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Choosing a Martial Art
March 8, 2013 by Adrienne
Filed under HEALTHCARE

A match between Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blackbelts Gabriel Vella and Romulo Barral at the 2009 World Jiu-Jitsu Championships. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I never could get into gym life. I knew weightlifting and aerobic training improved my strength and stamina, but I never found either particularly motivating — a death sentence for any exercise regime. Don’t get me wrong: weight training and aerobic gym classes are excellent exercise; they just didn’t work for me personally.
My training motivation comes less from seeing improvements in my health and more from learning a new skill. So martial arts were a much better choice for me. I found I enjoyed the traditional structure and ritual of the karate dojo, and the belt system provided a built-in goal setting system. Besides, after a few months training I got to play with tonfa, Bo sticks and other weaponry, which impressed the hell out of my inner child.
Like other exercise programs, martial arts aren’t one-size-fits-all. Fortunately, dojos and donjons are easy to find across the country, whether you live in Los Angeles, California, or are staying in one of the Dover, Delaware hotels. Below are some of the more commonly taught martial arts, each with its own benefits and philosophy.
Aikido
Aikido forgoes attack, focusing solely on defense. The art relies on transforming your attacker’s motion and movements into controlling counter-techniques. Attacks are taught only as a means to practice defense.
Jiu-Jitsu
Another Japanese art, Jiu-Jitsu is a grappling art focusing on throws, holds and ground fighting. A subset of Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is very popular, and teaches tactics where a smaller person can defeat a larger, stronger individual by taking the fight to the ground, using choke holds and joint locks to control the opponent.
Judo
Judo evolved from Jiu-Jitsu. Also a grappling art, judo has become a popular Olympic sport, and emphasizes immobilizing and subduing an opponent without causing significant damage.
Taekwondo
A Korean art, taekwondo emphasizes the use of kicks, capitalizing on the greater reach and strength legs have over arms. Sparring and competition are important aspects of the art, with safety gear worn for protection.
Karate
While most people think of karate as Japanese, the art developed in the islands of Okinawa. Practice includes set forms (kata), prearranged drills and sparring. Karate dojos may include instruction in traditional Okinawa weapons such as the sai and tonfa.
Kung Fu
Kung fu, more correctly known as wushu, describes a wide range of fighting styles from China. Popularized in the west by Bruce Lee, kung fu schools vary widely in their philosophy, training focus and forms. Some styles mimic graceful animal behavior, some on external strength, and other on cultivating internal “qi,” or inner energy. If you’re a fan of weapons training, kung fu offers a broad range of weapons, from long swords to three-sectioned staffs.
Muay Tai
Muay Tai is a Thai art known for vicious elbow and knee strikes from close quarters and clinches. Full-contact Muay Tai is a powerful fighting style with connections to Chinese and India martial arts. The art places great emphasis on conditioning and strength.
Mixed Martial Arts
Mixed martial arts (MMA) are full contact schools, which borrow striking and grappling techniques from many different schools. Some purists deny MMA qualifies as a martial art, but the fighting style is often brutally effective.
The Best Ways to Prep for a Strengthening Program
March 7, 2013 by Adrienne
Filed under HEALTHCARE
You’ve heard that it’s wise to get a physical before starting any kind of new workout regimen. That’s true, but do you know why? In addition to checking to see if you’re fit enough for a particular program, you can also uncover some hidden health issues. I recently got back into Mixed Martial Arts, and my physical revealed a problem that was easy to fix.
My iron levels were shockingly low. That was hurting my endurance, seriously increasing fatigue and caused issues with building muscle. Of course, upping iron levels is relatively easy with a change in diet and supplements. However, skipping that physical would have caused a lot of frustration and plateaus that were completely unnecessary.
Tackle Your Diet First
Depending on your goals, you’re going to have to change your diet. If you solely want to build bulk, there’s a good chance you’ll need to increase your protein and the number of meals you eat per day. It might sound like eating more protein is easy, but that’s not necessarily true. A rough estimate of how many grams of protein you need is three-quarters of your body weight (or between half and three-quarters for women).
A man who weighs 180 pounds needs about 135 grams of protein a day when on a bodybuilding regimen. Similarly, a 180 pound woman would need at least 90 grams. That’s a lot of protein, and eating it all in meats isn’t necessarily healthy. Always work with a nutritionist if you’re a newbie to eating for bulk. This can drastically reduce risks and help you quickly get on track.
