Dead Sea Salt and The Benefits For Your Skin

Dead Sea Salt and The Benefits For Your Skin
Our skin takes a beating all year long. We're always looking for new products to soften, nourish, and replenish our skin.
Source: EzineArticles.com

Healthy Airport Choices for Weight Loss

Healthy Airport Choices for Weight Loss

This week I’m doing something I never thought I’d ever do. I’m taking on a challenge from Princess Cruises http://www.princess.com/ - a seven-day sail aboard the Crown Princess in the Western Caribbean (hello sunshine!) and not gain, or better yet, lose weight. I’ve been gathering tips from friends, family and readers on twitter and have a pretty good plan but what will also be challenging is the journey to the ship.

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Why Backyard Farming Is Not An Answer To Factory Farming

Why Backyard Farming Is Not An Answer To Factory Farming
My Japanese quail, Trevor, joined our family after we found him wandering our backyard in St. Paul, Minnesota. Trevor, like so many other “poultry species", is a victim of the interest in backyard farming. He likely is an escapee from a farmer intending him for the dinner plate, or was dumped when recognized as a “worthless” rooster

© Melissa Swanson

My Japanese quail, Trevor, joined our family after we found him wandering our backyard in St. Paul, Minnesota. Trevor, like so many other “poultry species”, is a victim of the interest in backyard farming. He likely is an escapee from a farmer intending him for the dinner plate, or was dumped when recognized as a “worthless” rooster.

Chicken Run Rescue (CRR) in Minneapolis sees many abandoned roosters. Most are wandering the streets, some in very busy areas, until they are found by Animal Control or Good Samaritans. Often these birds are in rough shape: some have signs of ropes around their feet or necks; many are injured or ill. Untold numbers are never found and succumb to weather, predation or starvation.

Roosters in urban farming, as in commercial farming, are considered “useless”. Most will not keep them as companions or, as in St. Paul, cannot keep them due to bans on roosters. The average layer produces until about only 2 years of age. After that, her production decreases or ceases. She can no longer pay for her feed by feeding humans. These unwanted birds place a burden on groups like CRR, Animal Place and Farm Sanctuary as the number of displaced birds continues to increase.

In backyard farms quite a few animals are kept in pens that are unsafe, too small or inadequately fulfilling the animals’ basic needs. Most coops offer hens bare minimum square footage to keep costs lower and to work within as small a footprint as possible. While they are offered more room than the average battery or free range bird, the hens are still unnaturally cramped. Most coops are made with the ease of the farmer in mind rather than the comfort of the birds.

For example, in our home, Trevor (who is about 1/8 the size of a hen) has nearly 8 square feet to himself and he can run, flap his wings, dust bathe and perform other natural behaviors. For hens, coop size per bird was suggested at 4 square feet with a 8-to-10 square-foot run where they’d spend most of their time. One hen in Trevor’s pen could barely spread her wings and could take only a few steps in any direction. While better than the tight spaces in commercial farming, it’s still inadequate for an active, intelligent bird.

If we respect and love these animals, as backyard farmers profess to, then we wouldn’t abandon or kill them when they cease to give us more than they take. All birds deserve a home where we ask nothing from them except the chance to share their lives and enjoy them as individuals*.

*I also have also on occasion asked Trevor to stop crowing at 4 am so mommy and daddy can sleep. Results vary.

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Improve Your Skin With The Benefits Of Unrefined Shea Butter

Improve Your Skin With The Benefits Of Unrefined Shea Butter
Unrefined shea butter is a natural moisturizer with amazing skin care benefits. Learn about the benefits of shea butter and the differences between unrefined and refined shea.
Source: EzineArticles.com

Change a Bad Habit in 28 Days

Change a Bad Habit in 28 Days

We all have habits we'd like to change.  But it seems nearly impossible to reprogram our daily routines, even when our well-being is at stake.  For many of us, weight loss is essential to improve our blood pressure, prevent diabetes or save a relationship.  According to one author, changing a single bad habit to lose weight takes just 28 days.

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How To Breathe Properly During Weightlifting

Breathing: it’s a very relaxing word. When I think of breathing, I think of yoga classes, meditation. However, breathing can help facilitate many different things…even intense workouts. From increasing abdominal pressure, to increasing recovery time between exercise sets, there are a lot of useful purposes for owning our breathing mechanics. “Breathe In On The Way [...]

The post How To Breathe Properly During Weightlifting appeared first on BuiltLean.com.

Breathing: it’s a very relaxing word. When I think of breathing, I think of yoga classes, meditation.

However, breathing can help facilitate many different things…even intense workouts.

From increasing abdominal pressure, to increasing recovery time between exercise sets, there are a lot of useful purposes for owning our breathing mechanics.

“Breathe In On The Way Down, And Out on The Pushing Phase?”

