Top 10 Wellness Question

Do you stress about the answers to your Health & Wellness questions? Worry that you can not start a program without first understanding these responses? Don't worry, you are not alone. I hear the same questions from many new to Health & Wellness. Here are the Top 10 and my replies....

10. Whats The Best Treatment For Sore Muscles?
Believe it or not the best thing you can do for exercise-soreness is to workout lightly. This will send blood to the muscles and loosen the contracted tissues. Light exercise means very little weight and very little in the way of intensity. Stretch. If soreness persists try putting some heat on the muscle, then stretch holding the stretch steady for a minimum of 10 seconds. After stretches are completed, apply ice for 15 - 20 minutes.

9. How Do I Tell How Much Weight To Use?
You want to be able to complete a full set, but do no more. If you are trying to bulk up like a body builder, than you want very heavy weights and small quantity of reps (or pyramid starting with high reps-low weight and decrease reps as you increase weight, or vice versa). f you are a normal person - working out to increase your health and wellness as well as decrease body fat, than you want high numbers of reps and sets - 12 - 20 Reps then come back to the exercise with 2 - 4 Sets. Therefore if you select 10 lbs and are struggling at rep 4 you know you've chosen to high. You should just get to the highest rep - praying you'll be done soon as it gets harder and harder to complete the exercise.

8. I'm Too Busy To Exercise !
If you have 10 minutes than you can exercise. Performing a 10 minute workout, 3 times a day is just as effective at burning calories as working out for 30 minutes straight of cardio. Therefore, very busy people can work in fitness - no matter what their schedule looks like.

7. How Do I Measure My Exercise Intensity?
Generally personal trainers measure how hard you are working with the RPE scale. RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. Its a scale from 1 - 10; where 1 equals napping on the couch (very little exertion) to 10 equaling sprinting away from an armed gunman (very high exertion). When performing endurance cardio training (treadmill, elliptical, etc) you should be able to maintain about 5 - 7 for a minimum of 30 minutes. This means you will be sweating, your muscles will be working hard, and you may be huffing a bit - BUT you can still complete a short sentence without being totally winded.

6. Should I do Cardio Before or After Strength Training?
Cardio should be done prior to strength, except occasionally. Cardio works many muscles at once, so no one muscle becomes too fatigued. Strength training focuses on 1 or 2 muscles at a time, working them until they are fatigues. This means at the end of a strength training workout those muscles will be extremely tired. Not I said occasionally, thats because you should never get stuck in a rut of repetition. Its great to occasionally shock the system by switching cardio and strength or breaking up your cardio and interspersing it throughout your strength workout.

5. Should I Stretch Before or After a Workout?
You need to warm up in some manner prior to working out. This can be done with walking or light stretching - BUT you will get no flexibility benefits from stretching prior to a workout. Your muscles are cold - like a brand-new elastic band there is not a lot of give. But at the end of your workout all the blood has flowed through the muscle, loosening it. Stretching at the end utilizes the warm well blooded muscle to improve your flexibility.

4. How Often Do I Really Have To Exercise?
Think of improving your Health and Wellness as a part of your daily routine. Does this mean you need to go to the gym daily? No. Some days you'll get your workout from grocery shopping or doing laundry. On other days walking for work or playing with the kids will be enough. You should make it a point to workout for about 60 - 90 minutes at least 3 times a week...if you are struggling to lose weight you should perform Cardio at least 4 - 6 times a week along with stretching and Core work. Strength training should be 2 - 3 times a week.

3. I Don't Need To Strength Train When Looking To Lose Weight, Right?
Wrong! We burn calories in the muscles. Therefore, the more muscle you have to faster you will lose weight. Balancing your strength and cardio workouts are among the hardest facets of creating your wellness plan. If you are striving to lose weight, you should perform a Total Body Workout program 2 - 3 times a week. Core can be worked daily, as can cardio.

2. Whats The Fastest Method For Weight-loss?
This is a difficult question. There are unhealthy methods that will get you skinny fast but will not keep the weight off. The best way to make life ling changes to your physique is the tried and true - Fitness & Nutrition. Increasing your caloric burn through exercise, and decreasing the empty calories in your diet while increasing the Macro-nutrients - Protein, Carbs, Fats, Water.

1. Eat Less Equals Weigh Less?
Yes and No. Yes to lose weight you must burn more than you intake (calorically speaking). But, if you decrease your calories past a healthy level than you will shut down your metabolism to the point that all the exercise in the world can't make you lose fat. I suggest NEVER decreasing your calories below 1200. This will feed you muscles so they can burn the fat!! Its like putting oil in the car, with your fat stores as the gas. You still need a good oil supply to let the engine function properly and efficiently. This means also increasing your vitamin intake. Seek out the advice of a Nutritionist to develop a well balanced diet - women generally require a 60-20-20 meal plan, with 60% = Carbs (to carry all the hormones and give energy), 20% = Proteins (to rebuild and build body tissue) and 20% being Fats (to keep the body full for longer). Furthermore, eating many small meals a day keeps the metabolism active and will lead to faster weight-loss. Eating about every 3 - 4 hours also helps the body maintain its blood sugar and blood pressure levels.