These videos give you a lot of good information and instruction to develop your core, and become stronger and healthier in the process.

Exercises to Tone Your Figure : Side Bends & Core Exercises

What’s the most dependable, least controversial, most certain thing you can do to look your best and improve your health?  

What’s the secret of looking and feeling so good people ask you how you do it? 

How do you stay strong and vital while others grow old and slow down? 

This article answers these questions and discusses the benefits of exercise, aerobic exercise, aerobic capacity, resistance exercise, symptoms of aging, exercise and depression, body fat, sedentary lifestyle, human growth hormone, pituitary hormones, cholesterol and more..

The more you move the healthier you become.

The strongest, healthiest, most robust people are the ones who move the most.  The more you move the more efficient your organs and glands work and efficiently working organs and glands are a prerequsite to and part of the definition of good health. 

From atoms to molecules to cells, organs, tissue, muscle and even bone, everything moves all the time.  Every cell in your body is in constant motion, taking in nutrients and oxygen, eliminating waste, organizing, reorganizing, and living. 

Life Is Motion

When cells stop moving they die.  Stop using a muscle and it gets small and weak.  Start using a muscle it grows big and strong.  Sit still long enough and you’ll simply die.

A sedentary lifestyle with no exercise and no physically demanding work or play results in progressively weaker muscles  If you exercise regularly or engage in physically demanding work or play, you stay strong and may even grow stronger.

It’s no coincidence that the strongest, healthiest, most robust people are also the most physically fit.

Besides being fun, exercise gives you a variety of amazing health benefits. Exercise can be one of the most beneficial, health-enhancing activities you can possibly do.  

No amount of money will buy you the kind of strength and health you can give yourself with regular exercise.

• Exercise strengthens your immune system, which means you’re naturally more resistant to allergies, colds, flu, and most illness.
• Exercise helps you reach and keep a healthy body weight, which means your risk of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure drops significantly.
• Exercise helps prevent high blood pressure and heart disease and reduces the risk of diabetes.
• Exercise increases your ability to utilize oxygen, which means your heart and lungs become more efficient and YOU have more energy and endurance.
• Exercise strengthens ligaments and tendons; improves circulation; improves short-term memory; helps you sleep better; helps eliminate lower back pain; improves mental alertness; helps relieve constipation and reduces the risk of osteoporosis.  And exercise if absolutely free!
• Exercise makes your organs and glands more efficient; enhances self- esteem; promotes emotional stability; is more effective than prescription drugs at relieving depression.

Exercise Gives You Ageless Youth & Vitality

For years doctors believed the changes commonly associated with aging were hard wired.  But new research proves otherwise.   The symptoms of aging are not hard-wired.

Physical changes we call getting older are caused primarily by hormonal changes brought on by diet and lifestyle choices that down regulate the endocrine system and cause it to be less efficient.

Exercise Slows, Stops And Even Reverses Many Common Symptoms Of Aging

The idea of reversing aging seemed scientifically silly until researchers proved many of the so called symptoms of aging are NOT age related.

Reduced muscle mass and loss of strength are common symptoms of aging, however the specific, causes of reduced muscle mass have LESS to do with how old you are and MORE to do with diet, nutrition and lifestyle factors only you control.

Beginning about age 25, unless you act to prevent it, you begin to lose about 6 pounds of lean muscle mass every 10 years.  That doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up.

By age 40 to 45 most people have lost about 15% of their youthful lean muscle mass and have gained weight.  By age 65 most have lost 25% to 30% of their youthful muscle and  strength.  This is unfortunate because it’s unnecessary.

Muscles begin shrink for these reasons,

1. Not enough protein in the diet; 
2. Declining pituitary gland output caused primarily by POOR DIET and;
3. A SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE that never stresses the muscles.

The good news is that accrding to the research until you’re  past 90, you can STOP and REVERSE hormonal decline and develop as much lean muscle and strength as you want.  Use it or lose it!

If you don’t believe strong muscles are a key component for robust health keep in mind that your heart is a muscle and if your heart weakens your quality of life suffers.

Unless you act to prevent hormonal decline, muscles weaken, you tend to gain weight every year and tiredness and fatigue become a way of life.  Use it or lose it.

Exercise stimulates your endocrine system to produce youthful levels of the hormones that help keep your muscles strong and keep your heart and lungs healthy.

