The Cardio Twister Review

Exercise can literally make you feel better mentally and emotionally and you can often train even if you have some health problems or injuries. For example if you have arthritis or stress fractures you can still use elliptical equipment to exercise and maintain muscle mass. And you can exercise at home in relative ease if you have the equipment for it.

It can be tuff to get started and you simply need to find your inner motivation for using the exercise equipment. Well, don’t feel too guilty, people often make resolutions to begin a proper exercise routine and find that they slack off in a few weeks. If you set specific days for the training it often work better and after some time you get kind of addicted to training.

Even if your gym might have some of the newest and greatest exercise equipment available there are great alternatives to gym training. In fact, aerobic exercise is far more effective at helping you lose weight then strength training, although a home gym can help you build up your muscle mass which can accelerate your weight loss in addition to the aerobic exercises that you do.

Whether this comes in the form of housecleaning for an hour or strength training at the gym, it is a fact that exercise keeps your muscles strong, your heart strong, and your body in shape. If you haven’t been involved in weight strength training in the past, it is really easy to get confused by all the different kind of home gym equipment that is on the market today.

Try to get some good guidance and training before you undertake using free weights to make sure you are doing it properly. If you decide to go this route, it’s a good idea to invest in a training program that will show you how to use your equipment properly and avoid injury.

Most home gyms are usually strength training machines that provide a structured way of performing each exercise. The benefits of strength training are many and well-documented, and they can be very useful for overall body conditioning

When you look at gym equipment, you can pick out some of the most useful and flexible machines and tools, and separate them from the gimmicks. Many users of home gym equipment have or use multistation pieces that allow them to workout on several types of machines in one, for example the Bowflex. There are also multiple weight machines to use each one focusing on a different muscle.

The home gym equipments generally falls into two major categories, the first being home gyms that use rods or bars to create resistance, and the second being strength training machines that use a weight stack or plates. Both categories have advantages and do not hesitate to use a machine with weight stack or plates. It is good training to do that job as well.

Keith George
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/gym-equipment-for-total-body-fitness-119351.html

The battle of the bulge has become a serious health problem in most of the developed world. Not only do we struggle with how we look as we try to fit in our clothes, but we increase our risk of illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure when we are overweight. We all know what we need to do. We need to eat less and exercise more. But is there more to it than that? What are some secrets of effective weight loss?

It’s true that eating less and exercising more will help people lose weight. The problem lies in knowing how much less to eat, how much more to exercise, and how in the world to stay motivated while doing it. If you restrict your eating too much, you can actually keep your body from releasing the fat, even if you’re exercising. This happens because your metabolism starts acting like you’re starving. To keep your metabolism moving, you need a healthy number of calories every day, such as at least 1200 for women and 1500 for men.

Your metabolism, the rate at which you burn calories, has a lot to do with whether or not you lose weight. You’ve seen people who can eat anything and never gain an ounce. This is because they have a fast, efficient metabolic system. Fortunately, it is possible for people who’ve never been able to lose to just happen to find the magic key for kick-starting their own sluggish metabolism into a fat burning power house.

What are some ways to increase your metabolism? Eating enough is one factor, especially if the food you eat includes lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, and lean protein foods. Eating too many refined carbohydrate foods, such as white bread or store bought cookies, can sabotage your efforts to speed up your metabolism.

Exercise is also essential to effective weight loss. There are four basic types of exercise, all of which contribute their own part to the overall health picture. Aerobic exercise, sometimes called “cardio,” is the main type that burns fat. It’s called cardio because it requires your heart rate to increase, and is good exercise to strengthen your cardiovascular system. Appropriate cardio exercise is maintained at an intensity level where you can talk, but not sing. If you are working out too hard to talk, you should slow down a bit.

The other types of exercise are weight training, stretching, and toning. To avoid injury, you should always do some stretching exercise after doing cardio sessions. Toning exercises are great for strengthening and streamlining those problem areas, like abs or thighs. Weight training is excellent for facilitating weight loss, because it causes the body to have a higher percentage of muscle tissue. Muscle burns calories at a much greater rate than fat does, so increasing your muscle mass helps your metabolism even when you are at rest.

