Exercise and Play

Quite often, when our children return from afternoon play, they look exhausted, and ready for a nap. That is the most accurate description, and quite the truth. Play is hard work. It is exhausting to the mind and body of the young person, and plays an extremely important role in helping them to become productive, healthy citizens.
The role of exercise and play in a young child’s life provides them with many benefits. Exercise of the body is an important part of keeping the young body fit as it grows into an adult body. When we reach adulthood, if we have had the benefit of exercise and play, we tend to continue that habit into our adult years.
What else is to be gained from the opportunities that play affords? We often participate in organized sports, coordinated play times, and are a member of a large group during all of these activities. Play on this level teaches us how to interact with our peers, develop camaraderie and perform as a team with other players. These skills are absolute necessities in today’s business world. But what else is happening here, during this time of play and exercise?
What we learn in body language, coping skills, and the interaction of the mind and body during our interaction with others, is invaluable. When we learn these skills well, we not only learn how to interact with others, we learn how to interact with our self. Interact with our self? That seems like a pointless exercise, but it is an all important part of maintaining our health and wellness. There are times that our bodies try to tell us things about our physical or mental condition, and we simply refuse to listen. If we have learned how to listen to others around us when they attempt to point out a need or desire, we have a useful tool in listening to ourselves. This often can mean the difference between optimal health, and creating an unhealthy situation.
What else do we learn? We learn what our physical and mental limitations are. During play, you see children and young adolescents push themselves to the very limit. But as children, we are better able to distinguish between a real limit versus what society deems our limits. As a child, or young adult, the pressures of the world do not weigh on us as they do when we are adults. We are better keepers of the temple at ten, than we are at twenty. We are still very in tune to what our body tells us, because it is our true master as a child. As an adult, we have let outside influences master our body and mind, and dominate our time.
As you can see, the benefits to be gained during our exercise and play time as children, is a benefit to us for the remainder of our lives. Too often, we adults forget the importance of exercise and play and the principles that are to be learned from time spent in these activities. We want to rush our children into their daily responsibilities, forgetting that their chief responsibility during the younger years is the play and interaction of young minds.

Rex Shell

Metabolism: Can We Control It?

The body’s metabolism is a unique process for each individual person.  No two people metabolize food at the same rate therefore no two people have the metabolism.  We all use our calories at different rates, with different results.  Our metabolism, like our fingerprints is unique to each of us.  But the need to understand and accommodate this metabolism is an issue that we all face.

The dictionary defines metabolism as the sum of all biochemical processes involved in life, or the sustaining of life.  In application concerning our health, metabolism is related to the intake and use of food.  In reference to the case in point it is our ability to utilize our food to the fullest extent.

Right now, the greatest results in raising our metabolism come from exercise and building our muscle mass, while reducing our body fat.  Adding more muscle to the body, in turn causes us to burn more calories, and this helps to elevate our metabolic rate.

            Our metabolism functions also depend on how well we have taken care of our nutritional needs. Some people have really high rates of metabolism.  In other words, when they consume food, their bodies burn it up almost as fast as then consume it.  Then there are those of use who use our food intake so slowly, as to not even notice that we’re burning calories.  These people who burn quickly are often slim and trim, the people who burn more slowly are the people with a tendency toward obesity.

  For years, people have sought ways to raise the metabolic rate.  If you can raise someone’s metabolic rate, you are then better able to control the burn of calories, especially for overweight or obese people.  This would make the goal of better or improved health a much easier reality for those people.  Efforts to date have produced very little results.  There are foods that we can consume that naturally raise our metabolic rate, but not to a great extent.  What we need is a way to directly alter the rate.  We need to be able to raise our metabolism to a point where we can actually see a benefit.

            This is where the effort to stay physically fit and active provides tremendous payoff. Over the course of your life, if you stay active, exercise, and maintain optimal health for your muscles, you will see a tremendous difference in the rate that your body metabolizes food.  As people age, their metabolism quite naturally slows down.  The greatest way to prevent this from happening is through exercise and staying fit.

            The best way to date to control our metabolic process is through proper nutrition, daily exercise, eating the foods known to have an effect on our metabolic rate, and plenty of rest.  The metabolic process can be indirectly controlled by the methods we just discussed.  Direct control is not available, to date.

            I believe through careful analysis, exercise, and attention to each person’s unique needs, we could bring about a more natural balance of the metabolic burn vs. the calorie intake. To a level where optimal health and weight control are in equilibrium.

