Monthly Archives: November 2017

Cardio and Core Workout: Get It!

Happy Workout Wednesday, everyone, and welcome to one of our favorite workouts! Everyone has a different approach to training, and it may take a trial with every single one of those to find out what works for you, but one popular tactic is taking care of two important aspects at once. Combining core and cardio can be effective, since they’re extremely important to overall health, but can be painstakingly boring. It’s like vacuuming and scooping litter at the same time, in a way. 

Now, to be clear, core refers to exercises that will help strengthen muscles throughout your abdomen, on your front and back. That means, you’ll be working your abs, obliques, lower back, hips and even glutes since they all work closely with one another when you’re performing more complex, or demanding, exercises and activities. Cardio is a misunderstood and overused word that we’ll use today to refer to exercises that will help you elevate your heart rate significantly in an effort to either burn fat or increase your athletic performance by building endurance. I hope that explanation makes sense.

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Should You Try a Free Week at CorePower Yoga?

I started working from home just a few weeks ago and this meant a lot of changes to my lifestyle. I no longer had delicious (but often unhealthy) catered meals for lunch (and often leftovers for dinner) which means I now have to cook my own lunch. Although perhaps not as exciting, I was looking forward to this. I am so much healthier at home than when catered food is in front of me. I made plans to make and eat egg salad, tuna salad, and salmon cakes. My snacks are healthy too: carrots with peanut butter, protein bars, and smoothies. Workout plans had to change too: I no longer had a gym right in my workspace. Instead, I have to think of other options. I belong to a YMCA, but it’s not quite walking distance. Thus, I wanted to try a few places walking distance to my now-home office. I saw that the Hollywood CorePower Yoga offered a free week. Perfect! 

Fun story: the first CorePower class I went to was a hot yoga class. I thought, there must be some mistake–it didn’t say that on the schedule! Boy, was I in for a surprise. I don’t like saunas, I don’t like being in overly hot areas, it’s miserable to me. Thus, I have never wanted to go to a hot yoga class…ever. To me, yoga is more of a spiritual exercise than a physical one. However, I ended up in this hot yoga class and I wasn’t going to turn back now. Thankfully, I brought water. I entered the room and was hit in the face with sweltering heat and could hear the heaters turn on, pouring more torture into the room (why?!). By the end of the class, I had taken my shirt off and I was pouring sweat. It was definitely one of the sweatiest I had ever been. As the teacher asked us to sit lower into chair pose, I mentally threw insults at him in a very non-yogic way. However, my mentality shifted from workout class to survival class. If I treated it like I needed to survive through torturous heat, I could actually do it. I even found more focus through that and could drop deeper into poses. Who knew. Whew, I made it through my hot yoga class–and hopefully the last!

My reaction to accidentally going to hot yoga

My reaction to accidentally going to hot yoga

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Advanced Boxing Tips

Jose James Hyland is an amateur boxer with a college degree, multiple certifications and years of experience as a personal trainer. He has worked with dozens of paraplegic and quadriplegic through the AXIS Project, helping them find their own form of fitness through boxing, with him as their coach. For those of you that aren’t working with a coach, but have practiced enough to no longer be considered a beginner, here are some more advanced tips to improve your technique. Essentially, if you’re just starting and don’t have the knack for boxing yet, you shouldn’t burden yourself with these more advanced ideas.

(Also, please remember that an amateur boxer has more experience than an expert. By that, I mean, an expert in the gym with no fight experience, hasn’t competed at the level of an amateur boxer. It takes a lot of time and effort to become an amateur. Unless you’ve been registered, fought in the ring with a referee, and even seen your face on an official poster for the card of a legitimate organization, you are not an amateur boxer.)

You can check out more tips from Jose at Flexing Fitness but until then, enjoy!

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4 Tips on Treating a Hangnail Infection

One of the most annoying things one can experience when nails and cuticles are not properly taken care of is a hangnail. A hangnail is a small piece of skin that has been separated from the side of one’s fingernail or toe-nail. They can easily get torn off and could cause small bleeding wounds. If you are not careful, they can easily get infected. A hangnail can happen due to several causes such as nail biting, cold weather, frequent immersion in water, and more. It could get swollen and painful and sometimes, may emit pus. It is highly advised that you seek treatment as soon as possible when this happens. You can also do a lot of preventive measures such as moisturizing your hands and fingernails regularly.

Here are four tips for treating a hangnail infection.

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What is Giving Tuesday?

Was the holiday season always so hectic? I’m sure many of us remember when Black Friday didn’t even exist, although it might have been a few decades ago. Now, we’re even familiar with Small Business Saturday, and some of you might even know about Giving Tuesday. For those of you who don’t know about it, Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday that comes after Thanksgiving, after Black Friday and after Small Business Saturday. It is a day designed for us to take some action for someone else and give back to the greater good. We’re always trying to help, but sometimes we need help with the how.

My family would be considered middle, or even upper-middle class, so we were always used to having plenty of clothes to wear. As my brother and I tried to donate many of our old clothes to a charity, we had some issues with the approaches that certain non-profits were taking. Large executive salaries, questionable budgets, an overall lack of transparency and a weak personal connection with the community drew us away from many of the bigger name charities. Who knew that it would be so hard to give something away for free and feel good about it?

While we ended up collecting bags of clothes, gathering a group of a dozen friends, taking them all onto the New York City Subway on one of the coldest winter days I can remember, and physically handing them to homeless individuals throughout the Bronx and Manhattan, we realize that opportunity may not be available to everyone. Whether it is a lack of extra clothes, the fact that you live far away from a city, or some other reason, it can sometimes seem challenging to find a good cause. Fortunately, there are actually people and organizations, everywhere, that are in need or your help.

Here are some of our reasons why we like to give and how we go about doing it. Some are very time-consuming and others are extremely easy, but all of them are rewarding. Feel free to add any of your suggestions in the comment section below; we’d love to hear about causes that are near and dear to your hearts.

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3 Thyroid Problems That You Should Be Aware Of

The thyroid gland is a small butterfly-shaped organ that’s part of the endocrine system. It’s responsible for releasing essential hormones that regulate our body’s metabolism. Several body functions are reliant on the hormones that the thyroid gland produces. This includes our body weight, breathing, heart rate, body temperature and more.

There’s no denying the importance of the thyroid gland in the overall health of our bodies. It’s important to properly take care of it, and be aware of the many problems it could face such as cretinism, goiter, and Grave’s disease.

This article will discuss those 3 thyroid problems so we can be aware of it, as well their corresponding diagnosis and treatment. Read on to learn more.

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Thor: Ragnarok Review

On our drive up to Idyllwild, we were hoping that we’d run into a convenient situation where we’d be able to see the new Thor: Ragnarok in theaters, and we were fortunate! I did, however, waste a significant amount of time trying to explain what I thought would be the back story to this film. The MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is quickly growing and for anyone who doesn’t know the comics or watch the movies many times, you can get lost in the timeline. I had to remind Fit that Thor and Hulk were not in Civil War, so these two movies were most likely taking place at the same time and leading towards The Avengers: Infinity War, along with Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and who knows what else.

Thor: Ragnarok

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LA’s Greatest Escapes: Idyllwild, CA

We wouldn’t normally walk out of a town with brochures and maps, but we couldn’t help ourselves this time around. We’re not really into hanging onto this and that; most of our souvenirs are gifts. When we left Hawaii just a few weeks ago, our bags were just as heavy as when we first arrived, although the amazing experiences don’t weigh anything.

Idyllwild map

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