An A-Z of fitness, health and nutrition terms that you may come across on this website:

Absolute Strength: The maximum amount a person can lift in one repetition.

Accommodating Resistance: Increasing resistance Nautilus machines are said to provide accommodating resistance.

Acquired Ageing: The acquisition of characteristics commonly associated with ageing but that are, in fact, caused by immobility or sedentary living.

Active Stretch: Muscles are stretched using the contraction of the opposing muscle, (antagonist). For an example stretching the triceps, requires the biceps to contract.

Adhesion: Fibrous patch holding muscles or other parts together that are normally separated.

ADP (Adenosine Diphospahate): This provides energy for muscular contraction.

Aerobic capacity: Another term for maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 Max).

Aerobic Exercise: Activity in which the body is able to supply adequate oxygen to the working muscles, for a period of time. Running, cross-country skiing and cycling are examples of aerobic activities.

Amino Acids: Twenty- two basic building blocks of the body that makes up proteins.

Anaerobic Exercise: Activities in which oxygen demands of muscles are so high that they rely upon an internal metabolic process for oxygen, resulting in lactic acid build up. Short bursts of “all-out” activities such as sprinting or weightlifting are anaerobic.

Anaerobic Threshold: The point at which you begin working your muscles without oxygen, from an aerobic level, believed to be at about 87% of your Maximum Heart Rate.

Antioxidants: Vitamins A, C and E, along with various minerals, which are useful to protect the body.

Assimilation: The process in which foods are utilized and absorbed by the body.

Ballistic Stretch: A more vigorous stretch by using a swinging or bouncing motion suited only for conditioned athletes.

Barbell: Weight used for exercise, consisting of a rigid handle 5-7′ long, with detachable metal discs at each end.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): Metabolic rate at rest, your bodies working output.

Bodybuilding: Weight training to change physical appearance.

Body Composition: The breakdown of your body make-up, i.e. fat, lean muscle, bone and water content.

Bone density: Soundness of the bones within the body, low density can be a result of osteoporosis.

Bulking Up: Gaining body weight by adding muscle, body fat or both.

Burn – As in “going for the burn”: In endurance exercise, working muscles until lactic acid build-up causes burning sensation.

Carbohydrate: Compounds that contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen used by the body as a fuel source. Two main groups are sugars and starch.

Carbohydrate Loading: Increase consumption of carbohydrates in liquid or food form normally three days prior to an endurance type event.

Cardiovascular Training: Physical conditioning that strengthens heart and blood vessels, the result of which is an increase in the ability for your body muscles to utilize fuel more effectively resulting in a greater level of exercising.

Cellulose: Indigestible fibre in foods.

Cholesterol: A fat lipid which has both good and bad implications within the human body. Good being known as HDL and bad being LDL. Bad cholesterol is associated with heart disease and stroke, whereas the body requires cholesterol for the production of many steroid hormones.

Complete Proteins: Proteins that contain all the essential amino acids.

Cool Down: Moderate then light activity, normally followed by stretching.

Coronary Heart Disease: Diseases of the heart muscle and the blood vessels that supply it with oxygen, including heart attack.

Crunches: Sit-ups done on the floor with legs on bench, hands behind the neck.

Deficiency: A sub optimal level of either one or more nutrients, often resulting in poor health.

Dehydration: Excessive fluid loss from the body, normally from perspiration, urination, evaporation or being sick.

Delts: Abbreviation for deltoids, the large triangular muscles of the shoulder which raise the arm away from the body and perform other functions.

Disease Prevention: Altering lifestyles and environmental factors with the intent of preventing or reducing the risk of various illnesses and diseases.

Diuretic: A substance that aids the increase of urine excreted by the body.

Electrolytes: Capable of conducting electricity in a solution. Used in many body activities, potassium, sodium and chloride are all forms of electrolytes.

Endurance: Ability of a muscle to produce force continually over a period of time.

Enzyme: Helpful protein molecules, responsible for a multitude of chemical reactions within the body.

Ergogenic: Something that can increase muscular work capacity.

Essential Fatty Acids: Required by the body, however only obtainable from food sources, such as flaxseed oil and safflower oil.

Exercise: Activity done for the purpose of keeping fit and healthy.

Fat: Often referred to as lipids, or triglycerides, one of the main food groups, containing nine calories per gram. It serves a variety of functions in the body.