Finally, drinking two quarts of water a day helps you lose weight more effectively, too. Make sure you spread this water out over the day. Some of it can be in the form of herb tea.

Speaking of herb tea, most pills and potions designed for weight loss are minimally effective at best. There is some scientific evidence that adding green tea to the diet can help people lose weight. If you’ll notice, virtually every diet pill comes with a diet to follow. The diets are all strangely similar – they all look like what you know you should be eating! So don’t expect miracles from weight loss supplements.

Terence Young
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/secrets-of-effective-weight-loss-90903.html

Some people used the term “weight loss” while others call it “fat loss” whilst many use the terms weight loss and fat loss interchangeably. Do they mean the same thing? To many people, they do mean the same thing. But the terms may be entirely different in meaning. You must know the difference if you want to lose weight or lose fat effectively and healthily.

When you step onto your bathroom scale every morning, what you will be reading from the scale is weight loss and not fat loss. Bath room scales are never accurate in determining fat loss.

Why? Because it measures your overall weight and not your body fat per se. If you weigh yourself in the morning before breakfast after your bowel movement, you will probably get your lowest reading of the day because your body is dehydrated through hours of non fluid replenishment when you were sleeping and after emptying your bowels, more water and wastes are flushed away so much so that you are you are lighter. After a night of sleep and not eating anything, your carbohydrate store is running low and therefore you are even lighter without the stored carbohydrate known as glycogen. What happened then? You just loss weight not loss fat! Your body fat is still there while the weight of other substances such as glycogen, wastes, water etc are depleted.

Now go weigh yourself again after dinner when you are fully replenished through meals and consumption of water and it may surprised you that you may probably weigh 2kg or more heavier and that is at least 4.4 pounds! You just gained weight and may even gained fat! Now you can see that it is such a misnomer when people think weight loss and fat loss are the same thing.

Why must you know the difference? Because for most of us, especially those who are on the fat side want to lose fat and not necessarily want to lose weight. Getting the drift?

Now for the more important part. Mere weight loss may cause you to lose muscle and in turn, make you gain body fat later. Yes, it is ironical. That is because the more muscle mass you have, the more you burn fat efficiently because muscle is an active tissue and it requires calories to function. Body fat just sit there doing nothing and thus do not burn calories on its own. So the less muscle mass you have, the less calories your body will burn. The fewer calories your body burn, the more calories ended up being stored as body fat! Therefore it is important to lose fat but not merely lose weight which may include the loss of muscle tissues.

How is it that a person may lose muscle on a weight loss program? Well for starters, we commonly hear about people going on this diet and that diet. Most diets demand a severe restriction of food or calorie intake. Your body will then signal to your mind that you are in a starvation mode and the body is designed to store fat for the impending famine and will use up your muscle for energy in your daily activities.

Some diets advocate a severe cut in carbohydrate. Carbohydrate is your body’s first source of energy. When your body is depleted of carbohydrate, it turns to your protein (muscles) and body fat indiscriminately for energy. Now to make matters worse, because of the restricted carbohydrate consumed, there will be fewer carbohydrate calories to be used as energy calories and that again will signal the onset of starvation mode again. The vicious cycle of your body cannibalizing its own muscle is set in motion again. The same applies to people on slimming pills or salon fat loss programs.

So some people say ok, Chris, I see your point, so I will just do plenty of cardio exercises to lose weight. Another grave mistake. Have you ever wondered why marathon runners, those who run many kilometers often and are doing cardio exercises almost everyday are so skinny with no muscle tone? Because your body is a wonderful machine. It is designed to adapt. When you run or skip or swim long enough, it will say, look, I better get lighter so that I can take the stress better and improve the endurance. Guess what? Your muscles are heavier than fats and what will your body shed more when it wants to get lighter? Muscle or fat? Your body will shed both but more muscles than fats.

Anyway, why would you want to lose weight only to become a smaller you with the same body shape without any muscle tone? Why would you want to be on a weight loss program that eats your muscles and lower your fat burning rate so much so that when you are off the program, the fats come piling back on again?

