Daily Health Workouts

Protect Your Shoulders

09:06

Strengthen your rotator cuffs with this lying rotation.

What To Do: Three sets of 12 to 15 reps.

Target Muscles: infraspinatus, teres minor, posterior deltoid

Set Up: Lie on your right side with a light dumbbell in your left hand, upper arm tight to your side with your hand pointing toward the ground, elbow bent at 90 degrees [A].

Action: Keeping contact between your body and your upper arm, slowly rotate your shoulder until your forearm is perpendicular to the ground [B]. Maintain a 90-degree angle in your elbow as you move. Slowly lower and return to the start. Repeat, and when your set is finished, lie on your left side and repeat on your opposite shoulder.

health tips

Step Up Your Cardio

09:04

Escalate your calorie burn with this fat-torching stair workout.

Psst! There’s a piece of cardio equipment in your house you could be using right now to burn up to 800 calories an hour. Hint: It’s not the stationary bike you’re hanging clothes on in the basement. It’s your staircase.

“Stairs are an often-overlooked but hugely valuable addition to any bodyweight workout,” says Jen Sinkler, a certified trainer in Minneapolis. Stairs can help train your posterior chain, sculpting your hamstrings and glutes like nobody’s business. And because you use these large muscles to propel your bodyweight upward against gravity while climbing stairs, they burn mega-calories and are one of the most effective tools for leaning out your lower half.

This fun and intense workout targets your lower body and core and challenges your coordination. After a 10- to 15-minute warm-up combining light cardio with dynamic stretching, go through the routine three times for a 25-minute session. Do each exercise as a sprint, going as hard and as fast as you can from the bottom to the top, then jog or walk back down and rest at the bottom for the designated time. Note: As you progress through your sets, your rest time increases so you can power up again with more gusto. Finish up with a 10- to 15-minute cool-down, then stretch and you’re done. There, now you’re one step closer to optimal fitness!

body workout

4 Ways Exercise Makes Your Health Better

09:02

We know the power of exercise: it makes us feel good, it makes us strong and it can even lower our risk of breast cancer. And this week, exercise got more health cred—not once, but four times—from the scientific community. Here are four more reasons why all that training is doing more for you than giving you the confidence to rock a bikini.

Endurance training makes nerves fit

Sure, your muscles benefit from cardio sessions that last 30 minutes or more, but research published in the journal Nature Communications last week found that it also improves nerve connections in those muscles. What does that mean for you? It could prevent muscle-wasting diseases, such as ALS.

Aerobic exercise could make your brain bigger…

Your cardio workouts could be boosting the area of your brain that is responsible for keeping your memories intact, according to a small study published today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

…And keep you thinking clearly for 20 years

Think of your running and cardio class habit in your 20s as clear thinking insurance in your 40s and 50s, suggests findings published last week in the journal Neurology. Researchers had 2,747 healthy people who were around 25 years old run on a treadmill for 10 minutes and then take a cognitive test. Twenty years later, the study participants did it again. Those whose treadmill run decreased in

health tips

Faster Workouts, Faster Results

09:01

Try these four strategies to get more from your high-intensity workout.

A low-carb diet can help you lose weight quickly, but one downfall is its ability to drain your body of metabolism-revving muscle. Luckily, new research reveals that there is something you can do to combat this side effect.

A new study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that high-intensity training reduces the muscle loss usually related to a calorie- and carb-reduced diet. Researchers found that four-minute intervals of intense exercise (10 in total, with several minutes of rest between) helped maintain lean muscle – allowing the study’s subjects to hang on to more of their muscle than those who were only on a diet. Learn these key points before tackling your own high-intensity routine:

Go at your own pace. High-intensity to you may not be high-intensity to your neighbor. Listen to your body – are you barely able to get out a few words at a time due to heavy breathing? You are likely reaching your maximum exertion level. Start with small intervals: Going all-out for four minutes at a time is tough for even the strongest athlete. Start with 20-second intervals and work your way up from there.
Don’t overdo it. The best part about high-intensity training is dramatically reducing your exercise time. But you need to allot yourself adequate rest periods. The participants in this study rested for up to three minutes after every four minutes of work. The good news: As you get stronger you will be able to recover quicker, shortening rest time between sets.

body workout

The Ultimate Smith-Machine Guide

09:00

You can get a total-body workout on a single machine.

Whether you’re short on time or the gym is packed, you can still get a fantastic total-body workout with one single piece of equipment: the Smith machine.

The Smith machine is basically a barbell on a track housed inside a squat rack. It has a predictable trajectory that goes straight up and down, which makes it great for training solo. The barbell has a hook on either side, and a simple twist of the wrist spins the bar, locking it onto any of several notches along the outside of the track. This means you can set the bar at any starting height, allowing you to transition easily from standing and lying to sitting and more. Smith machines also have safety stops that can be set to any height along the machine, preventing the barbell from descending farther, thereby protecting you from injury and acting as a virtual training partner.

body workout

Why Your Desk Job is Making You Fat

08:55

Stuck in a swivel chair from nine to five? New research suggests it's time to get up and move.

Do you sit in front of a computer all day at work? According to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, long periods of inactivity are now being linked to serious health conditions, even in people who regularly exercise.

The study, conducted in Australia, showed that a sedentary lifestyle – described as sitting for prolonged periods of time during waking hours, such as desk work, long-distance drives or extended leisure time – could have serious health effects, particularly in women. These adverse effects include a higher propensity for breast cancer, weight gain and metabolic syndrome, which could lead to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

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Protect Your Shoulders

Strengthen your rotator cuffs with this lying rotation.

Step Up Your Cardio

Escalate your calorie burn with this fat-torching stair workout.

4 Ways Exercise Makes Your Health Better

Endurance training makes nerves fit

Aerobic exercise could make your brain bigger…

…And keep you thinking clearly for 20 years

Faster Workouts, Faster Results

Try these four strategies to get more from your high-intensity workout.

The Ultimate Smith-Machine Guide

You can get a total-body workout on a single machine.

Why Your Desk Job is Making You Fat

Stuck in a swivel chair from nine to five? New research suggests it's time to get up and move.

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