FRIDAY, Oct. 31 (HealthDay News) — Vigorous activity can reduce the risk of breast cancer by about 30 percent in normal-weight women, according to an 11-year U.S. study of 32,269 postmenopausal women.

For the study, vigorous activity was defined as heavy housework (scrubbing floors, washing windows, demanding yard work, digging, chopping wood) and strenuous sports or exercise, such as running, fast jogging, competitive tennis, aerobics, bicycling on hills, and fast dancing.

While vigorous activity reduced breast cancer risk in normal-weight women, it had no effect in women who were overweight or obese, according to study leader Michael F. Leitzmann and colleagues.

They also found that non-vigorous activity, such as light housework (vacuuming, doing laundry, painting, general gardening) and light sports or exercise (walking, hiking, light jogging, recreational tennis, bowling) offered no protection against breast cancer.

The findings were published in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

“Possible mechanisms through which physical activity may protect against breast cancer that are independent of body mass include reduced exposure to growth factors, enhanced immune function, and decreased chronic inflammation, variables that are related both to greater physical activity and to lower breast cancer risk,” the study authors wrote.

“An alternative explanation for the stronger apparent effect of vigorous activity among lean over heavy women is that heavier women may misreport non-vigorous activities as vigorous activities,” the researchers added.

By Amy Norton

Many adults may be meeting experts’ recommendations on exercise if all types of activity, from work and play, are counted, a study of Swedish adults hints.

Researchers found that among 1,470 adults ages 18 to 74, nearly two-thirds were meeting the goal of getting at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days of the week.

That was with all types of physical activity measured, including physical labor at work, household chores and leisure-time exercise.

Past studies, in contrast, have often looked at a more limited definition of physical activity, such as recreational exercise alone, when gauging adults’ overall activity levels.

But it is not only dedicated exercise — like jogging or working out at the gym — that is linked to better health, according to Patrick Bergman of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the lead researcher on the current study.

Therefore, he told Reuters Health, studies need to take a broader look at people’s activity levels. One person, he noted, may not be active during his free time but do heavy manual labor at work, while another may have a sedentary job but jog for exercise.

“In the long run, they could very well do an equal amount of physical activity,” Bergman pointed out.

For their study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, Bergman and his colleagues asked respondents how often, and for how long, they typically walked or engaged in moderate or vigorous exercise — whether at work, on the way to work, at home or during their leisure time.

Overall, the researchers found, 63 percent of the study participants were meeting recommended exercise goals.

Not all groups were equal, however. Adults younger than 35 were more likely than their older counterparts to be highly active and men were generally more active than women. Obese adults, meanwhile, tended to be underactive, with 59 percent falling into the least-active category.

Interestingly, Bergman noted, adults with relatively less education were more likely to be highly active than those with a college degree. That is contrast to past studies showing that more-educated people are more likely to exercise in their free time.

The finding could be related to the fact that this study measured not only leisure-time exercise, but physical activity at work as well, according to Bergman.

While a majority of the study participants were active, the low activity levels in some groups, including obese adults, show there is still room for improvement, Bergman and his colleagues write.

Getting more people off the couch, they say, will take broad “social-ecological approaches” — which, according to Bergman, essentially means making it easier for people to be active in their daily lives.

That could include making it simpler for people to walk or bike — by building more sidewalks, for instance — or giving them more parks and recreational areas.

SOURCE: BMC Public Health, online October 22, 2008.

HIT Fitness in the Spokane Valley, WA area is a growing trend

Hit Fitness , or High Intensity Training, is a fitness system built around a unique combination of science and sport.

Hit Fitness is definably an “alternative” way to personal fitness, but it is a method that is worthy of a look.

What Will I Really Be Doing In HIT Fitness?

Hit Fitness combines a unique combination of typical fitness along with sporting elements, such as the practice of Fencing or Kenpo.

Some of the activities that are included in Hit Fitness include:

*Fencing
*Kenpo
*Self-Defense
*Personal Fitness
*Other Sporting Activities

The types of activities that you participate in depends on the type of Hit Fitness Spokane program that you join.

Different instructors of the Hit Fitness way have different methods. Regardless of the methods that your fitness coach uses to teach you Hit Fitness, you will experience a unique exercise technique that will benefit your body more than a traditional fitness plan can accomplish.

Hit Fitness Sporting Events

Participating in sporting events in the Hit Fitness program is a big part of your training. The sporting events not only help you reach your fitness goals more quickly but can be used later on as well.

Sounds Fun. What Does Hit Fitness Spokane Concentrate On? Well, the Hit Fitness program is quite the unusual exercise system. The Hit Fitness program focuses on the following aspects of the fitness world:

Anaerobic Threshold Balance Body Composition Strength VO2 Max (maximal oxygen consumption)

Hit Fitness Anaerobic Threshold

A basic definition of the Hit Fitness Anaerobic Threshold is that it occurs when muscles “burn” glucose without the use of Oxygen. Anaerobic Threshold is ideal for those who need that short extra burst in their life. On the flip side, Anaerobic Threshold would not be ideal for a distance runner.