Therefore, while you are on a lose weight program, you must also be on a build muscle program. That will mean a combination of correct dietary habit, cardio exercises and weightlifting exercises to maintain muscle preservation and a fat loss result.

From now on tell people you are on a fat loss program and not a weight loss program. That you are on a correct eating habit instead of just simply dieting.

With the distinction clearly in mind, you will then know how to lose fat effectively, preserve and grow your muscles and at the same time losing weight on your bathroom scale. That would be an ideal way to achieve your weight loss objective because you will lose body fat instead of muscle and mere body wastes.

Chris Chew
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/weight-loss-or-fat-loss-important-differences-to-lose-weight-and-fat-healthily-10477.html

I’m always amazed at how some musicians can come together, count-off a tune, and create music on the spot that really swings.

How come some can do this yet others simply can’t? Why is it that some music grooves a lot and some grooves less or not at all?

While there may be a number of reasons to this problem, I’ll focus on one of them in this article. “The beat”

What is “the beat”?

You may define it as: “A common denominator, in the form of a pulse, used by a group of musicians in order to be able to play music “together”.

Now, if the individual musicians of a band or ensemble have different pulses, or beats, how can they possibly be on the same page? Even if someone is loudly marking the beat for everyone to hear, that doesn’t mean that people are closely following it. Some may place their music exactly around the beat while others don’t. All the individual notes that are being played don’t line up the way they should which results in “sloppy” music.

More carefully placed notes by the musicians result in a “tighter” sounding band.

Let’s take a moment and use target practice as analogy.

The target is the beat. The arrow is the note. If we all shoot our arrows at the target at once, chances are that the arrows end up all over the place. Experienced professionals, however, have a much higher chance of hitting the bullseye.

Well, the same applies to music. The more musicians hit the beat right on the head, the more the music will sound “together”.

So how do you go about getting better at this? How can you get a better feel for “the beat” and make sure that your feel of the beat doesn’t fluctuate as you are playing music? This, I believe, is the crux of the matter. The more difficult the music gets, the more musicians have to concentrate on mastering their part, so that they pay less attention to the beat.

This happens all the time on the bandstand, and it is really easy to observe. Next time you’re on the bandstand, keep an eye on a musician that’s tapping his foot to the beat. As the music gets more syncopated, the foot may skip a beat, speed up or slow down, it may attempt to play the part that the musician is trying to play, or it may stop altogether!

As this happens, the “common denominator”, the “pulse” or “beat”, the “foundation” that’s supposed to keep the band together is now no longer stable.

Of course, the musician may argue that the part that he played was exactly in sync with his foot, but that is all relative. His playing may have been right relative to his foot but if his foot moved, his playing was not right relative to the pulse of the band.

This can often lead to all kinds of discussions and disputes not all of which end on a happy note!

A common response to the above-mentioned problem is that “we would all sound like robots or machines if we played exactly like the metronome”.

Let me respond to this by looking at one of the masters of “time” or “groove”, the legendary drummer Steve Gadd. He is known as one of the drummers that has mastered “time”. This means that whatever he plays, he is always exactly with the metronome. You could shut off the metronome for a couple of bars and switch it back on and Steve would still be in sync with it. Yet, Mr. Gadd does not sound like a machine, far from it. His playing is some of the most “grooviest” you’ll ever hear. Why is that? Why can he be in sync with the metronome so much and not sound like a machine?

The answer is in where he places his notes. Let’s look at a simple rock patten where his snare drum would fall on beat two and beat four of the bar. Now, he can decide to hit these two beats exactly on the head, or he can decide to “lay them back” a bit. This means that he would hit beat two and beat four just a tad after the metronome hit those same beats. These are tiny differences and only schooled ears can make them out. But these tiny details are what make music groove or not.

The key is that if Steve decides to hit these two beats just a bit behind the beat (meaning a fraction of a second later than the metronome), he needs to be consistent and hit the two and four of consecutive bars at exactly the same spot as before.

