Tag Archives: Weight Training

Fitness Accessories to Complement Your Daily Activities

Every day if we notice our daily activities, some of us may barely going for workout sessions to keep ourselves healthy. We can do the exercises every week, but there is some solution for those who think that is not enough.

Daily activity can be different for anyone, even at lockdown terms. We could choose to go out for some fresh air or stay at home, but for those who are often going to the gym for exercise, this can be a problem.

On the weekend, we have more leisure than on weekdays. The picture below gives us a sample of how a lot of people are conducting exercises on Car Free Day during the weekend.

Workout on Weekend
People exercises at Car Free Day

To keep ourselves healthy, we do not need to go on fitness every day, but we can wear some accessories to keep ourselves trained at all times. Though it may look weird at the office, at least it can compensate for our daily training.

Some accessories are designed to complement our training, but only a few accessories are suitable for daily life. To break it down, two accessories are best to fit in your daily life.

Ankle Weights

Ankle Weights

Ankle Weights is a fitness accessory that allows us to build up some muscles on our legs. When we try it for the first time, we will feel like the walk we normally used to handle at a normal pace becomes heavier than before.

You can pair it with Arm / Wrist Weights, practically if you want to train multiple sections of muscles at once (From Legs to Arms). But we have to take note that the challenges will be doubled when doing it.

A good reference is from Hajime No Ippo, where Sendo trains his legs gradually by adding weight as soon as he gets used to the Ankle Weights training. At first, he got tired by just walking around, but he gradually increases the weight on the ankle weights once he gets used to it.

Sendo advises for Ankle Weights – Hajime No Ippo Chapter 246

As Sendo’s statement, it is better to do this exercise regularly and gradually increase the weight. We may not see the result of the training until we can feel the difference between equipping ankle weights initially and once we add more weights.

Recommendations

Ankle Weights is best used to do daily activities since it was others may not notice it when you wear it, and the length of your pants, such as jeans, was enough to cover it.

Nordic Lifting publishes the recommendations about using Ankle Weights, but the writer wants to expand it further, so we can wear it once we understand how it works.

Anyone can wear it during their daily activities, regardless of where we are. The writer’s advice is to maintain safety when using it, especially if you are doing some important things such as driving. If the legs become too tired to handle, you need some rest and took off the weight to ease it down.

Arm / Wrist Weights

Arm / Wrist Weight
Arm / Wrist Weight

Arm Weights is a fitness accessory suited for any user that wants to train their arm strength, such as biceps and triceps. Unlike the Ankle Weights, the Arm / Wrist Weights are exposed, practically if we did not wear the long sleeve suit.

We can wear it anywhere they like, and Arm / Wrist Weights can be paired with Ankle Weights. However, we must be careful since there are many Arm and Wrist Weights types, and each of them has a different weight distribution. Arm Weights can cover your hand to the wrist, while Wrist Weights focuses on your wrist.

Recommendations

Arm / Wrist Weights are best used if you want to train when doing some job that makes them unable to do an exercise that can train your muscles. Since leg muscles are easier to train than arm muscles, it is best to gradually train your arm.

To make sure you can pick any brand that can suit your taste, it is best to wear arm weights that weigh up to 2 lb or 1kg instead of above it. That’s because our arm is more vulnerable to tiredness than the legs, practically due to gravity as a prime example. While we can take a rest or sit down, use this chance to take off the Arm / Wrist Weight to loosen up some muscles and relax.

Recommended Brand

Some of the products, such as Exercise Fitness, provides an accessory that can help you to train their arms and legs. You can find the exercise Fitness website here:
https://www.exercise.co.uk/fitness-accessories

While some opt to pick a fixed weight, the writer recommends a weight that can increase or decrease according to user needs. Sendo from Hajime No Ippo already gives an example about adding weight gradually, as it will give us the difference between wearing the ankle weights and not wearing them in the long-term.

