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Health and Fitness News Article - TheraGear Article Resource

Essential Elements for Fitness Training

Article #55

Fitness is about feeling healthy, happy and alive. Here are the basic elements of fitness training:

1. Breathing Volume

The breathing volume of lungs is a crucial factor that determines the amount of oxygen intake by your body and in turn has a great impact on your overall health. Poor breathing techniques can hamper the health and are known to aggravate existing maladies. Correct and sufficient breathing is one of the core elements of fitness training. Every exercise in your fitness training has to have a proper breathing technique at its core. Correct breathing ensures increased efficiency of oxygen flow into the heart, lungs and blood vessels and throughout the entire body.

Recommended Activities: Yoga has plenty of breathing exercises that not only teach you the correct breathing techniques, but also increase your breathing volume with regular practice. The Pranayam which is the basic breathing technique of inhaling and exhaling air with complete concentration and focus on the passage of air in and out you body is the best way to achieve stronger lungs and improve the blood circulation. Aerobic exercises in fitness training also help to focus on improving the breathing volume of lungs. You can try aerobic activities like running, jogging, biking, swimming, dancing or even water aerobics.

2. Muscle Fitness

The muscular strength is an important aspect of fitness training that helps increase the lean muscle mass, and burn calories and lose body fat more easily. Good muscular strength definitely one of the most important elements of fitness training Another important aspect is strengthening your core muscles which are the muscles in your abdomen, lower back and pelvis. The core muscles support balance and stability of the body and their strength is therefore a vital element of fitness training. The process of achieving muscular fitness includes resistance training in which you need to gradually overload your muscles so that they strengthen to meet the challenges. In order to achieve muscular strength it is advised that a person should try and lift a weight that is closest to the heaviest weight that he/she can lift comfortably.

Recommended Activities: Weight training is most commonly employed while trying to achieve muscular strength. During a weight-training program it is best to start with the lower weights and you’re your body sufficient time to be ready for the next level. Physical activities that enhance the muscular strength include many exercises like push-ups, chin-ups, and sit-ups. Many yogasanas that involve balancing your own body weight are especially helpful for muscle building in fitness training.

3. Flexibility

Flexibility or the capability to move joints and muscles through their complete range of motion is another important elements of fitness training. Muscles of the arms, back, hips, thighs, and calves can become completely flexible only with the help of an all-round fitness-training program. Achieving flexibility in a fitness-training program implies having better movement of joints, better body posture and enhanced blood circulation.

Recommended Activities: Regular stretching before and after a workout helps tremendously in increasing one’s flexibility. The activities that you can try for maximum stretching are yoga, tai chi, or even a fun activity like dancing. While stretching your muscles make sure that every time you try and exceed your previous flexing capabilities. A very important point that needs to be kept in mind while stretching is that you should perform every movement very slowly avoiding jerks, and ensure proper breathing at every step.

4. Emotional Health

Emotional health is as important as physical fitness and both these elements often go hand in hand. Emotional health can be defined as the state of emotional well being wherein the mind is capable of staying away from negative thoughts and can focus on creative and constructive tasks. Fitness training also enhances the hand-eye co-ordination and improves the strength of reflexes. An ideal fitness-training program leads to the development of an aware and alert mind. Exercise or any rigorous physical activity like aerobics or kick boxing stimulates the production of endorphins which are chemical substances that make you feel happy. Having sound emotional health is hence a vital element of the fitness training process.

Recommended Activities: Almost all the exercises or aerobic physical activities are good for emotional health. Yoga, aerobics, running, jogging, kick boxing, tai chi, are some of the invigorating activities that can help you in attaining emotional fitness. Yoga is especially useful since it also focuses on meditation techniques and helps in strengthening the human mind. Similarly an art form like dance also gives way to creative expression and hence makes a person very happy.