I know that Central Park used to have somewhat of a bad reputation for joggers not being so safe when they performed they’re daily or spaced out jogs to get in their cardio work, because they’re were many muggings. It used to be that you didn’t feel safe jogging in the notorious landmark park located in New York, but the past few years have proven a great cleanup for the park, and heightened awareness has led to a lower mugging rate.

We just completed a post on cardio exercise and how important it is to really focus on this often overlooked and dreaded part of working out. Well, one of the things we notoriously do during a good cardio session is we sweat. A lot of people, including myself, don’t like to sweat a whole lot unless it is because we are working out, because it shows us that we’re working hard, and we usually correlate that with “melting fat” off, or burning fat off.

I just read an interesting article by a fitness professional that advocated sticking strictly to cardio, and lots of it, if you are looking to shed weight. They recommend that instead of focusing on strength training when trying to slim down quickly, it’s better to focus more on more intense cardio workouts, to the tune of one hour at a time!

We’ve all had those moments that hopefully come a lot more intermittently than going gangbusters on working out. It’s those periods that can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, where you swear you have to peel yourself off the sofa just to go get on the elliptical or the treadmill for a half hour and get some weight work in too.

It’s just those times when, you know what’s good for you, and you know you’ll feel a world better when you’re done working out, but somehow convincing yourself of that becomes a gargantuan task that seems all but impossible.

As I think I’ve stated before, I live in Northeast Ohio, and we get some pretty wicked winters. Needless to say, when we get an intermittent 60-70 degree day interspersed in our long, cold winters, everyone is chomping at the bit to get outside, whip out the short sleeves, and leave work early to enjoy what’s sure to be a short lived break in the weather.

Want to have a nicer butt, a firmer rear, maybe better toned upper legs and lower too? Well, it’s just as simple as taking the stairs any time you possibly can. Having a two or three story home helps immensely as well. If I counted how many times I took the stairs in one day, between my work and home life, since both places require the climbing of stairs – two flights at the work place, I’d say it easily tallies at least ten times per day, many times more depending on how much activity is going on.

Once in a while, or maybe all too often, we hear of a young athlete, even as early on as high school, suddenly, and seemingly mysteriously, dying in action while playing sports or otherwise dying suddenly, usually during some sort of physical exertion. The reason that most health experts and fitness gurus are saying this happens, is most commonly an enlarged heart, something that needs more agressive screening and preventive medicine and diagnosis to prevent these sorts of things from happening.

I, for one, happen to have a problem where my quads, or as they are termed properly, quadriceps, the large leg muscles that start just below your hips on the fronts of your legs, get absolutely huge when I work out consistently or very hard. But only if I’m doing certain types of aerobic exercise, and I’ve figured out which ones to avoid and which ones to do liberally to keep them smaller so my pants fit me right.

Well, two things that you may either love or hate to do, or maybe you love one but hate the other, apparently may have a significant impact on your overall longevity, meaning they impact the amount of time you have on this earth to live, which in short is a pretty big deal! Drinking alcohol has been both lauded as being healthy in moderation and also pulverized as one of the top reasons for early death.

Of course, anything in moderation may be ok, so I’m of the school of thought that drinking occasionally probably wouldn’t hurt anything, but I definitely fully believe that regular exercise is extremely important to one’s longevity and health.