The general prescription for breathing during exercise is inhalation during the concentric portion of said exercise, and exhalation during the eccentric phase. To give an example using the barbell bench press, inhale before lowering the bar to the chest, and exhale when you are pushing the weight away from you.

However, research does not support any potential benefits doing one over the other. That is, as long as you are creating stability for the spine by using the appropriate abdominal muscles to create a “brace”, there is no research that says exhalation during the eccentric or concentric helps to facilitate said movement.¹

How To Breathe Properly To Create Stability

You can create stability during exercise by inhalation before a big movements, what is called “bracing”. If we are looking to save time and perform an exercise that has the biggest effect on our strength and physique goals, we need to utilize the best breathing techniques in our lifts.

Creating stability by inhaling and bracing our abdominals before the movement will help us move more weight and burn more calories, and therefore look better on top of all that. This bracing maneuver is often referred to as the Valsalva Maneuver. How it works is you take a big breath as you perform an exercise, such as when you are lowering down into a squat with heavy weight. Interestingly, the Valsalva maneuver creates only minimal increases in heart rate and blood pressure.²

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: “DEAD BUG” EXERCISE

Try the Dead Bug movement to fully appreciate how abdominal bracing works. Here’s a video demonstration by strength coach Eric Cressey:

1. Lay flat on your back on the floor, with knees over your hips, and arms out in front of you.
2. From this position, inhale to reduce the normal spinal curvature in your back from laying on the floor – think about pushing your spine to the floor without losing your current position at the neck and upper back.
3. Next, simultaneously extend the opposite arm and leg fully out.
4. The key here is to appreciate what happens at the spine when this movement occurs – do you feel your back come up off the floor? If so, make sure to reposition yourself and imagine your belly button pushing into the floor by exhaling during the arm and leg movement.

How does practicing the Dead Bug help us during real weightlifting activities? By bringing awareness as to where our spine should naturally be during the lifting activity. When we apply this breathing technique to squatting and deadlifting, we can move more weight – and thus burn more calories and get stronger.

How To Breathe Properly To Relax & Recover

As it is a naturally relaxing action, meditation and yoga practitioners regularly practice breathing in an active manner in order to facilitate stress and regulate emotions. ³ Using the application of breathing to relax, we can look at different breathing exercises that are aimed at reducing stress, and relaxing different tight muscles.

If you take a second to examine our breathing, you may notice that you are “chest breathing” – or using different muscles that are better suited to assist in breathing, as opposed to the actual muscles, such as the diaphragm and surrounding muscles of the abdomen.

You can do quick test of this by laying down and placing one hand on your chest and one on your stomach respectively. Next, take a deep breath – which rises first? If it is the chest, you may be breathing inefficiently!

By learning to breathe through your stomach, you can now begin to relax effectively!⁴

At the same time, if you apply this method of breathing to when you are huffing and puffing after doing an intense exercise, you can amplify your recovery time. During high intensity exercise activities such as sprinting or a high rep exercise such as kettlebell swings or squats, we may exhibit hyperventilatory, or rapid type of breathing. To counteract this and increase recovery time during interval activities, breathe via the stomach and take big breaths to aid in recovery.

Considerations About Breathing During Weight Lifting

There are numerous positive benefits from owning our breathing patterns and the practical applications of it. On that same note, however, there are a few situations when these breathing techniques may not be recommended, such as if you have high blood pressure, holding your breath under exertion may increase it dramatically for a temporary time.⁵ Also, if not properly taught, anecdotal evidence shows that using these techniques may increase incidences of light-headedness. Technique may be properly taught in person with a fitness professional.

Conclusion

To recap, here are the benefits and considerations of breathing properly during weightlifting:

Benefits:

• Helps facilitate tonicity or tightness of muscles (think yoga)
• Helps to reduce recovery time between sets
• Increases possible weight used when appropriately used during squats, deadlifts, etc.

Considerations:

• Breathing while lifting heavy weights may require an advanced level of technique (valsalva maneuver)
• Feelings of light-headedness can occur when breathing improperly
• If you have high blood pressure, you should be careful not to hold in your breath too long as you lift weights.

I hope you can now appreciate what we can do by simply being aware of our breathing and learning how we can control it. Now we can use breathing to effectively move more weight within our gym experiences and hopefully relax while outside of the gym as well!

The post How To Breathe Properly During Weightlifting appeared first on BuiltLean.com.

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Lose the Excuses, Lose the Weight

Lose the Excuses, Lose the Weight

This week has been a doozy. On Monday I accidentally scheduled a meeting during my yoga class and Tuesday my daughter was sick and had to stay home from school, causing me to miss my training session with Tomery. Grumpy, tired, and overwhelmed are a few of the descriptions I could use to describe my mood this week. Plus, I feel super guilty for missing my exercise. 

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