Warming And Cooling Off helps Muscles-Heart rhythm- streching-bending-excercises

WARMING UP AND COOLING OFF

Any time you are going to work out hard-when you have reached the stage where that is advisable as well as appealing to you-it is important warm up gradually first. Light warm-up-easy stretching, bending, I wishing, slow running in place-limbers up the muscles, prepares the heart and lung for exertion, and tunes up the nervous system. 

There is some controversy among athletic coaches as to whether warming up ever actually improves athletic performance, but there is evidence that it is valuable as a safety measure, a means of reducing risk of injury. As important as warming up at the beginning of a hard workout is tapering off properly afterward. During active exercising, the heart pumps blood out faster to keep the muscles supplied. And the muscles, HI they contract, produce a kind of pumping action on the veins that helps return blood to the heart and lungs.

 If you stop exercising suddenly, the heart will continue for a while to pump extra blood but the muscles, especially those in the legs, no longer dive, no longer squeeze on the veins. As a result, some pooling of blood may occur in the muscles, causing a temporary shortage elsewhere in the body, making you feel faint. Also, it appears that cramps and stiff- ness are less likely to develop if you taper off. To taper off, just keep moving about, in relaxed fashion. Instead of sitting down, walk about, lazily bend and stretch.

A few minutes of this will suffice. Do not rush into a hot tub or shower immediately after a workout or even after tapering off. Give yourself another 5 to 10 minutes to cool off. You need this time to radiate some of the heat you have worked up. If you jump right into a tub or shower, your body temperature will be above normal and the hot water will impede heat dissipation, so you will come out of the bath still sweating. 

Excercises and blood circulation, Physical activity Vs Excercises

The higher oxygen content of the blood will aid muscle nutrition. As circulation improves in both quality and quantity throughout the body, the total effect is admirable: Muscles are strengthened; so is the whole supporting system. It appears, too, that there may be a double defect on the heart itself: It becomes more efficient in its pumping not only during activity but at other times as well, thus reducing the strain on it at all times; in addition, it appears that activity which builds endurance also stimulates the development of new and extra blood vessel pathways to feed the heart muscle. 

Thus, if there should be trouble in the future, if a coronary artery should become choked by atherosclerosis and a heart attack occurs, that attack is likely to be less severe because of the extra circulation available. Because of the extra circulation, much less damage to the heart muscle is likely to occur, and chances of survival are greatly increased. The best activities for exercising the heart and lungs and for building endurance are those that are continuous in nature-brisk walking, jogging, swimming, for example. The effectiveness of walking is not fully appreciated by most people. It brings many muscles into play.

 It is a continuous activity. It lends itself to putting a healthy progressive load on the body. Start with a relatively easy mile walk. Gradually lengthen the walk and increase the pace. Keep doing this until, for example, you are up to a three-mile walk as fast as you can get your legs to carry you, and you are getting great benefits every step of the way. Jogging, too, has its merits, as a simple and practical aid in developing both muscular strength and endurance. It is inexpensive, requires no special skill, can be done outdoors and, in inclement weather, indoors.

Start with a jog that is only a little faster than a brisk walk. Jog until you begin to puff. Then walk. Then jog again. Your body should be upright, not bent forward. Keep the buttocks in, not protruding; the back straight, not arched; bend the elbows; breathe through nose and mouth. The objective is to start at a comfortable level and gradually exert you more and more. At first, you may jog for 50 yards, walk for 50 yards keep alternating, and cover about a mile. As you keep working till, you will find you can increase the distance, jog more and walk less.

Even perhaps interspersing some sprints, running as fast as for 50 yards, and then dropping back to a jog or walk. Over a period !11(1l1ths, you may progress until you can cover as much as three miles at a good pace, walking very little of the time. Be sure you obtain your doctor's approval before you start jogging as an exercise. 