Rex Shell



Fitness of the Mind

Meditation, an exercise recommended for everyone, but especially those of us with hectic, stressful lifestyles, is defined as an engagement in contemplation, especially of a spiritual or devotional nature.  Meditation has been shown to relieve stress, and promote overall good health, by simply reflecting upon our day, and finding happiness within ourselves.  This and other mind exercises help us to keep our mind fit, and functioning at top performance levels

Our spirituality and meditation practices are the tools we have available to keep our mind as fit as we keep our bodies.  The mind is a complicated and versatile machine, but it can become overwhelmed and unable to function correctly, if we don’t take the time to keep it cared for.

Our mind has varying levels of operation, known as brainwaves.  As we pass through the different stages of our day, we enter various stages of brain wave activity.  The brain uses this tool as one way to allow us time to rest our busy mind, and cope with all the pieces of information we’ve received, a way to kind of “mind file” for the day.

When we don’t give adequate time for these processes, or we simply don’t get enough rest, our mind cannot maintain its state of fitness, just like our bodies aren’t capable of fitness if there is no chance to rest and replenish.

Modern alternative medicine and holistic healers believe in the power of the energy that flows through our bodies; this energy radiates from our mind as well.  It is believed to be the chief from of transportation for our body’s nervous system to carry out communication.

Breathing techniques, music, aromas, and candle therapy are all ways we utilize the opportunities to reflect on our day, allow our mind to rest and replenish itself for further use.  But are these methods keeping us mentally fit?  Yes, but they don’t work alone.  The absorption of new information, new opportunities to learn, and creative play provide our mind the stimulus it needs in order to stay fit and functioning.

The onset of many age-related mental disorders occurs because we haven’t taken the time to keep our mind youthful, and involved in new learning.  Learning new things forces our mind to form new neural pathways.  We need those neural pathways for the transmission of information from the body to the mind, or with our ability to form new memories.  If we don’t exercise the mind, we lose the fitness.

We must remember over the course of our daily routine, to make time to maintain mental fitness, as we strive to maintain physical fitness. The nice thing about the whole process is that, as we go about accomplishing these tasks, quite often the opportunities for preservation and care are interchangeable.  We can help to quite our mind as we take our twenty minute walk.  Or we have the opportunity to build muscle strength as we meditate.

Often just the opportunity to listen to music will allow our mind the chance it needs to relax and regroup.  It’s not always the most formal of occasions that we find an available chance to reflect and listen to that inner voice.  It can be in the middle of the day, with the wind blowing through your hair, and the radio turned up really loud!

Rex Shell

Weight Lifting Elbow Sleeves

Weight lifting is a sport to test the strength and resistance. Weight lifting involves the application of various equipment to improve the targeted muscle groups and the type of equipment used are dumbbells, weighted bars, weight stacks and kettle bells although, the weight lifting is totally different from body building and weight training thus it form a vital component of any well rounded fitness routine.

Weight lifting elbow sleeves are used to protect the elbow from damage; they are made with a stretchable material. One popular style is called “breath- o- preen” and helps to reduce skin irritation and to drive out moisture.Elbow pain should not be neglected at all, and using an elbow sleeve will reduce the pressure.


Weight lifters are not only building strength but lifting can boost your confidence and self-esteem when you see the hard work begins to pay off. Try using elbow sleeves to prevent injury and enhance your workout experience.There are some common problems related to the elbow such as Bursitis, which is an inflammation of fluid beneath the skin. Another one of the major problems related is arthritis, it causes narrowing of the joint space and loss of cartilage in the elbow. Weight lifters should get into the habit of using wearing elbow sleeves, especially when you get to the level of lifting really heavy weights.

Rex Shell

Increase Your Daily Energy By Using Elliptical Machines

There are too many people out there feeling sluggish each day, even when they are always getting enough rest each night. Too many people walk around like zombies throughout their days, feeling as though nothing is ever going to get any better for them. Elliptical machines can boost your energy levels, unlike any other type of training method available. Throughout this article I want to discuss with you some of the wonderful and exciting benefits that you can receive by using elliptical machines regularly.

Elliptical machines can give you that full body workout that you need and once you start and continue doing these routines for a short amount of time, you are going to notice a big change in your energy level each day. You might even start looking forward to getting up out of bed each day because of the way that elliptical machines can change your overall physique.

