Janu Shirashasana

Janu Shirashasana

The Head-To-Knee Forward Bend has a soothing effect on high blood pressure and insomnia. Being a forward bend it places the maximum possible pressure on your abdominal organs stimulates them to function better. It also nourishes your spine, hip, and hamstrings.

How to do the Head-To-Knee Forward Bend Pose
Begin by sitting on a mat with your legs straight in front of you. Breathe easy. Keep your back erect and raise your right leg by bending it at the knee. Now depress the knee towards the floor. To enable your knee to touch the mat you may need to apply slight pressure on your leg with your hand.

Now exhale and pull your abdomen inside. Firmly grip the toes of your left foot that is kept straight, with your fingers and simultaneously bend your head towards the shin of the left (straight) leg. As a reflex action, your knee begins to rise as your left leg starts to fold at the knee. This is a common experience when you apply downward pressure to take your nose near the shin.

Resist this upward movement of your left leg and hold it firm so that it remains flat on the mat. Beginners may use a rope or a belt and strap it to the left foot and use the belt to pull your torso down. The belt serves a dual purpose as you can also push your left foot against the belt. This pressure would help you to hold your left foot down on the mat. A few days of practice should enable you to touch your face to the shin of your left leg.

Pause and breathe easy after you are comfortably able to achieve this position where you can touch your nose or forehead to the shin of your left leg. As the flow of blood to the brain increases you might experience a tingling sensation in your head. You now feel relaxed and so you can gradually exit from this position.

How to Exit from the Head-To-Knee Forward Bend
Release the hold of your hand on your foot after relaxing the muscles of your limbs. Place your hands by your sides and use them to lift your back. As you emerge from this position avoid any sudden movement as that could make you feel slightly dizzy. Breathe normally and repeat all the above steps using your other foot.

Benefits of the Head-To-Knee Forward Bend Pose
As you rest your head on your leg, this exercise regulates the flow of blood to your brain and torso that are at the same level. This in turn helps in soothing your blood pressure when you bend down and breathe normally. With your blood pressure soothed, your mind feels calm and helps you to overcome depression and insomnia.

At the physical level this exercise puts pressure on all your abdominal organs and enables them to secrete better. Due to the forward bend it also nourishes your hips, spine, shoulders and hamstrings. The muscles of your back are also toned. A modified version of this pose when done without bending forward and keeping your spine concave helps during pregnancy if done up to second trimester under medical supervision.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

"Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness" is a line from a song by Tim Hughes. At Oundle Road Baptist Church, we sing it throughout the year, but those words sum up what we, as Christians, know to be the real meaning of Christmas.Jesus described himself as the "Light of the world", and at Christmas we celebrate that time in history when he was miraculously born to bring light into a world that knew only too well the darkness of poverty, slavery, child abuse, of war.

Here we are at Christmas 2009. What's different? The battle still rages, each generation needing to realise for itself that, without light, the darkness will continue.It never ceases to amaze me that God chose an unknown Jewish girl to give birth to the human Jesus. What an impact he has made in the last two millennia. For us at Oundle Road, his teaching, found in the Bible, has not only helped us understand the underlying failures of human nature that perpetuate darkness, but gives us hope that his light will guide and sustain us when problems and difficulties occur.I love Christmas, being with the family, including five boisterous grandchildren, but I know that, for many, Christmas will not be happy.

In fact, it may well be very unhappy, and I can understand how being wished "happy Christmas" can be like having salt rubbed into a wound.But God's message of hope to the world at the first Christmas was: "Peace on earth, goodwill to men on whom his favour rests". It's still the same. God's love is still the same and he calls us to persevere in seeking it.We have been privileged to be able to build a fantastic new annexe. It is our prayer that somehow it will be used in practical ways to bring light into darkness by sharing the good news of the Saviour, Jesus.

On behalf of the folks at Oundle Road, may I wish you a blessed Christmas and a new year filled with hope.

Body Burn and Get Fit Daily Dozen

Body Burn and Get Fit Daily Dozen

I might be biased, but I feel like as far as beginner to intermediate workout DVDs go, you cannot go wrong with Denise Austin. With so many years of experience, her cuing is impeccable and her videos always pack a lot in. Her two most recent releases, Body Burn with Pilates and Dance and Get Fit Daily Dozen, are both quality investments.

These DVDs reminded me of why I love to review the crazy DVDs out there. When a DVD is solid — the instructor isn't overly annoying, the back-up dancers act like normal people, and no one is stomping their feet

throwing tantrums— it makes my job slightly harder because there is just nothing to pick at. But I suppose we all need balance in our life, and these definitely balance out some of the lackluster videos out there.

Here a two-for-one review treat, along with an opportunity to win! Body BurnBody Burn is split into three workout segments: a cardio dance segment, a standing Pilates segment and mat Pilates. Denise and her dance team start out with a basic warm-up, with side to side lunges, hip rolls and leg kicks before getting into the first dance combo. The several different dance combos are all basic, fun and easy to learn. You repeat the moves enough so that you know them really well, but not so much that you get bored. Denise leads you through a runway-style walk that's really fun, as well as my fave 80s-tastic hair-washing move.

There’s a lot of variety of moves, and she even manages to fit in some dance squats. Sneakiness. Plus, I like that you can make moves more challenging by jumping higher or moving farther. A short dance-inspired cool down brought the cardio segment to 30 minutes, the perfect length, in my humble opinion. Both of the Pilates segments were 10 minutes long and focused on toning different areas of the bod. The standing Pilates segment uses some light weights to work the biceps, triceps and back, incorporating balance work as well.