Let me use the target practice analogy again to make this a bit clearer. If Steve’s decision to hit beat two and four a fraction of a second later than the metronome, would be equivalent to hitting the target just a bit to the right of the bullseye, everytime you shoot an arrow.

Notice how Steve would not change “the beat” or “the common denominator” at all, he would simply, consistenly place his note just after the beat, where the “novice” would move “the beat” and make playing music “together” impossible.

Does that make sense?

So how can we make sure that we don’t “loose” the beat? Is that something we have to have naturally or can we acquire this skill through practice? Well, I believe that we can all improve our ability to keep the beat better by internalizing the beat. This will help you to place your notes exactly where you want them placed even when the music is difficult and requires a lot of concentration. This does not mean, however, that you’ll swing more, because, remember that the “swing” comes from knowing where to place your individual notes relative to the beat and doing so consistenly.

By “knowing where to place your individual notes” I’m not implying that this is something that every musician is doing consciously. I believe that large amounts of talent are responsible for the fact that some people will just naturally place the notes in a way that makes them swing. This is what puts a Charlie Parker in a different league than the average college saxophone player.

Ok, so how do we do it? How can we solidify our sense of the beat?

The idea is to “internalize” the beat.

Internalizing the beat means to be able to sense the beat regardless of how much attention you have to pay to the music.

I firmly believe that you can only achieve this by using your voice. Tapping your foot is “not” an option as we’ve seen from my example above.

You can always feel the vibrations of your voice, no matter how loud the music gets, not matter how many distractions you’re dealing with.

I thus suggest the following exercise:

Exercise #1:

Sing quarter notes out loud and play rhythms with your hands.

You can do this along to with a metronome and without. Just start the metronome, sing the same quarter notes, and play the rhythms that you sightread with your hands. Don’t just play rhythms that you know and are comfortable with. I usually grab just about any music I can get my hands on and play the rhythms with my hands while ignoring the melody.

You’ll find this challenging at first, but once you’ve got the hang of it, it will become surprisingly easy.

At first there will be a tendency to stop counting out loud, or lower the volume gradually, some mumble. Focus on counting out loudly and clearly for the whole duration of the exercise. I suggest you count 1-2-3-4, not just any sound. However, if you’re a horn player, you obviously can’t count out loud. In this case I suggest you do the exercise without your instrument.

This exercise will most definitely help you build a more solid “inner clock” provided you practice it religiously.

In order to challenge yourself a bit more once you’ve mastered the first exercise, you add the following exercise:

Exercise #2:

Start off counting the click out loud just the way you did in exercise #1, then switch to singing the rhythm that you’re reading from a book and play the quarter notes.

Let me just point out that this exercise will merely add independence skills and I don’t believe that it is nearly as important as the first one.

The nice thing about this exercise is that it will become second nature and once you get back to the bandstand you won’t have to consciously think about it. It will truly build a stronger sense of the beat which you’ll benefit from enormously.

Only thing left for you to do is convince your fellow band members to practice the same exercise.

Good Luck!

Marco Kasel

www.oceanbound.ca

“>

Marco Kasel
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/internalizing-the-beat-once-and-for-all-70156.html

Are you still looking for your 6 pack?

Well follow this nutritional program and you’ll be able to drop 2 or
more pounds per week for 6 to 8 weeks!

Next Stop Abs.

Getting ripped fast requires drastic cuts in carbs, dietary fat and of course, your calories.

You’ll need to steer clear of all oils, butter or fried foods and
keep your carbs under 50 grams a day!

Yes 50 grams-this is a turbocharged fat-loss plan!

Protein intake must go up when you’re cutting carbs, fats and
calories. Keep your protein intake high.

Using this approach, you’ll quickly drop a lot of body fat. The downside is that your energy levels can tank, leaving you unable to train if you’re not used to a low-carb diet.

The Solution.

Breaking down the weeks into 3… 3 distinct diet phases during each of the 6 to 8 weeks of the program

Phase 1

·Days: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
·Carbs: less than 50 grams per day
·Protein: 2 grams per pound of bodyweight
·Cardio: 20 to 30 minutes at low level intensity every day.