Less is More
If you think you’ll get bigger the more time you’re in the gym, think again. I know exactly how you feel. You might think the whole “working out too much” thing is only an issue for seriously athletes. However, when it comes to building bulk, the majority of your success happens outside the gym when your muscles are repairing.
The Colorado Experiment is proof that you don’t need to work out a lot to gain muscle. While this experiment dealt with a former bodybuilder who was, for lack of a better phrase, a genetic freak, the facts are still there. He only lifted for 30 minutes per day a few days a week and packed on 60 pounds of muscle in one month. If you don’t allow your muscles to repair, they won’t get any bigger.
Diversify Yourself
Your body gets used to routines, so don’t stick with a lifting program for more than three months. You might feel like avoiding cardio all together, but that’s not always smart. At the very least, opt for a 10-minute warm-up before lifting. Diversify these warm-ups with running, walking at an incline, stairs or the elliptical.
Most importantly, make sure you enjoy what you’re doing. If you dread going to the gym, you’re likely going to fail. Whether you’re a Harrisburg wrongful death attorney or a florist, you still have other things going on in your life. A strengthening regimen should fit into your life, not overpower it.
Eat All That Chocolate
December 6, 2012 by Nathan Ladin
Filed under HEALTHCARE, OBESITY
Are you craving chocolate yet? What if I told you not to eat it and that it would make you fat? Now how do you feel about eating it? Are you mad-jonesing for it?
That’s what a recent study found. A joint research team of the University of Western Australia and the University of Strathclyde in Scotland found that when a group of 80 women were presented with videos or images warning that chocolate could lead to obesity that they were more likely to crave it. When shown images of thin models, their desire to eat chocolate increased while their food consumption desire decreased.
The study that appears in the journal Appetite, while interesting, highlights a problem we are probably all aware of but do little to acknowledge. We want to do the things people don’t want us to. There is a part of human nature that enjoys rebelling against a system of order. And when people are dieting, the life of their eating habits is a system of order.
It is actually the lack of discipline relating to rebellion that is the reason why many diets fail. Because diets, and worse yet fad diets, are short term solutions that are often not adopted as permanent lifestyle changes. Any short term benefits of dieting are often lost very quickly when the diet ends and a person reverts back to their normal eating habits.
It’s the big changes to our habits that we have the biggest problem dealing with. There is often a short-term immediate acceptance but in the long run we’ll naturally want to go back to an old way of doing things.
Instead of trying to make sudden sweeping changes to your habits consider small changes. Nutritionists have seen better long-term results when people adopt smaller changes to their eating habits.
When you start small think of how many calories you take in each day. Are you drinking three cans of soda a day? Could you live with two? Are you getting the fast food combo with large fries and a drink? Maybe go medium instead, that is if you absolutely need to have that fast food meal.
Do you find yourself constantly snacking in front of your television or your computer? What is it that you’re snacking on? Is it cookies or chips? When you sit down to browse your queued instant videos or check your email, consider putting a bowl of baby carrots in front of you. Health experts have found that people have a tendency to reach for and snack on whatever is close at hand. If what’s close at hand just happens to be a healthy fruit or vegetable snack it could be much better for your belly than a box of doughnuts.
Little changes to your fitness can be adopted as well. It can be as simple as just parking your car a little further away from the entrance to the shopping mall. If you’re walking up a few floors in a building take the stairs instead. If you are going up thirty floors though it is probably just fine to take the elevator so you don’t show up at your business meeting sweating and huffing and puffing. If you do have the gusto to climb thirty flights of stairs then go for it!
When you step into 2013 for the first time and think about that most common of mantras people like to attempt every time a New Year starts, think about taking small steps. When somebody tells you not to eat chocolate because it will make you fat don’t just eat that chocolate out of spite. Take small steps and pay attention to your habits when it comes to eating and you may find that positive change may be coming your way.
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Filed under Featured, OBESITY, Video: Exercise and Fitness Tips
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January 16, 2012 by HART 1-800-HART
Filed under HEALTHCARE, Video: Exercise and Fitness Tips
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Filed under HEALTHCARE, Video: Exercise and Fitness Tips
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