Category: Health & Beauty

The rain is pelting down, hail slices through the night air like bullets, and the cracks of thunder and flashes of lightening set the backdrop for any great horror movie. The sounds of your footfalls are lost in the chaos, but the miles ticked off aren’t done on the slick pavement, but rather, in an indoor haven on the treadmill.
The treadmill can be an excellent training tool for runners when weather conditions are uninviting or downright dangerous, or when running outside isn’t an option. Not to be scoffed at by “running purists,” there are times and places when a treadmill is a better bet:
• Safety: When it is too dark out to safely navigate your route, or when the weather has left the terrain iced over or slick enough to invite a fall and possible injury.
• Workout Quality: If the conditions outside don’t allow you to run safely at a faster pace, you can turn to the treadmill to make sure you’re able to hit the proper level of exertion.
• Hills and Incline Training: If you don’t have access to a steep hill or an incline that is long enough, you can create your own using the grade on a treadmill.
• Injury Prevention: The belt of the treadmill is more forgiving than the hard pavement; running on a treadmill reduces impact and is easier on the body. This can be especially important for those coming back from an injury.
INDOOR VERSUS OUTDOOR RUNNING: THE DIFFERENCES
While there are treadmill benefits to boast of, there are still key differences runners need to be aware of between indoor and outdoor running.

Hamstrings: Because a machine powers the treadmill belt, the mechanics of your running stride differ when you run outside. When running on the treadmill, you use your quads to push off. But, unlike outdoor running, where you would typically rely on your hamstrings to finish the stride cycle and lift your leg behind you, the propulsion of the belt does much of that work for you. This means your hamstrings aren’t firing as much and don’t get worked running inside as they would outside. The extra effort demanded of your quads is also a factor to keep in mind.

Outside of a potential fall due to unsteady outdoor footing, landing wrong on your foot can cause strains and other injuries. If you’ve been doing much of your running on a treadmill, your body is used to a nearly even and constant stride. Should you run outside, your risk of an injury from even a minor misstep would be higher because the small muscles, tendons and ligaments of your ankle haven’t been forced to get used to a variety of landings. (i.e.: sharp turns, curbs, uneven pavement, trails, etc.)
Wind Resistance: Even in ideal outdoor conditions you run against air resistance; you don’t get inside, so the paces you run on a treadmill are a bit easier than they would be outside. To negate this, you can put the treadmill incline up to 1.5 percent to account for lost wind resistance and make the paces comparable to those run outdoors.
With these key elements in mind, you can adapt your training as need be. If you’re doing much of your running indoors, make sure to supplement with extra hamstring-strengthening exercises.
To safeguard your ankles, work on balance and mobility drills such as balancing on one leg on a Bosu ball or pillow. After you can hold there, test your balance further by moving your arms or reaching down with your opposite arm towards the foot you are balancing on. This will build strength in the ankle area.
HOW TO TRANSITION BETWEEN INDOOR AND OUTDOOR RUNNING
If you have been doing nearly all of your training indoors, you need to be especially cautious as you begin to move back outside. You need to transition gradually in order to avoid a resulting injury. So start with one or two of your easy, shorter runs per week outside and build from there; you can also split runs ,some miles can be completed on the treadmill and the rest outside.
Of course it works both ways: If you’re moving from all outdoor running to more treadmill running, rely on the gradual transition method.
RESEARCHED BY : KÁTIA C. ROWLANDS – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256•

Our upright posture is largely determined by the balance of muscles known as flexors and extensors. A flexor is a muscle that draws two parts of the body closer to one another. Lifting your knee up to the chest is flexing the leg. When you walk and that same leg moves behind you that is extension.
We can look at the front of the body being the flexors. Muscles that fall into the category are the quadriceps (not mainly a flexor but involved in the action), the psoas, the rectus abdominus (sit ups muscle). The back of the body are the extensors- gluteus maximus, hamstrings, erector spinea (spinal muscles that run up the back). This doesn’t mean that flexors can’t extend—they can and do. It is just that they have a primary purpose which is what we are looking in this post.
In the picture on the left we see a body that lives in the balance of flexors and extensors. The front of the body is matched in length by the back of the body. The lower belly and the lower back are equally long. You can see the same relationship in the legs—the hamstrings and quads live in harmony balancing each other nicely.
When we move to the picture on the right things get ugly. Not only do we have a body with poor posture but the relationship between the flexors and extensors has been thrown completely out of balance. Because of the nature of this bad posture, which is a very common pattern that I see in an overwhelming number of my clients, the flexors at the front of the body have become distended and are actually living in a state of extension. When the thigh push forward of the pelvis, the quads become over stretched (and they tighten full of tension as well), the rectus abdominis become overly long allowing the rib cage to lift too much in the front. At the back we have chronically shortened hamstrings as well as erector spinea. When these spinal muscles lose length and tone the head loses all of the support from the trunk.

