree that exercise, properly performed, is necessary for maintaining functional physical fitness. No responsible health educator will ever suggest that exercise is a panacea. But it is clear that, just as we need food, rest and sleep, we need daily exercise for the maintenance of our physical capacities. Physical fitness is not an end in itself but a means to an end. It provides the basis for optimal physiological health and gives us the capacity to enjoy a full life.

Exercise is good for you. Okay, you knew that! Try this: call exercise a "positive do!" Rather than telling yourself, "Don’t eat this or that" or "Don’t smoke", "Don’t get excited", "Don’t worry", say, "DO exercise!" Think of exercise as something fun that you can integrate into your lifestyle in a fairly painless manner. It is a physiological fact that people who exercise tend to not smoke or if they do they find they smoke less, they are more conscious about what they eat and they have an easier time relaxing and sleeping better. Can’t argue with those results! Think of these facts as the positive side effects of exercise.

Exercise offsets the ill effects of sedentary living in our modern technological society and ensures that you are living at your potential. Strive to make exercise an integral but fun part of your lifestyle.

Yoga is meant to be a nurturing form of exercise, not a rigid imitation of poses. Trying to force yourself into a yoga posture your body is not ready for, or not flexible enough for, could prove disastrous.  You can stretch and strengthen your body without having to touch your nose to your knees, or your feet to your head.

Following are suggested ways to help you in your yoga practice:

• Choose Style

Practice gentle forms of yoga, such as Kripalu, Viniyoga, or Integral Yoga. Bikram, Ashtanga and Power Yoga are generally too vigorous for beginners and inflexible people.

• Find Your Instructor

Find an instructor who is experienced, certified and cares about your physical imitations. He or she can modify the pace or perhaps offer alternative poses to meet your specific needs. In addition, never let an instructor try to force your body into any pose. Practice the "hands off" approach!

• Warm Up

Get in ten minutes of warming up with easy movements to increase circulation, lubricate joins and ready your body to stretch. You want the poses to progress from simple to more difficult.

• Poses to Avoid

The plow, full shoulder stand, headstand and full lotus. These poses can place tremendous strain on joints and disks.

• Protect Your Back

Keep your knees slightly bent and hinge from your hips when you bend forward from any standing position. For arching backwards, concentrate on opening the front of the body by lengthening from the navel to the sternum. Be careful not to over-arch your lower back, as this will compress the lumbar disks.

• Protect Your Knees

Never lock your knees when in a standing posture. If you feel any strain while doing sitting or kneeling postures, place a cushion or folded blanket under your bottom.

• Your Neck

Be sure you keep your neck in alignment with the rest of your spine at all times, especially when arching backwards. Be careful not to allow your neck to drop back or down.

Enjoy your yoga practice and you are sure to reap the rewards, you will know when you are ready to take it a step further or perhaps you will be happy right where you are at. Let your body be your guide. Get to know it and its injury-prone areas and back off from any movements that causes pain or cramping. And above all, never compare yourself to others!

Tone up your legs depend on your muscle strengthening. To make your body change, you have to stress it. Beginners should start out with only floor exercises and gradually advance their workouts. After doing floor exercises for a time, you will want to add weights to your training and begin to do stand-up exercises. or you can do some Isotonic Exercise.

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The standing, weight-bearing exercises are more difficult because you are using gravity and balancing. This forces you to stabilize your torso. In addition, it is important to note when doing weight-bearing exercises, leave at least one day between exercise sessions. This gives the muscle tissue a chance to recover.

Squats and lunges are the two best exercises for the legs. They work every part of the leg. You can do lunges by stepping either backward or forward — or both! Some feel stepping backward allows one to keep better form. Do whichever feels most comfortable to you.

Isotonic exercise is a very popular form of muscle strengthening. Isotonic exercise can be carried out either with:
 * Free weights — dumbbells
 * Barbells; or fixed equipment — e.g., the Nautilus
In both forms exercises are carried out against a fixed resistance.

As each muscle moves through its complete range, isotonic contraction creates tension with maximum effort at the beginning and end of each exercise.
Advantages of isotonic training:
  * Relatively inexpensive
  * Broad range of exercises
  * Ability to exercise all major muscle groups

Disadvantages:
  * Uneven force throughout each exercise.
  * Exercises may not fully strengthen each muscle group.