Fifteen minutes of resistance exercise stimulates greater natural hormone production over the next 24-hours than you’d get from handfuls of expensive supplements.  And exercise costs nothing!

Slowing Down As You Age Is Bad Advice

The more you slow down… the slower you go.   Life IS motion.  Use it or lose it.

To stay healthy and strong as you age PICK UP THE PACE; join a gym, hire a personal trainer, go dancing, take your dog on a power walk, learn to juggle bowling pins, join a cycling club, swim a mile every day, exercise!

Exercise is the fountain of youth because exercise directly stimulates your pituitary gland to produce a cascade of healthy hormones that help keep you healthy and strong.

Forget about better living through chemistry. 

If getting and staying healthy and strong was as simple as popping pills or getting shots at an antiaging clinic, wouldn’t everyone know about it by now?

Regular exercise gives you anti aging and health improvements benefits FAR SUPERIOR to anything you’ll ever get out of a bottle and not exercising deprives you of one of the most powerful health imporvement activities on the planet. 

Increased Body Fat = Fast Forward Aging

Lean muscle mass and body fat are related.  If lean muscle mass drops your body fat percentage automatically increases and too much body fat is a BIG  indicator of fast forward aging and a predictor of future health problems.

If body fat percentage climbs too high your endocrine system is pumping out powerful hormones that lay the groundwork for a variety of health problems.

Once again… exercise to the rescue!

Resistance exercise stimulates your endocrine system to naturally produce hormones that increase your metabolic rate, burn off stored body fat, reach a healthy body weight and improve your strength and health regardless of how many birthdays you’ve had.

In 5 Steps To Optimal Health I lay out a complete step-by-step diet, nutrition and lifestyle specifically designed to restore natural healthy hormonal balance.

AEROBIC CAPACITY refers to how effectively you absorb and utilize oxygen.

Increase your aerobic capacity and your health improves instantly.  Exercise builds aerobic capacity quickly and effectively.

Decreased aerobic activity is a sure sign of aging.  Have you ever known someone so out of shape that walking around the block or going up a flight of stairs wears them out.  This is what decreased aerobic capacity looks like and it’s not pretty.

In one way or another practically all tiredness and fatigue is associated with decreased aerobic capacity.

• The greater your aerobic capacity, the more energy, health and vitality you enjoy and vice-versa. 
• Poor aerobic capacity equals near constant tiredness and fatigue and can lead to high blood pressure and a weakening immune system.
• Regular aerobic exercise builds aerobic capacity and builds energy, vitality, a stronger immune system and better health.
• Aerobic capacity is a powerful predictor of mortality.  
• The greater your aerobic capacity the lower your statistical probability of dying from any cause and vice versa.

You can improve your aerobic capacity on purpose and by choice with regular exercise.

Cholesterol Out Of Balance Is A High Profile Aging

Your hormonal balance affects your blood chemistry. Cholesterol out of healthy balance is a tip off that two hormones, insulin and glucagon, are also out of balance. 

Entire books, lots of them, have been written on the devastating effect of insulin and glucagons imbalance.  Titles like Syndrome X, and The K Factor come to mind.

Dozens of studies show that EXERCISE lowers the sticky LDL cholesterol and raises the heart-healthy HDL cholesterol. 

Exercise Strengthens Your Immune System

The stronger your immune system the healthier you are.  A weak immune system is another sign of biological aging.

As hormone levels decline EVERYTHING declines, including immune system strength, which is why stimulating the natural production of human growth hormone with exercise results in a significant improvement in overall health.

• Exercise increases blood oxygen levels, which helps strengthen the immune system. 
• Exercise naturally facilitates the production of human growth hormone, which is directly associated with stronger immunity and better health.

INSULIN RESISTANCE IS A MAJOR SYMPTOM OF AGING AND A PRECURSOR OF SERIOUS HELATH PROBLEMS

Insulin resistance is a hot topic in anti aging medicine (not to mention heart disease and diabetes) because insulin out of balance puts your aging clock on FAST FORWARD and puts you on a collision course with serious health problems.

Insulin out of balance is the single most significant factor that drives down your natural production of human growth hormone and that keeps production and absorption of health building hormones low.

Besides learning to eat for blood sugar control, a topic covered in 5 Steps to Optimal Health, EXERCISE is one of the most powerful things you can do to get control of your insulin level.