We have basically turned out flexors into extensors and vice versa. The balance of the flexors and extensors is key to achieving good posture and movement patterns. The essence of my work is to try and move people from being the picture on the right and get them to turn themselves into the picture on the left.

Researched By : Kátia C. Rowlands – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256•

Have you thought much about the positions in which you sleep? Considering that many of us spend close to a third of our lives between the sheets, if might be worth our while to contemplate how sleeping arrangements might hurt or help us.
It is pretty easy to know if the way you sleep is bothering you. How do you feel when you get out of bed in the morning? Some people jump out of bed ready to run a marathon while others find themselves bent over the bathroom sink, holding on for dear life, as teeth get brushed. Maybe you fall somewhere between those two extremes.
Let’s start with a position that no one should sleep in under any circumstance:

1. On the stomach
If there’s a winner in the worst sleep position contest, it’s stomach sleeping without a doubt.
If you sleep on your belly, your lower back is compressed all night long, and your head and neck are invariably twisting to one or the other side in a fairly extreme manner.
While changing sleep habits might not be the easiest thing in the world, we are a highly adaptable species capable of doing pretty much anything we want, though sometimes extreme measures are called for.

Another sleep position to be avoided is:
2. On the side with one leg hiked up higher than the other
This position moves us toward stomach sleeping but also twists and torques the pelvis for as long as you maintain the shape. People who adopt this pattern often do so to accommodate tight muscles, so changing this pattern can benefit you in terms of the quality of sleep and balance of your muscles.
Some people need to tie their legs together in order to make this change. You can use a bathrobe belt or something soft, and there’s no need to tie the strap too tight, but as long as the legs can’t separate you will be doing your body a wonderful service.

A great way to sleep for most people is:
3. On the back

Sleeping on the back is an excellent option with three important caveats.
If you sleep on your back, you probably don’t want to use a pillow, because this will force your head up at an unnatural angle.
Both legs should be straight. There’s a tendency for one knee to slide up and out. This should be avoided, as it can twist the pelvis.
Also, if you’re someone with very open hips whose legs flop completely open while lying in a supine position, you can be stressing the hip joints with too much rotation.
Propping up the outer calves or belting the shins is an option if you have open hips as described and don’t want to change your position away from sleeping on your back.
But the winner of the best sleep position for the long term health of your back and body is:

4. On your side, with the legs together
Sleeping on your side with the legs together and the knees aligned is a fine way to serve the needs of your body for sleep. The least amount of stress is placed upon the body when sleeping this way. Your pelvis is well situated, and this variation on the fetal position is both calming and comforting for your nervous system. Placing a pillow between the legs is an excellent complement to this position.
Make your pillow is the right thickness between your ear and your mattress so that both sides of the neck are evenly extended. This way, you’re setting yourself up for a comfortable and sound night’s sleep.
The quality of your sleep shouldn’t be disregarded in the search for a healthier and more fruitful life. The rest we get overnight impacts the energy of our waking hours in ways that are often underestimated. Good sleep positioning goes hand in hand with good sleep efficiency and fruitful waking hours.