Fructose: Often used as a sugar substitute for diabetics, because of its low glycemic index. A healthier option than normal sugar, as fructose comes from fruit.

Glucose: The basic fuel of the body, the simplest sugar molecule and main sugar found in the blood stream.

Glycemic Index: A measuring system to find the extent of which various foods raise the blood sugar level.

Glycogen: The principle form of carbohydrate energy (glucose) stored within the bodies muscles and liver.

Hormones: Regulators of various biological processes through their ability to control the action of enzymes.

Hypertension: High blood pressure.

Hypoglycaemia: A common occurrence in diabetics, this is low blood sugar levels, resulting in fatigue.

Incomplete proteins: Proteins which are low in one or more of the essential amino acids.

Lactic Acid: A substance caused by anaerobic training of the muscles, a build up prevents continuation of exercise.

Muscle: Tissue consisting of fibres organized into bands or bundles that contract to cause bodily movement.

Muscle Tone: Condition in which muscle is in a constant yet slight state of contraction and appears firm.

Pecs: Abbreviation for pectoral muscles of the chest.

Power Lifts: Three movements used in power lifting competition; the squat, bench press and dead lift.

Progressive Resistance: Method of training where weight is increased as muscles gain strength and endurance.

Pumping Iron: Lifting weights.

Quads: Abbreviation for quadriceps, muscles on top of the legs.

Repetition: One complete movement of an exercise.

Reps: Abbreviation for repetitions.

Set: Fixed number of repetitions. For example, 10 repetitions may comprise one set.

Strength Training: Using resistance weight training to build maximum muscle force.

Upper Abs: Abbreviation for abdominal muscles above the navel.

VO2 MAX: The maximum amount of oxygen a person can utilize per minute of work.
Warm up: Light gradual exercises performed to get the body ready for physical activity.

Most children are active all the time usually children will walk or cycle a few miles per day without even realising it when they are out with friends, but in today’s age more and more children are having weight problems to some degree.

The problems sometime correct themselves for children put on weight then have a spurt in growth and these patterns can correct themselves within a few months.

However there has been an increase over the last few years in obesity in children, this has been blamed on changes in lifestyle, more and more children are turning to computer and video games and getting less and less exercise.

So what can we do to improve our children’s health and levels of fitness? New guidelines have suggested that children should have at the very least 60 minutes per day of exercise and preferably up to several hours.

Children are the same as adults and risk the increase of diseases such as the onset of diabetes and some forms of cancer as well heart disease later in life.

We should encourage our children to:

• Participate in bouts of physical activity that lasts for 15 minutes or more each day.
• Participate each day in a variety of age appropriate physical activities.
• Discourage periods of 2 hours or more of inactivity.
• Discourage them from sitting at the computer or in front of the TV.
• Children should accumulate at least 60 minutes and preferably several hours of activity on most days of the week.

Under the new guidelines schools are encouraged to work with parents and children in raising the awareness of leading a healthier lifestyle, schools are now encouraging pupils to attend after school sports clubs and physical education lessons are being structured to make sure children learn the values of exercise.

The school’s physical education programme should:

• Expose children to a wide range of physical activities.
• Teach skills to maintain a healthy lifestyle and level of fitness.
• Encourage children to monitor themselves so they can see how active they have been.
• Play an active part as a role model.

Studies showed that the times when children were less active were between 3 and 6pm, this was when time was spent on computers and watching TV. It is thought that sometimes the children are not to blame for this but rather they do it out of boredom.

This is where parents should step in and encourage activity, suggest going for a walk or for a bike ride or to the park and kick a football around. There are many ways to be active as a family without having to spend a lot of money.

We know that living a healthier lifestyle by eating a well balanced diet and having exercise on a daily basis can help reduce the risk of health problems such as heart disease and cancer. But recent studies have also shown that exercising during midlife for half an hour can help by significantly reducing the risk of developing dementia later in life.

Studies have shown that people in there 40`s and early 50`s who exercise on a daily basis could reduce their risk of having dementia by up to 50%. A reduction of around 60% could be seen in people who are genetically prone to Alzheimer’s disease.

How do we known exercise can help?

The study was based on 1500 men and women of whom 200 developed Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia between the ages of 65 and 70, researchers looked back into the past history to find out how active the participants had been up to 21 years previously.