Getting flexible Arm / Wrist Weights and Ankle Weights can be beneficial in the long-term training instead of the fixed weight. We may also ask the store whether they sell the equipment to adjust the weight they feel fit when they want to. Another thing to notice is the price itself, which can be more worth than what we can expect.

Another is to get an accessory that can fit both the Wrist and Ankle, although it will be difficult to acquire due to equipment complexity. The size of your wrist and ankle could be different.

Why the writer pick these two accessories? That’s because these two are the best accessories suited for our daily life. The benefit is we can go mobile with these weights equipped as we can just travel with these accessories equipped. The con side is if we took it off somewhere, we may realize that we lost something when we get back home.

Furthermore, if you don’t like going to the gym, these two fitness accessories can help compensate for your training.

Are Your Over 55? How Being More Active and Incorporating the “Eat the Rainbow” Philosophy into Your Diet will Help Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease and Help You Become a Healthier Version of Yourself

Are Your Over 55? How Being More Active and Incorporating the “Eat the Rainbow” Philosophy into Your Diet will Help Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease and Help You Become a Healthier Version of Yourself

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a significant cause of death in the UK and worldwide. Statistics show that around 7.6 million people living with heart disease in the UK: 4 million men and 3.6 million women. Getting older increases your risk of heart disease, with over 65s significantly more at risk of suffering from a heart attack stroke or develop CHD in comparison with younger people. Very often, the risk factors that play in causing heart and circulatory conditions are spoken about. There are some risk factors you can control, and some you can’t. However, being more active and eating healthily can reduce the risk of heart disease. 

Be More Active and Workout!

Firstly, being more active and working out will reduce your risk of heart disease. It has been proven that regular exercise enables your heart and blood circulatory system to become more efficient, lowering your cholesterol level and maintain a healthy blood pressure level. The NHS recommend that you aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity every week; equating to 30 minutes a day for at least 5 days a week. However, if you’ve been inactive for a while, we recommend that you ease your way back into it, and gradually build up your activity to reach recommended levels. After all slow progress is still progress! 

Here are Some Workouts That You Can Try

1.  Weight Training Workouts

It has been proven that through the proper use of weight training equipment, e.g. dumbbells and barbells can help you strengthen your heart and improve circulation. Weight training increases lean muscle mass, and gives your cardiovascular system places to send the blood being pumped. Resulting in less pressure on your arteries, which helps to reduce the chances of heart-related problems. 

Click here to check out top 10 dumbbell weight lifting exercising that you can do from the comfort of your own home or in the gym. If you don’t have a pair of dumbbells, don’t worry we’ve got your back! Click here to visit our shop section and purchase. 

2.  High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

HIIT is also great way to improve and develop aerobic fitness. These are often short exercise routines often lasting between 15-20 minutes but have numerous health benefits. As they are quick and convenient they are perfect for over 55s that may not have time to visit the gym for hours a day. Why not try the video below? This is from TC60 – an award winning class and trainer Luke Wilson, as seen in Mens Health 2019. It is a great beginner HIIT workout that anyone can do at home.

There are many other workouts you can do to raise your activity levels, click on the following links for more ideas.

Incorporating the “Eat the Rainbow” Philosophy into Your Diet

Another way you can become a healthier you and reduce your risk of CHD is through incorporating the “eat the rainbow” philosophy through eating a variety of nutrient-rich, plant-based foods. Through the visualisation of the rainbow as you eat throughout the week, this will help you to incorporate a range of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants into your diet. The colours that we see in our fruits, vegetables, and other foods, actually represent phytonutrients – essentially the nutrients that help prevent disease and keep your body working properly. How each colours of the different foods we consume can reduce the risk of developing heart disease as well as the numerous health benefits will be mentioned below.

Continue reading Are Your Over 55? How Being More Active and Incorporating the “Eat the Rainbow” Philosophy into Your Diet will Help Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease and Help You Become a Healthier Version of Yourself