Categories
Acai Berry

Top Tips To Get Your Olympic Body Ready For This Summer

London will host the 2012 Olympics this year so it is the ideal time for the nation to get their bodies fit and ready for the games. World class athletes invest a lot of time in developing the ultimate Olympic body, so what is actually involved?

Body type

What are you best at? Different bodies have the ability to perform different tasks more effectively. Sprinting may come natural to some, whereas others will find endurance tasks come more naturally. Therefore, individuals should familiarize themselves with their body composition as different people have a different percentage of muscle fiber type that determines whether or not their body will excel in power, speed or endurance. Training the body should be directed towards the body’s natural ability.

Set goals

Individuals wanting an Olympic body should know what it is they want to achieve at the end result. Therefore, an event that is enjoyed by an athlete is the event that any training or physical plan should revolve around. If the training is enjoyed individuals are far more likely to see success. People that want to lose weight should review their diet and commence an interval training program of cardiovascular endurance exercise alongside short sprinting. Running, cycling or swimming will help achieve weight loss.

Review diet

Olympic athletes have a strict diet that is followed religiously. Diet is the key focus for individuals looking to improve their physical and mental well being. Forget calorie counting and direct attention towards the content of the food. Everybody is aware of the importance of eating fruit, vegetables and slow carbohydrates, but individuals are encouraged to note the sugar content of the foods being consumed as sugar has high calorie count. diet plans will create structure for meals and snacks which will aid weight loss.

Olympic Body
Olympic Body

Eat frequently

Regular food intake will maximize the body’s efficiency, and this will increase the metabolism which means more calories are burnt. Olympic athletes consume five to six meals daily as smaller meals increase muscle mass and maintain maximum efficiency.

Drink water

60% of the body is made up of water; therefore regular water intake is absolutely necessary. The circulatory functions will be affected if the body endures a fluid loss of just 2% which will decrease performance significantly.

Training

Regular and intense training will help athletes reach their ultimate potential. Depending on the individual it will take different methods and time periods to reach the goals in place. To see real improvements, three workouts daily will instigate the progression to an Olympic body.

There are plenty of strategies to help individuals get the Olympic body but it will take time and commitment. Diet is essential and people should enforce a healthy and nutritious diet plan straight away. Exercise should be eased in gradually to prevent injury and exercise intensity and duration will gradually develop as training is introduce.

Categories
Acai Berry

Taking Vitamins For Energy

Vitamins and supplements are some of the most common focuses of health and fitness enthusiasts. Especially once people begin to feel like they’ve got their diet down and found a cool exercise program that promises to make them lean and healthy, they direct their focus to supplements, hoping to top off their health and fitness potential.

Taking Vitamins For Energy

There are typically two reasons why people chose to take vitamins. The first, and most common, is simply to improve their health. Vitamins are commonly equated with health, and many people believe that the more vitamins you take, the healthier you’ll be. However, according to The Vitamin Source this is very misguided way of looking at things. The truth is, vitamins only improve health if they’re compensating for an existing deficiency. For instance, if you’re not getting much sunlight, you’re likely deficient in vitamin D, and therefore supplementing vitamin D3 would be beneficial to health. However, supplementing a vitamin or mineral you’re already getting plenty of from your diet isn’t going to do much for your health.

That brings us to our second reason for taking vitamins, which is taking vitamins for energy. Just like taking vitamins for health benefits, taking vitamin for energy is only effective if you have an existing vitamin deficiency that is leading to decreased energy levels. For example, if you eat very few animal foods, there’s a good chance you’re deficient in vitamin B12, which causes fatigue, anxiety and exhaustion. Therefore, supplementing vitamin B12 in that particular case would drastically improve energy levels. However, if you’re already getting plenty of B12, there would likely be no benefit.

That being said, even people who are aware of this sometimes figure they’ll just take a stab in the dark and hope that if they take enough vitamins, they’ll hit a few of the vitamins they’re deficient in and their health and energy levels will improve. Bad idea. This is typically a bad choice because of the potential for vitamin toxicity. While taking a general multivitamin is unlikely to cause any problem, taking many different individual vitamins often leads to vitamin toxicity (excess levels of a particular vitamin), which can be very harmful to health. In some cases vitamin toxicity may only cause nausea and diarrhea, and perhaps some other mild discomforts, but some vitamins and minerals are actually very dangerous if consumed in extremely large quantities. For example, taking large doses of vitamin A for prolonged periods of time is potentially fatal.

How To Improve Health and Energy Levels

While vitamins and supplements are certainly important if used properly, it’s just as essential to avoid vitamin toxicity as it is to avoid being malnourished. Both can lead to health problems and even death in severe cases. The best thing most people can do is simply to improve their diet, eating mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, unprocessed meat, fish and poultry, eggs, nuts, herbs, spices and some dairy. Eating well generally leads to proper intake of the right vitamins, and will leads to increased energy levels and greatly improved health. Vitamins and supplements should still be taken to compensate for any persisting deficiencies, but it’s important to understand their limitations.