Those people who had developed some form of dementia had been less active in their 40`s and 50`s than the people who showed no signs of dementia. The study concluded that it appeared to be necessary to take part in some from of physical activity which lasted between 20 and 30 minutes at least twice a week.

Researchers though there could be many reasons for the findings, for example exercising on a regular basis can help to keep the small blood vessels of the brain healthy.

It is thought also that regular exercise might help reduce the amount of the protein amyloid that build up in the brain in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s. Any physical activity also affects the genes and compounds that are essential for the memory to function properly.

The study also took into account the fact that people who exercise on a regular basis are prone to living a healthier lifestyle in general for example they are non smokers and don’t drink or drink very little alcohol.

Factor’s such as these were taken into account but the findings remained the same suggesting that exercise on a daily basis is beneficial for the brain.

Exercise suitable for middle age and the elderly

The most important point to note when starting any form of exercise for the first time is to build up slowly, maybe even as little as 5 minutes of walking or using an exercise bike at first then increasing the amount over a period of time.

Almost all forms of exercise are suitable for people who are in there 40`s and early 50`s when done in moderation until the body gets used to the new regime, for elderly people swimming is an ideal form of exercise which benefits many problems associated with ageing.

Many leisure centres and fitness centres now offer classes especially for people over the age of 50 where people the same age can workout together.

For more information on Dementia and Alzheimer’s visit:
Alzheimer’s Guide
Dementia Guide

Living a healthier style just isn’t about eating healthier and exercising, a healthy lifestyle should be a complete way of life. Your body, mind and soul should be in complete harmony and by following a few simple steps we can all achieve this in our lives. Your body needs a healthy diet which consists of vitamins, minerals and nutrients but it also needs mental energy:

Mental energy

• all the exercise, healthy food and sleep in the world won’t help if you’re wasting mental energy.
• mental energy levels go up and down in the course of a day this can be through stress at work , problems in relationships, too many bills and not enough money to pay them or if you are feeling generally unwell.
• the key to mental energy is taking control of your life.

Try to take one step at a time to address issues, if you’re having problems in relationships then sit down quietly and talk them through, shouting at each other doesn’t get anything accomplished and can often make you feel worse.

If your problems are work related then ask to speak to the boss and discuss any work related issues with him/her. If you have money problems there are several ways of dealing with these issues but ignoring them and hoping they go away isn’t the answer.

Don’t be too hard on yourself

If you are the type who likes to be neat and tidy and well organised then you are probably classed as a perfectionist and anything below perfection will be frowned upon by you. If this sounds like you then try to remember these points:

• perfection causes anxiety which affects your lifestyle and happiness.
• living by such high standards can be a cause of high blood pressure.
• If you’re always pushing yourself in striving for perfection you can miss out on a lot of the good things in life.
• perfectionism can be a way of escaping like drinking, the perfectionist idea can be that people only like them because of their achievements and so failure isn’t an option.

Try to learn to relax more and de stress there are several exercises that are excellent for relaxing particularly Tai- chi and yoga. Learn that there is more to life than achieving and working towards goals, learn to just relax and enjoy life.

One of the biggest problems is keeping yourself motivated to keeping up the new exercise and eating healthier plans you have started. Listed below are some points to help you maintain your new lifestyle:

Set goals that you can reach – We would all like to have a flat stomach and rippling muscles but when you start out on any fitness plan try and set your goals realistically, if you set goals that are beyond your means then chances are that you will become bored and lose interest.

Visualise success – On days when you are struggling to keep up your routine and are making excuses for not exercising that day try and visualise how you will feel when you have reached your target for the month.

Monitor your progress – keep a diary or journal or download software to your computer where you can keep a record of your achievements, you can look back at the progress you have made and see just how far you have come.

Work out with a friend or your partner – Sometimes working out alone can become boring, try and work out with a friend or your partner not only will you have someone to keep you company while you work out but you will be able to encourage each other also.

Watch TV or video – If you are exercising in your own home then try watching the TV while you peddle the exercise bike, you might be surprised how many miles you can peddle while watching your favourite soap operas.

Put some music on the stereo – If your exercise routine won’t allow for watching TV then try putting your favourite music on the stereo and sing or hum along to it.

Stay Hydrated and don’t push yourself too hard – Remember to drink plenty of water before and while exercising this will stop your body from becoming dehydrated, if you feel tired then stop your routine for the day.