Hit Fitness Balance

Another important part of the Hit Fitness way is the aspect of balance. A majority of people who participate in the Hit Fitness exercise plan are athletes. These people require a great amount of agility and balance to succeed at what they do best. By having great balance, you can even increase the efficiency of your Spokane workout.

Hit Fitness Body Composition

Hit Fitness Body Composition is a way of describing the percentage of bone, fat, and muscle in your body. The Hit Fitness Spokane system puts a lot of attention on the aspect of body composition, as it is vital to balance the mass percentages of bone, fat, and muscle in ones body.

Hit Fitness Strength

Hit Fitness works with your overall body strength. Since the Spokane Hit Fitness way of exercise revolves around sporting activities, it is important to have strength as it will give you the opportunity to push your body to the next level.

Hit Fitness VO2 Max

What is VO2 Max? Basically, VO2 Max is another meaning for the maximal amount of oxygen consumption. It plays a very important role in Hit Fitness as your VO2 Max directly determines how physically fit you are. Each person has a different VO2 Max. The max can be included over time through Hit Fitness Spokane WA exercises.

So, is Hit Fitness Right For You? Spokane Hit Fitness is not right for everyone. If you are athletic, then you should definably consider the Hit Fitness way of exercise. If you are interested in starting on a Hit Fitness exercise plan, you should speak to your local fitness coach today to see if such a program is offered.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/how-you-can-take-your-health-and-fitness-to-a-new-level-with-hit-fitness-511882.html

When we think about the lower body and “the king of all exercises”, what comes to mind for most people is the squat or a variation of it. However, when we take a look at the pros and cons and the results gained from specific lower body movements, a better “go-to” exercise may in-fact be the deadlift.

Let’s take a closer look:

The squat, whether front-loaded, back-loaded, or with the smith machine is going to incorporate hip extension created by the glutes and the hamstrings, knee extension created by the quadriceps, and some plantarflexion created by the gastrocnemius and the soleus.

Now, whether you are a powerlifter, an athlete of some sort, are returning from a knee injury, or are a senior trying to prevent falls and osteoporosis, some form of the squat may be an important component of your training regimine.

Squats, when performed correctly, will help to stabilize the three major joints of the lower body and can also assist in improving the mobility and function around the hip joint.

If you can squat with good form and without pain, it will be instrumental in bringing you closer to achieving your fitness, sport, and life goals. However, in my decade of experience in working with clients and athletes, I have come to realize that the squat is not for everyone.

Whether it is because of injury, a lack of necessary mobility, or an inability to perform with correct technique, forcing, or attempting to force an individual to squat can be just like driving your car full-steam ahead into a brick wall. There’s just no point.

What I have found to be successful in body transformation, maximal strength enhancement, sport performance, and in minimizing the impact of lower back pain is a focus on correct implementation of the deadlift.

The biggest difference between the squat and the deadlift, where the squat is more of a “sit-down, stand-up” motion, the deadlift is a bit closer to the vision of “leaning over to touch your toes and then standing all the way up”. That may be the simplest definition, not to say that either are simple exercises.

If we take again, a closer look, with the deadlift, we have taken almost the entire knee bend out of the movement. This means that with less knee extension during the upward phase, there will be less quadriceps recruitment. This can be a key element for those that find discomfort from too much squatting and for those who are too immobile to perform the squat with the necessary range of motion to achieve the desired results.

If the focus is not on the quadriceps, where has it gone? Consider the deadlift almost exclusively a posterior chain exercise. We are thinking about the back of the body here. Everything from the calves, hamstrings, glutes, erector spinae, trapezius, and deltoids are active. If I could perform only one exercise for the rest of my life, this might be it!

Here’s how this carries over into sport performance and life function. The Big 4 sports in the United States all involve running or some sort of forward propulsion (skating). What we need for all of these is the ability to extend through the hip. Increasing the maximal strength of this movement as in the deadlift has a correlation to one’s ability to produce force with that same movement.

This doesn’t mean that you are going to carry your 1RM weight onto the football field and deadlift during plays. It means that the work you put in to your training is going to enable you to recruit or use your hip extensors more effectively at game speed.

The glutes and hamstrings are larger muscles than the quadriceps are, right? Would you rather rely on your quadriceps to carry you or the larger, stronger muscles of the posterior chain? We would obviously love to use all three major muscle groups, but this should help pinpoint where the majority of your focus should be.

When we think about body transformation, we think about the total recruitment of muscle. An exercise like the deadlift allows us to activate muscles throughout the entire body in very little time. That activation allows us to put on more lean muscle which will increase your metabolism and create the “looking in the mirror changes” that many of us are looking for.

As far as lower back pain is concerned, the deadlift and its variations, when performed with correct form place the lifter in an adequate position to recruit stabilizers and movers of the lower back with greater intensity than would say, a lower back extension.

That load and the calculated range of motion create a safe environment for the lower back and for the lifter. Whenever we use the deadlift in this fashion, the emphasis must be on proper technique with correct progression. There is no point in using a great exercise if the lifter doesn’t have the foundation to support it.

Take a look at your current program design and if you need to, seek out the help of a personal trainer for a refresher on your technique. Without fully understanding the difference between these two important exercises and the results that they will yield, you may be cheating yourself out of your best body yet!

Article source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Understanding-the-Deadlift-Exercise/400306