Researched By : Kátia C. Rowlands – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256•

Like diets, exercise trends come and go. From Zumba classes to CrossFit, it seems like there are endless types workouts tailored for different levels of physical ability. But are these workouts really helping you get healthy or are they just all hype?  And which kind is the best for overall health?
When it comes to the best form of exercise, experts say good old-fashion walking is the best.
“Walking is a superfood. It’s the defining movement of a human,”says Katy Bowman, a biomechanist based in Ventura, California. “It’s a lot easier to get movement than it is to get exercise.”
While other forms of exercise build endurance and burn fat, these health benefits mean nothing if people are sedentary before and after a workout.
“Actively sedentary is a new category of people who are fit for one hour but sitting around the rest of the day,” Bowman says. “You can’t offset 10 hours of stillness with one hour of exercise.”
Instead, Bowman suggests in her book, Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement, that walking is type of movement the body needs and therefore, is the best form of exercise for cardiovascular heath and overall wellness.
A study last year by the University of Texas School of Public Health found that many people who view themselves as “active” fall into the actively sedentary category in reality. Researchers surveyed 218 marathoners and half marathoners to collect data about their training and sitting times. Researches found a median training time of 6.5 hours each week, compared to the eight to 10.75 hours of total sitting time.
There is a belief that people should push themselves to the point of exhaustion during a workout to reap healthy benefits, but all that is needed is about 7,500 steps each day. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, people should get about 150 minutes of physical activity each week.
A small study published in Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise  found that for every hour that is spent sitting, five-minutes of walking is enough to reverse harmful effects caused to arteries in the legs.
However, walking does have it downsides. Running is preferred for bone health and weight lighting is preferred for strength training. Still, walking increases circulation and supplies more blood and oxygen to the muscles, organs and even the brain. Walking regularly has been linked to improved memory and increased growth of new neurons. It also wards off the weakening of brain tissue associated with aging.

What is the difference between taking a hike and taking a walk?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines hiking as a long walk for pleasure but when does a walk become a hike? Is it walking on a path in the woods or wearing special shoes or carrying a backpack? Is it spending nights out in the deep wilderness with only a thin piece of nylon separating you from the elements? Not necessarily. How can we define hiking and walking so that we know when we’re doing it?
So let’s consider defining hiking by geographic area. If a hike is a walk in the woods, what is a walk in the desert or the plains? Some intrepid souls have pushed the boundaries of the traditional definition with urban hiking. Let go of the definition as walking in the woods, and a new possibilities open up.
So we still haven’t really defined the difference between taking a hike and taking a walk. Ask a hiker what he or she thinks the definition is and you’ll get a different answer. One will tell you that hiking through the dense forests is the true definition while another will say it’s the rugged paths . One thing that all hikers will have in common is that look of yearning and peace when they talk about their hikes. They’ll tell you about testing their bodies’ limits and the spiritual awakenings that they’ve had. They’ll groan fondly about bug-filled, rain-soaked hikes. They’ll smile when they tell you about the people that they’ve met and the bonds they’ve strengthened with friends and family.
So what is the meaning of taking a walk? According to the American Volksport Association, walks can be taken nearly anywhere but most are in towns, along roads or on short trails. A walk doesn’t involve camping overnight or much equipment beyond comfortable shoes and a water bottle. But the organization will tell you that a walk can be anything from a short stroll down the street to 10Ks on a trail. A walk can be strenuous and include challenging terrain.
So it seems that hiking and walking often are the same thing, and the best outdoors people have difficulty in drawing the line of when a walk becomes a hike. John Muir, the famous naturalist and hiker, didn’t worry about the difference when he said, “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

Researched By : Kátia C. Rowlands – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256•

Not everybody has a taste for water, but we all need it to ensure that our bodies continue functioning properly. If you want to drink more water, but aren’t crazy about the taste (or lack thereof), here are some tips that can make it more enjoyable:

1. Add fresh fruit. Citrus fruits, such as lemons, limes, and oranges, are classic water enhancers, but other fruit flavors might also tempt your taste buds. Try crushing fresh raspberries or watermelon into your water, or adding strawberry slices. Cucumber and fresh mint are refreshing flavors as well — especially in summer.

2. Use juice. Any fruit juice can be a good base flavor for water, but tart juices, like cranberry, pomegranate, grape, and apple, are especially delicious. Go for juices that are all natural, with no added sugars. And remember: Fruits and their juices don’t just taste good — they contain vitamins and antioxidants that can benefit your health too.