During this phase the carbs are kept very low. All the carbs should be eaten after your workout to minimize protein breakdown that happens after training.

If for example you weight 200 lbs you need to take in 400 grams of
protein. The cardio is done merely to coax the body into giving up more of the stored fat.

Phase 2

·Days: Thursday and Friday
·Carbs: 100 to 150 grams per day
·Protein: 105. to 1.75 grams per pound of bodyweight
·Cardio: 40 minutes interval training each day

You would think that the extreme approach taken in phase 1 would do the trick to melt the fat. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Strict dieting will lead to poor muscle recovery and flat muscles.

When muscles are flat the body can appear to be fatter. That’s where
this phase comes in.

The additional carbs assists in glycogen recovery and prevent the
reserves from being drained.

When glycogen levels are low you will appear to be fatter and your
muscle will not recover as quickly. On these days split your carbs as follows:

1. 30-40 g in morning
2. 20-35 g preworkout
3. 50-75 post workout

With the extra carbs you’ll be able to train and do cardio harder. I recommend alternating the cardio between going hard for 2 to 3 minutes and then using a much lower intensity for 2 to 3 minutes. Continue this pattern fir the full 40 minutes of cardio.

This interval training will kick up your metabolism Best time for
cardio in this phase is in the morning on an empty stomach.

Phase 3

·Days: Saturday and Sunday
·Carbs: 2 grams per pound of bodyweight
·Protein: 1 gram per pound of bodyweight
·Cardio: none take the time off

These are the easier days. Carbs go up and protein comes down.

Will there it is following this program will have you ripped in 6 to 8 weeks.

Figure out your menu; eat clean sources of food, chicken breast, and
tuna. Lean ground beef and other choices. You can figure in a protein supplement just make sure it isn’t high in carbs.

But most of all enjoy your newly found 6 pack!

Frank Sherrill
http://www.articlesbase.com/muscle-building-articles/3-easy-steps-to-an-incredible-6-pack-fast-73738.html

The first and most important step towards developing a six pack is to lose weight. The rationale behind the weight loss is that the abdominal muscles will not show unless the ideal muscle to fat ratio is reached.

The two most effective forms of exercise for losing weight are weight lifting and cardio exercises.
Weight Lifting: Lifting weights will result in a decrease in the development of fat by the body.

Lifting weights will result in an increase in muscle; the more muscle a body has the more energy it is capable of burning.

Extra energy in the body is consequently stored as fat; for this reason, building extra muscle in the body will ensure that this extra energy is utilized and prevented from turning to fat.

The most effective muscles to work on are larger muscles groups such as thighs, hamstrings, back and the chest; as these are larger muscles they will consequently burn larger amount of energy in order to sustain themselves.

Cardio exercises: One of the most common and popular forms of exercise, cardio is a great way to lose weight as it is capable of utilizing fat stores for energy and preventing excess energy form being stored as fat.
By staying in motion for an extended period of time, your body is capable of utilizing glucose stores for energy, and then moving on to utilize fat stores for energy.

Suitable cardio exercises include running, power walking, swimming, cycling, basketball, soccer, tennis or any other exercise or sport that involves continuous movement for an extended period of time.

Some of the most popular forms of cardio exercise are as follows:

1) Running: running is extremely popular as it does not require any particular equipment and can be done virtually anywhere. Running can burn a significant amount of energy, however it can cause discomfort to certain joints such as knees and ankles.

2) Cycling: Cycling can be performed outdoors (on a bicycle) or inside (on a cycling machine) and requires use of the legs in order to burn energy.

3) Swimming: Swimming is a full body exercise and the more body parts that are involved the more energy this exercise is capable of burning. Thirty minutes of an intensive stroke such as breaststroke is capable of burning more energy than thirty minutes of running. One of the benefits of swimming is that it allows for joints to be fully supported, thus preventing the joint damage that can occur through running.

4) Step Aerobics: This involves an intense workout for the legs, buttocks and hips and burns around the same amount of energy as swimming. This form of exercise is available in video or in a class; therefore it is able to be performed at home or in the gym.