Exercises time and play, Basic principles of excercises

Exercise should become part of your daily routine. That means setting aside 30 minutes to an hour a day about five times a week. The daily activity period, or periods, should be considered as being as essential a part of your life as eating, sleeping, bathing, and dressing. Pick a time, or times, most suitable for you. If it is convenient for you to carry out much or all of your activity in one period each day, fine; divided periods of activity can also serve the purpose. Some people, early starters, like to exercise before breakfast. For others, this is impossible. Many men find it convenient to exercise late in the afternoon or before lunch. Never perform any exercise sooner than one hour after a meal.

 GADGETS Keep equipment to a minimum It's a good idea to avoid complicated apparatus and overreliance on weights, pulleys, and other devices.

BASIC PRINCIPLES Whatever program of activity you propose to engage in, check with your physician to be certain it is suitable for you. And your physician may.

Have valuable suggestions for activities particularly suited to you. Start slowly. Rush in without preparation and lift 200 pounds over your head-or even try to--and it may be your last act on earth. Take on a routine of mild setting-up exercises and you may feel a bit better, but this is far short of what you can get out of well-planned activity. What is needed is a program that follows certain key principles. Tolerance is one. There should be no sudden demand on your body or burst of tremendous effort.

Excessive straining beyond the level your body is ready for accomplishes nothing and may produce injury. Overload is another. Easy workouts continued endlessly day after day value but it is limited value. You have to push yourself just easily, then gradually begin to work a little harder, working 8 I Building General Health as Preventive Therapy just slightly beyond the first feeling of tiredness, but still within your limits of tolerance. 

Your body has more capacity than it is called upon to use. Give it a bit more load than usual and it can handle it. Progressively, it will become able to handle more. Progression is another important principle. As you maintain' a regular schedule of exercise and your strength and endurance grow, your activities will become easier for you. Continue them at the same level and you will maintain the improvement. To go beyond, you can make the work- outs progressively more strenuous, if your physician indicates this is desirable, until you arrive at a level of fitness you want to achieve. 

WHAT CHOLESTEROL DOES ON OUR BODY? IS THERE GOOD CHOLESTROL

ABOUT CHOLESTEROL

Cholesterol has become a household word because of evidence indicating that excesses of it in the blood may play a part in producing coronary atherosclerosis, the narrowing of the coronary arteries which may lead to heart attacks. Cholesterol is present as such in some foods. It is also produced by the body. Actually, the soft, waxy, yellowish substance is an essential part of every body cell. It plays a basic role in the passage of substances through cell walls. 

One example of how cholesterol does this is readily observable: when you put your hand into a basin of water, little of the water soaks into the skin. The reason: cholesterol in the outer layer of skin cells makes the skin impermeable to water.

Since the material is essential, the body is equipped to produce a supply as well as use what comes in, ready-built, in food. The liver can make cholesterol from molecules of acetyl coenzyme A, a chemical derived from fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. It is not cholesterol per se but an excess of it in the blood which is the danger factor. 

And while an excess can be traced to some extent to a diet heavy in foods rich in cholesterol, a high-fat diet may raise blood cholesterol levels abnormally. This appears to be due to increased deposits of fat in the liver, providing an increased source of acetyl coenzyme A for liver manufacture of cholesterol.

Moreover, it is the nature of the fat in the diet that is significant. Some types of fat, known as saturated, increase blood cholesterol levels. Others, called unsaturated and polyunsaturated, do not-and, in fact, tend to slightly decrease cholesterol levels. The difference between saturated and unsaturated, from a chemist's viewpoint, is a matter of hydro-gen atoms: saturated fats are saturated with, or full of, hydrogen atoms; unsaturated fats have room for more hydrogen atoms. 

In everyday terms, the primary saturated fats are milk fat, meat fat, coconut oil, and cocoa fat.

 Milk fat includes the fat in butter, most cheeses, and ice cream as well as whole milk. Meat fat means primarily the fat of beef, pork, and lamb; veal has less fat, and chicken and turkey are low in fat and the fat they contain is less saturated. Polyunsaturated fats are the liquid vegetable oils such as safflower, soybean, corn, and cottonseed, the Food You Eat.