Exercise effectively removes sugar from your blood, which means there is less demand for your pancreas to make insulin.  Exercise makes your tissues more sensitive to insulin, which means it takes LESS insulin to lower blood sugar.

Reduced production and utilization of pituitary gland hormones is at the root of every single one of the biological markers of aging.

When healthy hormones levels decline or surge out of balance, everything those hormones regulate declines.  And they regulate everything.

The good news is that when natural hormone levels are restored everything they regulate improves and, once again, they regulate everything.

Research proves that restoring youthful hormone levels slows, stops and in many instances actually REVERSES practically ALL of the biological symptoms of aging, which means you look better, feel better and become stronger.

Naturally produced Humen Growth Hormone made by your pitutary gland leads to:

• increased lean muscle mass;
• reduction of excess body fat;
• enhanced sexual performance;
• re-growth of heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, and other organs that shrink with age;
• greater cardiac output; superior immune function;
• increased exercise performance; better kidney function;
• lowered blood pressure; lower totacholesterol and better HDL ratios; stronger bones; faster wound healing; younger, tighter, thicker skin; fewer wrinkles; elimination of cellulite; sharper vision; better memory; improved sleep; and the list goes on and on and on and on.

Because exercise is one of  the most effective ways to increase your own natural production of HGH and other health building hormones, it follows that exercise indirectly gives each and every one of these benefits.

Results Of A Sedentary Lifestyle

• Use it or lose it.  A sedentary lifestyle decreases your body’s ability to function efficiently and sets up a chain reaction for physical decline.
• Use it or lose it.  A sedentary lifestyle leads to hormonal decline and a decline in the efficiency of every life system regulated by those hormones.
• Use it or lose it.  A sedentary lifestyle reduces your ability to take in and use oxygen, robbing your of energy, weakening the immune system and increases your risk of illness and disease.

A sedentary lifestyle reduces cardiac output, which means less blood is pumped by your heart.  This causes a double-whammy of deprivation, less overall oxygen and less blood to carry oxygen and nutrients to your brain and organs.  Chronic tiredness and fatigue is the only possible result.

To compensate for reduced oxygen and nutrient supply the heart beats harder and blood pressure rises in a futile attempt to feed the brain.

Chronically reduced oxygen and nutrient levels lead to high blood pressure, a weaker heart, a decline in hormone production, shrinking muscles, thinning bones, a weaker immune system and growing inability to concentrate.  

Wouldn’t it be better to just exercise and forget all this!

Every part of your body, from the inside out, responds favorably to increased physical activity.

Mountains of research document the positive affect regular exercise has on improving strength and health on every level capable of being measured by medical science.

Exercise and you feel better about yourself, your life, and everyone in it, which is not surprising when you discover that repeated studies show that regular exercise fights depression MORE EFFECTIVELY than any prescription drug available.

Your body is made for movement.   You need physical activity to stay healthy and if you don’t get it you eventually become frail and weak FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

Avoid The Tragedy Of Being Sedentary

People who think they’re too busy, too important or too sophisticated to sweat a little and get some exercise are out of touch with reality. 

Your physical body doesn’t care who you are or what you think; without exercise or some form of regular physical activity your health will suffer.   

People who do nothing but work, work, work and look forward to the day when they can laze around after they have all the money and achieved world domination are likely to be disappointed because they’ll be too tired, weak or ill ot enjoy it. 

The tragedy sedentary-by-choice people create is that without exercise, by the time they’re ready to start enjoying life, they’ve lost so much muscle mass and aerobic capacity they’ve become tired and weak and just don’t feel like doing anything.

Too bad, especially when you consider that exercise, combined with proper diet and supplementation keeps you strong and energetic and gives you a chance to enjoy life from the playing field instead of the sidelines.

The solution is simple.  Exercise!  

Exercise is fun, free, and once you get used to it, exercise may become a source of great enjoyment that you look forward to every day… I know I do.

I could go on about exercise for hours but you get the point, and besides that, I just talked myself into getting started early on my exercise for the day.  Why don’t you do the same!

Until Next Time… All The Best To You And Yours! Russell J. Martino, Ph.D Bringing You Health… At The Speed Of Life!

This is a small sample of the practical, usable information in 5 Steps To Optimal Health, a program thousands have benefited from since 1999 and I have updated continuously every year since.  Learn more here: www.5StepsToOptimalHealth.com