5) Elliptical trainer: For those with gym access, or who are lucky enough to own one of these machines, the elliptical trainer will burn energy whilst protecting joints from injury due to impact activities.

6) Power walking: Brisk walking is an excellent form of exercise. Whilst it may not burn off as much energy as running, it will minimize the extent of damage to joints done through impact with the ground.

7) Rowing: Rowing machines are extremely simple to use and have the potential to burn as much energy as running or cycling. Vigorous rowing can significantly increase the heart rate and burn quite a lot of energy.

Rock climbing: Rock climbing is capable of burning almost as much energy as swimming. Rock climbing can be quite strenuous, and does involve the use of a large amount special equipment and technique. Whilst not for the faint hearted- it is a lot of fun, particularly when climbing with a partner.

When exercising, it is important to remember to set realistic expectations and to not be too hard on yourself during exercise. Refraining from doing so will ensure you have a higher chance of enjoying the exercise and will prevent you from becoming disheartened and discontinuing the exercise.

When losing weight to develop a six pack, many people will be aiming to develop and strengthen muscle simultaneously. This will have the opposite effect on weight as muscle is denser than fat and weighs more, thus this increase in muscle will negate the loss of weight through a decrease in fat.

In many cases, an individual’s weight will increase instead of decrease. This is not something to be worried about. Rather than constantly weighing yourself to determine your progress, try checking your clothing. A decrease in fat should leave your clothes feeling a little loose.

James Penn
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/exercises-to-lose-abdominal-fat-flatten-your-stomach-113353.html

If your workout consists of more than just jogging, at some point you’ll want to invest in some fitness equipment. Which you select will, naturally, depend on lots of things – budget vs price, quality vs needs, type and interests and so forth.

Fitness equipment can run anywhere from $50 to $5,000 or more. You may be satisfied with an exercise ball or you may want a complete gym. That depends, of course, on your budget, your commitment and your desired workout routine.

A few free weights might be a good start if your preliminary goal is to tone and build muscle mass. A quality bar for chin-ups and pull-ups would be a good addition to a basic set. Between floor exercises and some elementary weight lifting, combined with chin-ups or pull-ups, you can design a varied workout.

It’s always a good idea to have a longer-term plan, though. Buy higher quality today, equipment that lasts and that will continue to be part of your routine for several years. If you’re considering an exercise bike, for example, in order to do some spinning for a great cardio workout, get something solid and reliable. You want the bike to be good for at least five years.

Make sure you take into account how much space you have, and how much you’re likely to have for the next few years. For a bike you need only about 10 square feet, but a treadmill will require 30 square feet. A multi-station weight machine may take up to 100 square feet or more, depending on the design.

If you’re just starting out, test a variety of equipment from different manufacturers at multiple outlets. Several companies make high quality gear, but every person is an individual. That means that a machine that works great for one person may be unsuited for another.

A rowing machine that fits your tall friend may be useless, or actually harmful, for you. Get equipment that’s adjustable to fit your body size and type. That also helps when and if you share the equipment with a partner. Make sure the adjustments – for tensions, lengths, weights, etc – will travel through a wide range. As you build strength and endurance you’ll want equipment that continues to test you as you develop.

Make sure you, and anyone who shares it, can use the equipment safely. Multi-station weight machines have safety features that vary in style and effectiveness. Pick equipment that suits you, not the salesperson.

From some advisors, ‘no pain, no gain’ can mean ‘you should feel some pain’. Some mild discomfort the day after is normal and expected. But if it hurts you to use the gear, either you’re doing something wrong – and should get guidance about proper technique – or the equipment isn’t right for you. You should feel comfortable using it.

For example, walking machines should have rails that suit your height. They should also have rollers and settings that you can operate properly while in motion. Weight machines should have a chair and handlebars that you can sit in and grab without straining and don’t produce back or neck aches.

Shop around, ask a lot of questions and don’t buy until you are satisfied that you’ve found something that will last and suits your unique style.

Jerry Xavier
http://www.articlesbase.com/equipment-articles/secrets-of-choosing-gym-equipment-70046.html