Other great exercises for legs are step-ups. For the step-up, you step up onto a platform while holding weights. Step-ups work the quadriceps, the front of the thigh and gluteus maximus (the butt). Flexibility exercises are also excellent for the legs. They give the leg muscle a nicer looking line. After you have finished a leg workout or between exercises, do a stretching exercise. In addition, yoga is fantastic for stretching and gently strengthening the muscles.

To keep results coming, one needs to vary their exercises every three to four weeks to stimulate the exerciser mentally and give them a boost physically. Such changes could include switching to a new exercise or using more weight and fewer repetitions.
   

For beginners, start with non-weight-bearing exercises on the floor such as leg raises on the floor. Do four to six different exercises, two sets of each exercise and 10 to 12 repetitions per set. You may then progress to weight-bearing exercises standing up. When you are more advanced, do five to ten exercises, three to five sets of each exercise and 12 to 20 repetitions. As you gain strength, you can add more weight.

The following exercises are ideal for both beginners and veterans. Simply adapt the workout to your needs. Perform each exercise the appropriate number of reps for desired effect without rests. After the lunge, sissy squat and lying adductor raise exercises are complete, rest 30 seconds. Repeat the supersets two more times with a 30-second rest between.

Lunge — Begin by grasping two dumbbells and allow them to hang down by your sides. Take a long stride forward with your right leg and raise your left heel so your left foot is on its toes. Keeping your shoulders back and chin up, slowly lower your body by flexing your right knee and hip, continuing your descent until your left knee is almost in contact with the floor. Reverse direction by forcibly extending the right hip and knee until you return to the start position. After performing the desired number of reps, repeat the process on your left leg.

Sissy Squat — Begin by taking a shoulder-width stance. Grasp an incline bench with one hand and rise onto your toes. In one motion, slowly slant your torso back, bend your knees and lower your body downward. Thrust your knees forward as you descend and lean back until your torso is almost parallel with the floor. Then, reverse direction and rise upward until you reach the starting position.

Lying Adductor Raise — Begin by lying down on your right side. Bring your left leg over your right leg, keeping it bent at a 90-degree angle with your left foot planted firmly on the floor. Keeping your right leg straight, slowly raise it as high as possible. Contract your inner thigh and return to the start position. After finishing the desired number of repetitions, turn over and repeat the process on your left. For added intensity, strap on ankle weights.

The rules to gain muscle, you have to remember :

• To gain muscle, you need to eat more calories every day.
• Have your body fat tested to determine your lean body weight and have a personal trainer or nutritionist recommend how much protein you need to gain muscle mass.
• Nutritional supplements and meal replacement powders and bars can help increase your protein intake, but they are usually not as nutritious as real food and should not replace regular meals.
• Eat adequate amounts of fat (15-percent) and carbohydrates (55-percent).
• Protein should make up 30-percent of your diet.
• Weight train intensely three or four times a week, no longer than one hour per session.
• Limit your cardio workouts for maximum muscle gains.
• Sleep! Shoot for eight to ten hours a night.
• Drink loads of water.

I know that people who adhere to exercise have a great stamina, but you need to know in some cases can not be tempered, you should stop exercising right away.

• Have pain or pressure in the left-chest or mid-chest area — or left neck, shoulder, or arm
• Feel dizzy or sick
• Break out in a cold sweat
• Have muscle cramps
• Feel pain in your joints, feet, ankles, or legs. You could hurt yourself if you ignore the pain.(Ask your health care provider what to do if you have any of these symptoms.)
• Slow down if out of breath. You should be able to talk while exercising without gasping for breath.
• Drink lots of water before, during, and after exercise (even water workouts) to replace the water you lose by sweating.
• Do not do hard exercise for 2 hours after a big meal (but a 5- to 10-minute walk is OK). If you eat small meals, you can exercise more often.

For the safety of exercise, you should wear the right clothes :

   

• Wear lightweight, loose-fitting tops so you can move easily.
• Women should wear a good support bra.
• Wear supportive athletic shoes for weight-bearing activities.
• Wear clothes made of fabrics that absorb sweat and remove it from your skin.
• Never wear rubber or plastic suits. These could hold the sweat on your skin and make your body overheat.
• Wear a knit hat to keep you warm when you exercise outdoors in cold weather. Wear a baseball cap in hot weather to help keep you cool.
• Wear sunscreen when you exercise outdoors. Cover all areas of exposed skin whenever outdoors.
  

I believe that the purpose of fitness is  health, so safety is first.