Breathing is generally our characteristic of existence, breathing equals living.  It is very close related to vital energy and other functions in the body. So, if we develop our breathing we will create conditions for better functioning of the body, to calm the emotions and to make a purification of the mind. We should aim to do this because the breathing is single automatic process in the body which we can control, speed or to maintain and deepen.

In the recent decades people more and more adopt the ancient knowledge about our body mixed with advanced methods. Under this philosophy, the physical body of the person is only the first level. The second one is the vital body composed of life energy that flows through us by invisible pathways. The third level is our mind, thought and emotions etc.

Each of the yoga techniques has its personal activity, and the aim of these techniques is to learn how to breathe properly, how to develop our breathing control so we can achieve the harmonization of the energy and the mental processes. There are different techniques of breathing, some of them clean the breathing flows and others balance the energy, the third ones create mental calm in the human body.

Moreover, these breathing techniques bring more oxygen to the body which is very important for its health. Also, strengthens the immune system, helps lungs to purify, and improves the concentration and the working ability where breathing becomes deep and calm in everyday life.

Some of the techniques are easier, other require greater breathing control but for some it is important to study under the supervision of an experienced teacher. The basic techniques of breathing, from where every examination begins can be widely explained because it represents a vital part in every human life.

The correct way of breathing can never be completely understood but, anyway we have to respect some rules because if we do not do it right our muscles become weak or chronically stressed. Many of us lost the ability to breathe well. Mental and emotional stress made our breathing incorrectly and that affects our daily mood and our health in a long term.  Chronicle fatigue, respiratory infections and many allergies can be caused by a bad way of breathing.

Therefore, the largest contribution that Yoga can make to our lives and to our health is to bring back to us our natural breathing.

If you exercise regularly, you already work on your balance without even knowing it. Nowadays many athletes are using balance training as an important part of their overall training programs, both for injury prevention and performance development. One of the ways to improve your balance is using stability balls, also known as balance balls or Swiss balls.

They can be incorporated into Pilates, weight training and many other fitness routines. Here are some exercises which will help you to improve your balance. Ball Balance: Position the ball under your abs and hips, hands on the floor and legs straight and off the floor.  Hold that position, keeping your body in a straight line, abs pulled in.  Working to stay balanced, slowly raise your right arm out to the side, taking care not to roll or allow any part of your body to collapse.

Hold briefly, lower the arm and repeat on the other side.  Repeat for 12-16 reps, alternating arms.  Ball Circles: Sit on the ball and place the hands on the ball for balance or place them behind your head.  Slowly begin to roll the hips in a circle towards the right, making small circles and then, as you get comfortable, larger circles.  Do 10-20 circles then repeat to the left. Hip Extension: Lie on floor with heels propped on ball. 

Keeping abs tight, slowly lift your hips off the floor (squeezing the buttocks) until body is in a straight line.  Hold for a few seconds and lower, repeating 10 to 15 times.  To make it easier, place ball under knees rather than under heels.  To make it harder, cross your arms over your chest.  Back Extension: Position the ball under your hips and lower torso with the knees straight or bent. 

With hands behind the head or behind back, slowly roll down the ball.  Lift your chest off the ball, bringing your shoulders up until your body is in a straight line.  Make sure your body is in alignment (i.e., head, neck, shoulders and back are in a straight line), your abs are pulled in and that do not hyper extend the back. Aim for 12-16 reps.

These exercises are just a small part of the huge variety of exercises with stability balls. Make a research on this workout. Bear it on mind, that you should always consult your doctor and trainer about your workout.

Stairs are way harder than walking on normal, even ground. This is because your heart has to push blood to all of your major muscles, especially the biggest muscle in your legs, your quadriceps, in order to get them to force your body weight up the steps. This is excellent cardio work. It’s exactly the reason why you see people gasping for breath after even a few flights of stairs. Shoot, sometimes you even see totally healthy workout fiends out of breath after walking a few flights of steps, so you know that it’s a good workout.

I like having steps in my home anyways. It offers my husband and I a little more space from one another, and to feel more like we can get away into our own areas of our home when we are at eachothers throats or just feel like we need our own personal space. I personally would hate to have a one level home now that I’m so used to having two!

