Exercise is what your body instinctively wants to do especially under stress: fight or flight, and it works. It burns off some of the stress chemicals which tension produces. Therefore, a tired muscle is a relaxed muscle. Regular exercise builds stamina that can help anyone battle stress. But even something as casual as a walk around the block can help you burn off some of the tension that you carrying around.

Exercise gives you energy. Study after study supports those words, including one by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. More than 200 federal employees were placed on a moderate, regular exercise program. The results: 90 percent said they had never felt better. Almost half said they felt less stress, and almost one-third reported they slept better.

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Explanation of Exercises

1. Jumping Jacks: You may remember these from high school or any army movie from the past 30 years. Start with hands by your side, feet together. Jump feet apart-hands go over your head at the same time. Jump feet back together-hands back to your side. Try that for 30 seconds. Increase your speed as you go.

2. Wall Sit: Place your back against the wall. Slowly lower your buttocks down as if sitting on a chair. Keep your back against the wall as much as possible. Do not drop your buttocks below your knees. Hold for 30 seconds. Slowly push your body back up the wall, using your quads (leg muscles).

3. Push Ups: On the floor, hands under shoulders, abs tight, on your toes. Lower your body up and down, keeping your body as straight as a plank. Variations: lower knees to the floor and do the exercise, keeping knees connected to the floor. OR do these push ups at a counter top. Stand about 2 feet from the counter, arms shoulder width, abs tight. Push down and back for 30 seconds.

4. Abdominal Crunches: On the floor, your lower back is connected to the floor, knees up, feet flat on floor. Arms reach upward on a 45 degree angle. Keep neck relaxed, chin level with your chest, shoulders down. Lower back does not come off the floor. Tension in your neck? Cross your hands in front of your chest. Repeat for 30 seconds.

5. Step Up: Place the back of a chair against a wall. This prevents the chair from sliding away from you. Stand about 1 foot from the chair and step up with one foot, then the other. Step back down with one foot, then the other.

6. Squat: Stand straight, feet a little wider than shoulder distance apart. Your first squat is slow and controlled. Push your buttocks back as if you were going to sit in a chair (it should feel like it is sticking out behind you). Keep chin level with the floor as your raise your arms just to shoulder level. Keep your shoulders pulled down as your arms lift. Then, slowly, push back up (through your quads), pushing hips forward, lower your arms.

7. Tricep Dips: Place chair with back against the wall. Face away from the chair with arms on seat of chair. Fingers over the front of the chair. Feet should be out far enough so that you do not feel any strain in the lower back, knees bent. Simply bend your elbows as your buttock lowers toward the floor (without touching), then push back up using the muscles in the back of the arms.

8. Plank: This seems like a simple exercise, but it is geared to tone your core or center using time and gravity. On your elbows and toes, hold this plank position. Keep your abs tight and your back straight, as you hold for 30 seconds.

9. High knees running in place: The best way to do this exercise in order to avoid injury, is to keep your knees high and tight to your abs as you lift them up. Try to keep your back as straight as possible by keeping your abs tight.

10. Lunge: Feet together, step forward keeping your knee over your toes. Do not let your knees go past your front toes. Step back, then lunge forward with the other foot. Repeat for 30 seconds.

11. Push-up and Rotation: This combines one push-up and a half rotation away from the floor, raising one arm upward. This balancing-core improving exercise can be achieved by keeping your abs tight and moving slowly through the transition of the movement.

12. Side Plank: This variation on the plank, challenges you on the side of your arm. This keeps your whole body off the ground with one contact point. Keep your abs tight and head and shoulders in line with your hips!

Workout Trilogy

How To: Get Exercise In Your Life

By increasing lifestyle activities each day, try doing four 10-minute increases at least five days a week. The idea is to just do more of what you are already doing.

Schedule exercise into your daily routine.  You schedule dinner, you book appointments and plan meetings….exercise is no different!

Exercise with others. Join a gym, running group, dance club or exercise class. Moving with others motivates us, keeps our attention and holds us to the commitment.

Stretching for Pain

Next to breathing and breath work, stretching is the most beneficial exercises we can do for better health. Done in tandem, breath work and stretching are the best support for easing aches, pain, tension, headaches, tight muscles and unexplained pain elsewhere in the body. Just as there are different types of flexibility, there are also different types of stretching.

How To Handle Love Handles

You can spend hours and hours a week trying to reduce these “love rolls” by cardio assault or weighted side bends but to no avail! Aerobic activity is just one part of the entire equation need to reduce the “love sacks”. Weighted side bends will build the muscle under these “love bundles” and actually make them appear even larger!  So how do you handle, love handles…..?

Cellulite and the Female Factor

Cellulite is fat, plane and simple. It can affect women of any age, although as women age, muscle is replaced by fat stores, the skin becomes thinner and and weaker, which makes cellulite more apparent. The fat on women’s thighs and buttocks is arranged in large chambers separated from each other by columns of connective tissue. Here is how to improve the look of cellulite…