3. Make it bubbly. Many people prefer sparkling to still water. If plain old water isn’t inspiring to you, try a naturally effervescent mineral water — which will give you the added benefit of minerals. Or try bubbly seltzer, a carbonated water. You can add fresh fruit or natural juice flavors to your seltzer, as suggested above, or look for naturally flavored seltzers at your local market. If you become a seltzer devotee, you might want to consider getting a seltzer maker for your home.

4. Get creative with ice. Some say that ice water tastes better than water served at room temperature. If that’s so, flavored ice cubes may make an even better drink. Use some of the flavoring suggestions above and start experimenting with fresh fruit, mint, or cucumber ice cubes. Simply chop your additive of choice, add it to your ice cube tray along with water, then freeze. You may also consider juice, tea, or coffee cubes. If you want to be more creative, use ice cube trays that come in fun shapes, like stars, circles, or even fish.

5. Drink tea. Herbal, fruit, green, white, and red teas are generally considered to be better for you than black teas (or coffee, for that matter) because they contain little to no caffeine. And there are countless flavors of these teas to choose from. Start with the selection at your local market or health food store. If you’re interested in pursuing more exotic flavors and sophisticated teas, start researching the vast array of specialty teas that come from all parts of the globe.

6. Try bouillons, broths, and consommés. If your palate leans toward the savory, you may pass on tea and start sipping one of these hot and savory liquids instead. Choose low-fat and low-sodium versions for maximum health benefits. Because soup is water-based, a cup of hot soup will count toward your daily fluid consumption.

7. Add fast flavor. If you’re looking for a quick-and-easy flavor booster, you might also consider sugar-free drink mixes, and flavor cartridges that can be used with your faucet filter system.

Researched By : Kátia C. Rowlands – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256•

Cardio training has really been taking a beating recently. In the strength-training world, it’s become trendy and fashionable to make a name for yourself by suggesting that no one ever do any form of cardio training ever again or all of your muscle mass will disappear. Why are we listening to people who can squat 600 pounds with a big gut and can barely move well?
Like many topics in fitness, the accepted view on what you “should” do swings from one ridiculous extreme to the other.
There is no question that the previously dominant view that people have to do long cardio sessions to get fit is incorrect. More isn’t better. But zero isn’t better, either.
Here’s what you need to know:
-Endurance—as a component of fitness—is essential for optimum health and function.
-Cardio increases blood volume, allowing more efficient buffering of acids produced during higher-intensity training.
-You don’t need nearly as much cardio as we used to think, but you need more than zero.
Endurance is an essential human capacity. It’s what allowed us to successfully evolve to the top of the food chain. Developing the ability to outlast our prey when hunting helped us obtain precious resources for survival. But the kind of endurance we had back then was developed at a higher intensity than the long, slow cardio training that was popular not too long ago.
Of more current interest, aerobic exercise changes the brain in ways that improve cognitive function and may have beneficial effects throughout the lifespan. Aerobically fit people have more fibrous and compact white matter, which is comprised of the bundles of axons that carry nerve signals from one brain region to another. More compact white matter is associated with faster and more efficient nerve activity. This provides a host of benefits to many mental and physical tasks. And aerobic exercise can help keep our minds sharp as we age. The goal of most strength training (or even cardio training) isn’t directly tied to a better brain, but I think it’s safe to assume that all of us want a sharp mind throughout our lives.
With strength training, the goal is larger, stronger muscles and this means we have to perform shorter, more intense training. A limiting factor is the accumulation of acidic waste products in the muscle when performing an effort.
When the accumulation increases at a rate that is faster than your body can clear out, muscles begin to burn and further contractions become increasingly difficult. Your blood carries sodium bicarbonate to buffer the acidic state. Boosting the acid-buffering ability of the blood would push your fatigue point further out. A little aerobic training can make your anaerobic training better by increasing blood volume, which allows the blood to carry more sodium bicarbonate.
To get this benefit, you may need only one “traditional” cardio workout a week, but there is a better way.
By performing interval training according to the ACE IFT model, you can get a lot of benefit in less time than “old school” cardio. I use this interval training two to three times per week for no more than 20 to 25 minutes per session.
There’s something inherently unnatural about climbing onto a machine and going absolutely nowhere while disconnecting yourself from nature. But sometimes circumstances like scheduling or weather make other options impossible. When doing this kind of training, it’s best to use the minimum effective dose so you devote more time to other forms of training or just other things in general.
Whatever you do should be engaging to both body and mind. That may mean using motivating music or some elements of play, competitiveness or reactivity. The moment you are not engaged and get bored, either change what you are doing or stop.
There’s not much need to do the long, boring, steady-state training of yesterday. Using modern, intelligent approaches to interval training gleans the most out of a minimum investment of time while still providing the benefits of aerobic training.

