6 Reasons Why You Can't Out-Exercise a Bad Diet

The belief that if you can eat and drink as much and whatever you want if you exercise enough is still popular, but here are six reasons why it isn't true.

Sure, you could eat whatever you wanted in high school and stay thin as a rail. But unfortunately you’re not 17 anymore, and even if you work out ‘round the clock, you can’t transform your body if you constantly give in to cravings, high-fat foods, and sweet treats. The truth is, flat abs are made in the kitchen and no amount of cardio and crunches can sculpt a sleek physique if you maintain an unhealthy diet. Read more

5 Simple Lifestyle Changes Prevent 80 % of Heart Attacks

Men can significantly reduce their heart attack risk with five simple lifestyle changes, according  to a recent study.

Most heart attacks in men could be avoided by making five simple lifestyle changes, researchers claim.

Losing the belly, cutting down on alcohol, walking for 40 minutes a day, eating more fruit and veg and quitting smoking would drastically lower their risk.

A study of 20,271 men found that four out of five heart attacks could have been prevented by taking these five basic steps. Read more

Do We Really Need Abdominal Training?

Abdominal training can be achieved from a broader training program, says Jean-Claude Vacassin.

Abdominal training, or core training to give it is more popular name, divides opinion more than perhaps any other aspect of fitness. Some people will have us believe that specific core training is everything if you want to move well and stay injury-free, whilst others will assert that you don't need specific core exercises to train the abdominals, you just need to do the big exercises, such as squats, deadlifts and push ups, correctly.

But who is right and how much specific core training, if any, do we need? Read more

Running 7 Minutes a Day Cuts Heart Disease Risk in Half

To cut your risk of heart disease in half, you only need to run about a mile a day, according to a new study.

... In a new study from Iowa University, the University of South Carolina and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, researchers examined the benefit that running had on slashing heart disease risk. They looked at the lives of 55,137 adults between ages 18 and 100.

What they found is an encouragement to anyone of any age, suffering from any sort of circulatory problem. Runners had a 30 percent lower risk of death across the board. Even better, daily runners had a 45 percent lower risk of death from heart disease and stroke.

The most remarkable aspect of the study was the average running time needed to obtain the positive results; heart disease risk was nearly cut in half for runners who ran just seven minutes a day! Read more

Lack of Exercise, Not More Calories, to Blame for Obesity Epidemic

A lack of exercise is to blame for bulging waistlines and the obesity epidemic NOT eating more calories, a study finds.

A lack of exercise rather than diet is to blame for the obesity crisis, experts have warned.

A new study in the U.S. found activity levels have fallen dramatically in the last 20 years as average body mass index (BMI) increased and calorie intake remained the same.

Scientists said a drop in exercise and leisure time, especially among young women, may be responsible for rising obesity rates. Read more

Squats for a Bigger Butt

Caitlin MacKenna says one exercise is all you need to build a bigger butt.

Many women would like to build a bigger butt, but are confused as to how to go about it. They may realize that exercise is the key component of any natural butt enhancement program, but with all the exercises out there, which are the best ones to do. Actually, you can build a bigger butt with only one exercise: squatting with weights.  Squats are the most effective exercise for building a bigger butt if you do them right. If fact, they are so effective that some male bodybuilders don't do them to avoid getting a big butt, which they believe will detract from their physique. Read more

Standing Ab Workout

If you would like a change from getting down on the floor for your ab exercises, try this standing ab workout.

How Vitamin C and Iron Can Help Reduce Your Risk of Stroke

Joseph Mercola reveals some simple strategies to prevent strokes.

Stroke, which is akin to a heart attack in your brain, is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.1 Obstructed blood flow to your brain is known as an ischemic stroke, which represent about 75 percent of all strokes. When an artery that feeds your brain with blood actually ruptures, it’s called a hemorrhagic stroke, and this is a far more lethal situation.

Fortunately, up to 80 percent of all strokes are preventable through lifestyle factors2such as diet, exercise,3, 4 maintaining a healthy weight, normalizing your blood sugar levels and blood pressure, and quitting smoking. Read more

4 Exercises You Can Do in Bed

If you hate to get up to exercise, Vanessa Voltolina describes four exercises you can do in bed.

OK, so maybe that 7 a.m. spin class just isn’t happening today. Maybe you want to spend more time sleeping -- or maybe your partner wants to do something else under the covers. Whatever the case, don't sweat it. Your bed isn’t just for snoozing. Yep, that’s right: There are some gentle (yet tough!) exercises that you can do each morning to start your day off right. Read more

Stretching for Strength: 5 Flexibility Standards

Although stretching may be overrated, Al Kavadlo says there are five flexibility standards that everyone should try to achieve.

If you look around any commercial gym, you’re likely to see a wide variety of activities taking place: strength training, aerobics, simulated bicycle riding, people doing god-knows-what on a vibrating stability platform, and of course, good ol’ stretching. Most gyms even have a designated stretch area. Though you sometimes see serious-minded folk in these rooms, the stretching area in many fitness facilities seems to be primarily for people who want to screw around, be seen at the gym and feel like they accomplished something productive. Read more

Cancer Patients Who Exercise Could HALVE Their Risk of Death

Cancer patients who exercise could HALVE their risk of death, claims a Loyola University study.