I remember when I was in high school Track, how we used to run the bleachers. I dreaded it because it was the hardest type of working out that our coach made us do. Even back then, in probably the best shape because of my age and my young heart, it made me feel like I was going to pass out from the exertion.

Stairs are hard because they don’t stop. You keep going, and your body is being pushed to propel you up, defying gravity, which is very difficult for your body to do. It’s using all these muscles in unison, which requires a lot more oxygen, and a lot more blood to be available to the muscles that supply the oomph behind movement. Steps are one of the best workouts you can have!

Here’s why interval training is so great. You get the heart rate way up, then you follow it with these sort of little “rest” periods, but you’re not really resting, you’re just moving slower or moving at a less intense rate than you were before. The key is, you’re still moving, keeping that heart rate up, and preparing for your next intense set of jumps, plyometrics, or whatever else it is that you’re doing that’s pounding that heart rate up higher and higher.

Some exercise specialists even say that interval training is up to twice as effective as regular exercise. So, you may be getting significant more impact for that intense thirty minute interval session than you were getting out of a whole hour or more of moderate, ho hum, chugging along on the hamster wheel exercise in other words. I still wholeheartedly believe in these machines too though, and you can even incorporate them into an intense circuit training routine.

What do I mean by that? Well, you can alternate short bursts of highly energized running on the treadmill with some pushups or something like that. As a matter of fact, pushups are a great interval training exercise, because they get the upper body moving and the heart pumping really fast.

Why is this form of training so effective at cutting body fat and building muscle so effectively, and so quickly? Because your body actually requires short bursts of extremely taxing activity to effectively build muscle. I see this principle at work in my own body. I know that when I start my really tough interval training, that’s when my arm muscles actually get built up better, and I start to see the fat come right off my body very quickly, revealing more muscle.

When I’m just doing my average workout without the bursts of hard activity, I don’t notice this stripping off of fat and the building of muscle quickly happening, it takes more time, or it doesn’t happen at all and I just maintain somewhat of a tone, but not that “cut”.

I told you before that my husband lost around 30 pounds and I lost around 15 pounds when we started doing the short bursts of activity that were extremely intense in nature but never lasted more than 25 minutes or so, rather than slogging away at the gym for an hour or more, and what really clinched it for me was the fact that the short bursts of intense exercise that lasted about 20-25 minutes really didn’t seem to put my appetite into overdrive, like long bouts of cardio can sometimes do to me.

I remember leaving the gym at work after long periods of cardio on the elliptical (40 minutes or more) and feeling totally famished, and wanting to eat a house. Of course, I still believe that the elliptical is an amazingly effective piece of equipment, but with this new theory, you can switch between the elliptical and other intense movements for less time and still burn tons of fat.

I guess that the PACE method is very similar in thought process to this, and research has shown that people who use this PACE method of working out actually burned more fat off their bodies than those who did long cardio. Although an important point is that the long cardio group burned more calories, but not as much fat. I think the fat burning piece is more important personally, because you can always replace calories, but fat is harder to burn off.

The PACE method is never supposed to last more than 20 minutes per day, and can supposedly be as short as 12 minutes with amazing results. Does it really work? I don’t know, I haven’t tried it, but I do believe the basic theory behind it because I have seen this similar theory at work in my own experience.

However, what’s really thrown me off (and about five thousand other gym members) is that they closed it down starting in November. I guess they figured the holidays would be a perfect time to do it since everyone slack off working out around the holidays, but it’s been rough not being able to work out in the facility because I’ve kind of let my five to four day a week workout routine slip and now am only working out 2-3 days during the week as opposed to those 2-3 more I was getting when the gym was open.

However, the gym is going to open back up in January, so I’m sure that everyone will be crowding in there, especially considering that they are going to have to contend with the New Years resolution people who crowd the gym in addition to the ones that were already going there and had to take a break forcibly because the gym closed.

It closed for renovations to the bathrooms and the locker rooms and showers, so hopefully it will look pretty nice and we’ll have nice new accommodations, but mostly I’m just excited to be able to work out again during my work day and blow off steam. It’s much needed now too, we are so busy at work because of increased work loads, and everyone is stressed out, so I’m sure the gym will be overcrowded for a while, but I don’t even care, I just want to get back in the swing!

I’m really glad that I’m addicted to working out, otherwise I wonder how active I’d be.