Researched By : Kátia C. Rowlands – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256

Can you really be double-jointed?
So what does it mean to be double-jointed? Does it mean you have two joints instead of the normal allotment of one? Is there one joint that allows for normal motion, and another that allows for extra motion, or does one joint just not work right? — you won’t see anything like it.

Double-what-ted? Hypermobility

Before we discuss what it means to be “double-jointed” (a term we’ll analyze closer in a moment), we should learn a little about how a “normal” joint works.
A joint is basically where two bones meet, allowing one to move against the other. The ends of the bones are tipped with cartilage where contact is made to prevent damage. Ligaments and other connective tissue hold the bones together. The motion is caused by muscle contraction or extension, and the muscles are attached to the bones by tendons.
Most joints allow for a standard range of motion. For instance, your elbow allows you to bend your arm and straighten it. If your arm was extended past the point where it essentially formed a straight line, it would likely cause a dislocation of the joint — a painful separation of the bones and the ligaments that hold them in place.

However, some people do have a larger range of motion in their joints than others. The term double-jointed is commonly used, but it’s not accurate. Try joint hypermobility or joint hyperlaxity instead. A person with hypermobility in the elbow may be able to extend his or her arm 10 degrees or so beyond what most of us consider to be a full extension.
How is this possible? Genetics play a large role, because the shape of the ligaments and the bone structure in large part determines the amount of motion a joint will have. Your hips and shoulders both have ball-and-socket joints: The end of one bone has a bulb that fits into a cuplike space on the other bone. If the ball is deep in the socket, the range of motion will be quite good, but not as good as when the ball rests shallowly in the socket. In fact, some people can roll the ball out of the socket and then roll it back in.

Many Degrees of Separation: Pros and Cons of Being Hypermobile

There are some benefits and drawbacks to joint hypermobility. The upside includes possible advantages for musicians or athletes. Think of a pianist with hypermobile fingers and thumbs, or a gymnast with hypermobile hips or vertebrae. Other advantages include freaking out your family members at the dinner table and winning bets in bars. This ability must be honed in order to maintain it, though, whether you’re a concert pianist or just a hypermobile hobbyist. If you have extra range of motion, you must keep your joints limber through regular stretching, or some of that ability may be lost as you age.

On the other hand (the extra-bendy one), hypermobility often comes with a steep price. There is an increased risk of arthritis in hypermobile joints, especially fingers. There may be extreme pain felt in many different joints, especially in younger people who are going through rapid growth spurts. Although some athletes may benefit from hypermobility, other people with hypermobile joints are more vulnerable to injuries. Several different but related conditions that cause pain or discomfort are grouped under the umbrella term hypermobility syndrome (HMS).

To be clear, having joints with hypermobility doesn’t mean you have HMS — only if it’s the source of chronic pain, which occurs in a minority of people with hypermobile joints. However, if you do suffer from HMS, there is a 1-in-2 chance your offspring will as well Interestingly, if you can do things like put both feet behind your head and walk around on hyperextended arms while swinging your upper body between your elbows, local anesthetics may not be as effective on you as your less flexible compatriots. Research has indicated that local anesthetics seem to have little or no effect on many hypermobile people, something you may want to mention to your doctor if you have a medical procedure or pregnancy approaching.

So, you can’t be double-jointed, but only because the term doesn’t really mean anything. You can, however, be hypermobile, meaning you put just a little extra in everything you do.