We all know exercise is good for us but now scientists have found that physical exercise significantly increases the life expectancy of cancer survivors.

Men who beat cancer and who burned more than 12,600 calories a week exercising, almost halved their risk of death, a new study found. Read more

Getting Fit? It Only Takes a Minute

High-intensity interval training is not only effective and time-efficient, it's also less boring than traditional workouts.

There was an odd thing happening in the Equinox Gym, the newly opened temple of fitness that occupies part of what was once the Biba building on Kensington High Street.

Alongside the honed and toned hard bodies pounding the exercise machines, in among the glistening biceps lifting weights only marginally less substantial than a new Routemaster bus, a sudden reversal of evolution appeared to be taking place. The several million years it took for man to walk on two feet had, in less than an hour, been wiped out. After no more than 45 minutes in the place, I was no longer capable of standing upright and was reduced to crawling about on my hands and knees.

That is what happens when you engage with the latest fitness craze to arrive here from the United States: you feel it to the point where you end up barely able to stand. But the temporary return to primitive perambulation is worth it, or so its advocates insist. The rewards are substantial. Read more

2,000 Steps to a Healthier Heart

Walking the equivalent of 20 minutes a day at a moderate pace every day for a year can reduce heart attack and stroke risk by 8 percent, say researchers.

Taking just 2,000 extra steps a day could help people prone to heart attacks and stroke cut their risk by eight per cent, claim researchers.

The exercise is equivalent to walking 20 minutes a day at a moderate pace, says a study in The Lancet medical journal (must credit).

The health benefits are gained by anyone doing 2,000 extra steps for a year on top of their normal levels of activity. Read more

Primal Posture

Joseph Mercola gives some tips to counteract the bad effects of too much sitting.

Mounting research suggests that even if you exercise regularly, you might still succumb to the ill effects of too much sitting.

For example, a study published last year1 concluded that adults who spend an average of six hours a day in front of the TV will cut their life expectancy by nearly five years, compared to someone who does not watch TV. Read more

Why Junk Food Makes You Stronger

Switching to a healthier diet leads to a loss of muscle and strength sometimes. Elliot explains why and reveals how to maintain your size and strength while still eating foods that are good for you.

Get Fit Like a Wild Man

MovNat founder Erwan Le Corre reveals how to get fit by training like a wild man.

In the late 19th century, Dudley Allen Sargent – virtually the founder of physical education in America – warned that without solid physical education programs, people would become fat, deformed, and clumsy. Sound familiar?

Fitness has become accessory to the life of the modern man. It is up to each of us to exercise or not. Most people don’t, and being out of shape has become both ubiquitous and commonly accepted. It has become okay to be a physically soft, inept grown-up. Superficial, cosmetic improvements in body shape remains the primary motivation to the few who exercise, and globo-gyms are filled with “mirror-athletes” — people obsessed with their own reflection. Read more

Sitting Is Dying: How to Work Standing Up

Sitting is dying. For health and enjoyment, work standing-up, says Mark Sisson.

A few years back, my general manager and editor hurt his back deadlifting. He found the only way he could comfortably work at a desk was to stand. It worked really well for him, even offering benefits above and beyond the improvements in lower back pain – stuff like improved energy levels and increased focus and cognition. Once his back recovered, he continued to stand because of these benefits. It eventually spread to the rest of us at Mark’s Daily Apple and Primal Blueprint, prompting me to devote an entire post to standup workstations. Read more

Could Sleep Workouts Make You Run Faster?

Just DREAMING about training can make you perform better, experts say.

It seems like the ultimate lazy girl's fantasy - or the plot of a science fiction movie.

But new research has revealed sporting performance can be improved while we sleep. Read more

Exercise More Effective Than Antidepressants for Mental Health Problems

For those with mental health problems, exercise can be more effective than antidepressants.

As a Zumba instructor, Karen Bedford might be expected to rave about what she teaches. But Karen has a more personal motive, for she believes exercise helped her recover from a decade-long battle with depression.

Where antidepressants failed, Zumba succeeded. 'Since Zumba became part of my life my mental state's been more stable and I haven't needed the pills,' says Karen, 49, who has two grown-up children. Read more

Excessive Cardio May Do More Harm Than Good

Joseph Mercola reveals the health dangers of too much cardio exercise. More is definitely not better.

... In the TED talk above, Dr. James O'Keefe, a research cardiologist and a former elite athlete, discusses an important point that can be difficult for some to accept, namely the fact that extreme cardio can actually do more harm than good...

I am about two years older than Dr. O'Keefe and had a similar running history. Dr. O'Keefe actually won the largest sprint distance triathlon in Kansas City five years in a row, from 1999 to 20041 . Although I was never an elite athlete like Dr. O'Keefe, I had run a 2:50 marathon previously. It is satisfying to hear Dr. O'Keefe validate what I have been writing about for years now. I suspect we both wised up and stopped running at about the same age, after many decades of intense endurance training.

The myth that extreme endurance cardio is good for your heart took off at full speed when, in 1977, Dr. Thomas Bassler boldly proclaimed that "completing a marathon confers immunity against heart attack." Many die-hard runners still believe this to be true. Read more