Relying on elliptical machines is definitely something that you should all start doing and because of the ease that they provide to your workout routine, many people are completely sold on these things. Energy is something that all of us need in order to get through our daily activities with much more ease and without that energy too many daily things will not get accomplished, which can cause some major problems in your life.

Elliptical machines are extraordinary machines that are more improved and advanced than any of the older pieces of workout equipment out there. There is no reason for you to continue feeling dead each day that you wake up, using elliptical machines can give you that ultimate boost that you have been waiting for. Without energy, nothing in your life can be completed successfully and without getting those things accomplished, your life is going to become more and more difficult.

There are many ways of finding and getting that body that you have always dreamed of but sitting and just wondering about it is not what is going to make it happen for you. Using elliptical machines is for sure what it is going to take, in order to get that energy booming and start enjoying each and every day of your life, from here on out. It is up to you to do something about it and it is up to you to push yourself every day, so that you can be energized and get more things in your life accomplished with great success.

Your training routine can vary, depending on your preferences and will vary, depending on the amount of time you spend working hard. It is very important for every one of you to realize and understand just how important daily and weekly exercise is for you. If you do not start making this a priority in your life, many negative things can begin occurring. Elliptical machines can give you exactly what it is that you have been searching for now for so long.



Eating and Excercise

Anytime you exercise, you do so in order to try and
maintain good health. You also know that you have to
eat as well, so your body will have the energy it
needs to exercise and maintain for the everyday tasks
of life. 

For making the best of your exercise, what
you eat before and after you workout is very important.
No matter if you are going to be doing a cardio
workout or a resistance workout, you should always
make it a point to eat a balanced mix of protein and
carbohydrates.  What makes that determining percentage
of carbs and protein you consume is whether or not
you are doing cardio or resistance exercise and the
intensity level that you plan to work at.

The ideal time for you to eat your pre workout meal
is an hour before you start.  If you plan to work
at a low intensity level, you should keep your pre
workout meal down to 200 calories or so.

Those of you who are doing a cardio session will
need to consume a mix of 2/3 carbs and 1/3 protein.
Doing so will give you longer sustained energy from
the extra carbs with enough protein to keep your
muscle from breaking down while you exercise.
For resistance exercise, you'll need to eat a mix
of 1/3 carbs and 2/3 protein, as this will help
you get plenty of energy from the carbs to perform
each set you do and the extra protein will help
keep muscle breakdown to a minimum while you
exercise. 

Eating after you exercise is just as important as
your pre workout meal.  Anytime you exercise,
whether its cardio or resistance, you deplete energy
in the form of glycogen.  The brain and central
nervous system rely on glycogen as their main
source of fuel, so if you don't replace it after
you exercise, your body will begin to break down
muscle tissue into amino acids, and then convert
them into usable fuel for the brain and the
central nervous system.

Keep in mind that mostly during resistance
exercise, you'll break down muscle tissue by
creating micro tears.  What this means, is that
after a workout, your muscles will instantly go
into repair mode.  Protein is the key here for
muscle repair, as you don't want muscle breaking
down even further to create fuel instead of
lost glycogen.

Once you have finished a cardio session, you'll
need to consume mainly carbohydrates, preferably
those with high fiber.  Rice, oatmeal, whole wheat
pasta, and northern fruits are excellent sources.
Also, try to consume 30 - 50 grams of there
types of carbs after you exercise.  After your
cardio workout, it is fine to eat within 5 - 10
minutes.

Once you've finished a resistance workout, you
will need to consume a combination of carbs and
protein.  Unlike cardio workouts, resistance
workouts will break down muscle tissue by creating
micro tears.

You'll need protein as this happens to build up
and repair these tears so that the muscle can
increase in size and strength.  The carbs will
not only replace the lost muscle glycogen, but
will also help the protein get into muscle cells
so it can synthesize into structural protein, or
the muscle itself.

After your resistance exercise, you should wait
up to 30 minutes before you eat, so that you won't
take blood away from your muscles too fast.  The
blood in your muscles will help the repair process
by removing the metabolic waste products.

Rex Shell

Welcome

Hello and Welcome to my Health and Fitness Focus Blog. My name is Rex and I am retired US Navy. At 53 years of age, I am in the best shape of my life. I designed this blog to share Health and Fitness ideas and resources to help enrich your life. I hope you enjoy and share this blog with your friends and family.