By Real Age

Most of us start the new year in love with our new workout gear, only to see it gather dust in the closet a month later. Here’s how to keep your interest in activity alive and kicking.

In her book Outdoor Fitness, exercise guru and author Tina Vindum recommends this three-pronged approach: meet, play, love.

Read the full post on 3 Secrets to Living – and Loving – an Active Life.

1. Meet. When you have a workout buddy who’s planning to meet you for a run or cardio class, you’ll be more motivated to follow through. And group workouts and classes offer a built-in support system, with shared goals, social interaction, and stick-to-it instructors. Yep, it definitely pays to sweat well with others. (Here’s why the YOU Docs think a workout buddy is better than going it alone.)

By Real Age

Spend 20 easy minutes doing this and you could help guarantee a good mood for 12 hours: walk.

That’s what a recent study revealed. A short, moderately paced workout produced feel-good brain chemicals that lasted up to 12 hours afterward.

Step Up to Happy
In the study, college students either rested quietly for 20 minutes or cycled on a stationary bike for the same amount of time. And the cyclers weren’t even really pushing it. They merely exercised at a mild to moderate pace (60 percent of maximum heart rate). Both groups reported lower levels of negative emotions — like anger, depression, fatigue, and tension — immediately after the experiment as well as 2 hours later. But only the cyclers continued to enjoy their happier mindset a full 12 hours after the workout session. (Here’s another easy way to brighten your mood.)

Read the full post on Do This, Feel Happy for 12 Hours.

By RealAge

It’s the quickest way to lower your blood pressure without lifting a finger. Just watch something funny.

Research shows that laughter and humor could help lower systolic blood pressure — the top number — by about 10 points in just 20 minutes. And if you tickle your funny bone often, you could make your RealAge as much as 8 years younger.

Tickled Pink
In a small study, participants chose a 20-minute humorous video clip to watch. They also watched 20 minutes of a serious war movie. Then, researchers measured the participants’ blood pressure. And watching funny videos not only lowered people’s blood pressure but lowered their cholesterol levels, too. The serious war movie? No effect. (Check out this list of foods that help lower blood pressure.)

Read the full post on Lower Your Blood Pressure in 20 Minutes.

By RealAge

Hate the thought of losing your mental edge — or worse, growing senile — as you age? Well, here’s a simple way to slash your risk of dementia by 73 percent:

Go for a power walk. People who regularly walk may be that much less likely to develop dementia compared with their couch-potato peers. Yeah, it’s that simple!

More Blood, Please
Vascular dementia is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s. It’s the nosedive that memory and other cognitive functions can take when ailing blood vessels restrict — and sometimes block — the flow of blood to the brain. But because exercise — even mild exercise like walking — increases cerebral blood flow, it may shrink the risk. (Try keeping your brain sharp with RealAge’s daily crossword puzzle.)

Read the full post on A Walk on the Cerebral Side.

If you want the kids to play, then you may want to set an example …
You might as well get a quick pump, especially since you have to be there while they burn off some energy.

Here are 6 exercises and what body parts they effect:

1) Monkey bar pull ups – Works the biceps and upper back
2) Elevated feet push ups – Works the triceps, chest and front shoulder
3) Swing squats – Works front of thigh
4) Single leg squats – Works thigh, hamstring and butt muscles
5) Go nowhere swing presses – Works shoulders, triceps and top of chest
6) Frustrated kid, fake launch, swing pull – Works upper back and biceps

Read the full post on Playground Pump Up – 6 Exercises.

Did you know?
Family Health & Fitness Day is the last Saturday of September. It stresses that regular physical activity is fun and important to family health.

Steps to take
Find out more about this from fitnessday.com/family

Are you bored with your regular cardio routine, are you confused what workout you should be doing first whether it should be cardio or strength training, well you donʼt necessarily have to separate cardio and strength training, they can be incorporated into one workout. Cardio generally works the heart and lungs, and develops their endurance. Strength training develops the muscles.

Most of the general population think that cardio workouts have to be either done on a treadmill, running outside, use of a stationary bike, cycling, spinning or swimming just to name a few. What the general population fail to realize is that you can also get your heart rate up by doing strength training. Cardio with weights can actually get the heart rate up as well and it also saves time if youʼre running short on time.

Read the full post on Combining Strength Training with Cardio.

Secrets of the emotional, physical and nutritional game

It’s not enough to be “sexually steamy;” it’s also about the ability to exhibit strong and powerful emotions. This act requires long duration intensity, not short term, and random moments of peak, then passing desire.

Sustaining passion depends upon endurance and that boils down to chemistry and conditioning.

Since February is National Heart Month, it’s an excellent opportunity to begin a jogging program and a good first step in creating a “potion for passion.”

Read the full post on Passion – How to Have the Heart.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is cardio performed at such an intense level that your body will spend the rest of the day expending energy to recover from the ass-kicking you gave it. This is commonly referred to as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) and it means that you consume a great deal more oxygen recovering from the exercise bout than you would have if you’d just done a steady-state workout.

This means that you will be burning up to nine times more fat while sitting on the couch later that night than you would have if you’d spent an hour on the treadmill at a moderate pace.

Read the full post on What is HIIT?.

Did you know?
Ballroom dancing may be the ideal workout for some people. It can raise the heart rate enough to achieve aerobic fitness and can be fun to exercise with a partner.

Steps to take
If you find it hard to stick with an exercise regimen, take classes in ballroom dancing and/or other dance classes. Look at it as your version of Dancing with the Stars.