I was pleasantly surprised by two sets of three real on-the-toes push-ups , and combo squat and arm-lift moves followed by standing oblique work were a nice addition. The mat Pilates portion focuses more on the core and abs, with moves such as the staple Pilates hundred, single-leg stretches, scissor and bicycle moves for the waistline. The inner and outer thigh get some treatment with leg lifts, and the T-stands were one of the more challenging moves of the segment.

Pilates and Strength Training

Pilates and Strength Training

Traditional strength training focuses primarily on strengthening the large power muscles. These muscles are often recruited with high loads. Exercisers get instant feedback from their work, as it is easy to feel the muscles working.

Pilates is a bit different. There is a focus on recruiting stabilizing muscles, which are stimulated at low loads. Form is highly important, and it is never sacrificed in order to increase loads on the power muscles. As a result, participants that are used to working muscles to exhaustion in a traditional gym setting may come away from a session feeling like they did not adequately work their muscles.

The start position is paramount when performing any Pilates exercise. In fact, it is so important that props may be used to ensure that the exerciser is in the right position before beginning work. This means that a person who cannot sit up straight because of tight hip flexors may sit on a pillow or platform. Someone with a forward head may have a pad under his head to enable him to hold it in a neutral position.

As exercise commences, stability becomes important. The stabilizing muscles must be recruited to ensure that the exerciser can remain in proper positioning while performing the exercise. This takes a great deal of concentration. It also requires strong stabilizing muscles. If the exerciser cannot perform the exercise without correct form, resistance is reduced.

Resistance Exercise

Resistance Exercise

Pumped any iron lately? If not, you may want to consider it. Resistance exercise is a great way to round out your aerobic workout and help you stay strong. I'll discuss the ins and outs of resistance exercise in this article and then suggest two basic training plans to get you started.What is resistance exercise?

Resistance exercise is any exercise where muscles contract against an external resistance with the objective of increasing strength, tone, mass, and/or muscular endurance. The resistance can come from dumbbells, weight machines, elastic tubing or bands, cinder blocks, cans of soup, your own body weight (for example, pushups), or any other object that forces your muscles to contract. Results occur when you train consistently over time.

What are types of resistance exercise?
There are several types or styles of resistance exercise. Power lifting (a weight-lifting competition in which participants compete in the squat, dead lift, and bench press), Olympic weight lifting (the type you see on TV where athletes lift the weight overhead), strength training (lifting weights to get stronger), and weight lifting (the sport of lifting heavy weight, typically fewer than six repetitions). Weight lifting should not be confused with "weight training," which is the general lifting that you do at the gym. I'll discuss the basic principles of all resistance exercise in this article.

What is progressive overload?
One of the fundamentals of resistance exercise is the principle of progressive overload. Progressive overload means that you increase the workload gradually over time as your muscles accommodate to the resistance with the objective of gaining strength and/or mass. For example, suppose that you've been lifting biceps curls for two weeks with 12 pounds, 10 repetitions, and then at week three, 12 pounds is easy and you can lift more. According to the principle of progressive overload, at this point, you would increase the weight if strength improvement is your goal. Your strength will remain the same if you keep the weight the same.

What is volitional fatigue?
Another fundamental of resistance exercise is to lift each set to volitional fatigue. Volitional fatigue is the point in the set where you can't lift one more rep without cheating it up (using momentum, leaning way back, etc.). Although there isn't a large body of research to prove that lifting every set to volitional fatigue is necessary for maximal benefit, most strength and fitness professionals agree that working to exhaustion changes muscle fibers in a way that leads to significant growth.

WEIGHT LOSS

WEIGHT LOSS

The desire to lose weight must come from the individual. If you're truly ambivalent about making changes in your lifestyle or are doing this to please someone else, you're likely to fail. When making changes, decide what's right for your lifestyle. Your best friend's diet and exercise plan may be completely wrong for your habits and interests. The key is to find a system that works for you.

Don't blame yourself if you aren't perfect. If you once fail at your attempt to curtail your overeating, it doesn't mean you are a failure at weight control and that you should just give up. Accept that you made a poor choice, but don't let that poor choice influence the rest of your plan. The same holds true with exercise. Skipping a few workouts doesn't mean you can't get back on track. Weight control does not involve making perfect choices all the time; rather, it's about attempting to make good choices more often than poor ones.

Avoid surroundings where you know you're tempted to make poor food choices. Everyone has a time when we're most likely to overeat, whether it's the morning coffee break or after-work gathering with friends. Try to plan other activities or distractions for those times, or plan in advance how you're going to handle them and stick to it.

Surround yourself with people who support your efforts. Even our good friends can knowingly or unknowingly sabotage weight-loss attempts. Spend time with those people who will not pressure you to make poor food choices.

Decide on some nonfood rewards for yourself when you reach interim goals. For examples, at the end of the first week of healthy eating or after the first 5 pounds lost, buy yourself a new CD or book.

Stock your pantry and refrigerator with healthy foods. Get rid of the high-calorie, low-nutrition snacks like chips and candy. But don't forget to have plenty of healthier options available as well, such as popcorn (hold the butter, try Parmesan cheese sprinkles), low-fat cheese and yogurt, fruit, instant cocoa without added sugar, sugar-free popsicles or puddings, or whatever appeals to you when you're hungry for a snack.

Set small goals and focus on these rather than the "big picture." Decide where you want to be in a week or in a month, rather than focusing on the total amount of weight you'd like to lose.