Researched By : Kátia C. Rowlands – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256 •

The hypermobile among us tend to be underserved by exercise world.
Hypermobility means that you have joints that move too easily beyond what it is their prescribed range of motion. Joints move in different ways—some hinge while others glide, rotate or roll.
The mobility of a joint is determined by the tonus of the ligaments, muscles and tendons that surround them. Ligaments connect bone to bone and have very little elasticity— way less than muscles and slightly more than tendons. Hypermobility is most often due to ligaments that are excessively lax allowing for too much movement in the joint.
Having loose ligaments and hypermobile joints doesn’t necessarily mean you have long and open muscles. It is just as likely that someone with hypermobility is loose in the joints and tight in the muscles. Both variation comes with its own issues, and both are consternating.
You can also be hypermobile in one part of the body and not another. In my case my hips are as open as can be. I have a full turn out and an extreme hyperextension of the knees. In my upper body while my shoulders are fairly open my upper back is tight and I can’t hyperextend my elbows.
There is also a distinction to be made between loose ligaments and overly stretched ligaments— which develop due to poor posture. If you hyperextend the knees or tuck the pelvis sinking the thighs forward you will invariably strain and stretch the ligaments of the knee, and the iliofemoral ligament of the hip. If loose ligaments aren’t your issue  and you change your posture to better align the legs under the pelvis, the over stretched ligaments will return to their natural tone.
The curse of hyperextension is how often it goes unrecognized as pain symptoms manifest and sometimes multiply. Another problem with hypermobility and those with loose muscles (which are unfortunately also frequently weak) is that hypermobile people usually appear to have an enviable exercise practice while doing poses in a way that might come back to haunt them. It is easy to see a hypermobile person in a deep backbend that looks very impressive while it is actually compressive putting undue strain on many of the body’s joints.
The blessing of hypermobility would be that it is nice to be loose with very mobile joints. Once you realized that you are hypermobile, you must set about building muscle to support you loose joints.
Researched By : Kátia C. Rowlands – Pilates Instructor & Personal Trainer – 082 513 4256 •

When it came to primping, I was always a bathroom counter gal. There was always a stray mascara in the medicine cabinet, little piles of yesterday’s lipsticks around the sink, and my makeup bag stashed behind the blowdryer and the bottle of Windex. Sound familiar?
Many of us don’t know the luxury of having a makeup station—a well-lit destination where we can keep all our beauty needs, along with storage space for the products we’re not using at the moment. Think it sounds too good to be true? Think again!
Here are 5 things I learned from setting up my own vanity.
You don’t need a lot of space.
Who says you can’t have a dream vanity just because you don’t have a dream home? Throw the idea of a traditional vanity (hello heavy vintage dresser and stand up mirror) out the window and work with the space you have. Does that mean a wall mounted mirror? Shelves? A bedroom setup, or something inoffensive in the living room? The right vanity is visually appealing so don’t be afraid to plant one in plain view (mine sits across from our couch by the window).

You can DIY a vanity on the cheap.
Get creative with the space you have to work with. A basic vanity needs a surface, storage cubbies, and a good size mirror with adequate lighting around it. The rest is up to you! Why not repurpose an old desk with a new paint job and stuff the drawers with organizers for your makeup stash? Even a small table could make a pretty vanity with drawer-pull bins hidden underneath a decorative table skirt with a mounted mirror hovering above.
You’ll use the products you forgot you had.
Once you’ve got a solid destination for all your beauty items, you’ll find yourself digging into palettes you barely touch and hair products you never used before. Nothing jumpstarts adventurous new looks like having ALL your beauty products at hand in one place.
If hoarding isn’t your thing, keeping an organized makeup station will prompt you to purge items you don’t need much quicker to ensure you have space for all the products you love to use.

Pretty packaging can finally serve it’s purpose.
Admit it, we are all suckers for a cute package. But why invest in a printed palette or a fancifully bottled perfume when it’s just gonna get all dirty, trapped in a bag of items that have lost their caps? A vanity surface was made to display your favorite cosmetics and bottled products. Now your new set of pink Sugarpill makeup brushes won’t go to waste hidden away. Pro tip: Add a few favorite jewelry pieces to the display for a touch of vintage vanity glamour. You’ll take more time with no regrets.

Having a dedicated workstation will remind you that beauty is something you take seriously. With the amount we invest in new products and in-between cosmetic treatments, why shouldn’t we take a little extra time on ourselves each day? Think of your vanity as a celebration of you, and think of your makeup and hair routine as a daily ritual of self-appreciation. •