Make sure you wear comfortable clothing – It doesn’t matter how you look while exercising, the main thing is that you feel comfortable while doing your routine.

Make your exercise routine a habit – You eat at specific times; watch TV at specific times, go to and from work at specific times so try and get into the habit of exercising at regular times too.

Don’t feel too guilty – If you miss your routine for one day then try not to feel too guilty about it just brush it off and start again the day after. But don’t make a habit of it.

Every little bit helps – The mere fact that you have made a start at improving your lifestyle with exercise and healthy eating is something you should be proud of even if you only do 10 minutes per day.

Try a varied daily exercise routine – Repeating the same type of exercises every day four or five times a week can get a bit tedious, try and include different exercises in your daily workout such as cycling one day, walking the next. This way it won’t become boring and you’re more likely to stick to it.

Use equipment that you feel comfortable with – If you don’t feel comfortable using the rowing machine then don’t use it, you don’t have to use it just because it is there, only use equipment that you feel comfortable using.

We know the importance of living a healthy lifestyle, eating a healthy diet and exercising can help us to look after our heart and ward off heart disease and other major illnesses. Having a daily exercise plan will also leave you feeling less tired and stressed and can also make you feel happier.

Research has shown that people suffering from depression have felt a lot better when taking some form of activity on a regular basis. Exercising not only makes you feel good but also makes you look good, it helps to tone and strengthen muscles which will improve your posture and help burn body fat.

Your health in the long term

Benefits to your health in the long term are numerous, exercising for as little as 20 minutes per day 5 days a week will reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and the development of diabetes. It can also have a positive effect on people who suffer from high blood pressure, often helping to bring it lower.

Exercise such as walking can help you reduce the risk of developing brittle bones later in life and help with problems such as constipation, menstrual problems and pre menstrual problems.

All-round fitness

An all-round fitness plan would involve three areas, aerobic exercise and flexibility exercises and strength exercises.

Your health can be improved by developing your aerobic capacity, aerobic exercise is basically any exercise that raises the rate of your heartbeat and makes you sweat slightly, for example a brisk walk or jogging.

The aerobic system is your heart, lungs, muscles and blood vessels. Your capacity is based on how well your body can deliver oxygen to the muscles and how much oxygen they use for energy.

Exercising on a regular basis for a specific time and level will help you to increase the ability to take in and use oxygen while exercising. This will then improve your aerobic capacity.

How to improve your aerobic capacity

This can be achieved by exercising for about 20 minutes per day 3 times a week at an intensity that is within your training zone. Your training zone is calculated by subtracting your age from 220, this will give you your maximum heart rate.

You then multiply this number by 65% the number you get is the number your heart rate should stay when you are exercising aerobically.

Exercise machines in gyms will have a built in heart rate monitor but if you are exercising at home then you can purchase a pulse rate monitor cheaply. These are often in the form of wrist bands or chest bands.

Research has shown that drinking alcohol in moderate amounts can be beneficial to the health, for men over the age of 40 and women in the menopause having a couple of small drinks per day can help in the prevention of heart disease.

Having said this it is also a fact that over a quarter of men and one in every six women drink enough alcohol to put their health at risk.

How much is too much? Guidelines suggest that men should drink no more than three to four units of alcohol per day and women should have no more than two to three units per day, it is important to remember that these units shouldn’t be stored up and used together all in one session and go on a binge drinking spree.

What is a unit?

A single unit of alcohol is 8 grams of pure alcohol regardless of the amount of liquid the alcohol is contained in; the strength of the alcohol is measured by the percentage of alcohol per volume. To make things easier to understand one unit of alcohol is:

• About half a pint of regular strength lager, beer or cider.
• A 25 ml measure in a pub of any spirit or a small glass of sherry or port.
• 125 ml of wine.

Alcohol dependency

People are said to be dependent on alcohol when it is drunk in large quantities and not just socially, there are a number of ways that a Doctor can tell if patients have drink problems and have become dependent on alcohol.

The Doctor will ask the patient screening questions such as the amount of alcohol you drink and the frequency, if the amount you drink, does drinking lead to problems in your social life, with relationships and at work. You are said to have a dependency on alcohol if you have experienced three or more of the following in a year:

• Difficulty controlling the amount you drink.
• You often get a strong urge to drink.
• You cannot get through the day without having a drink.
• You are negligent of other activities.
• You persistently drink even though you know its causing problems.

The short term effects alcohol has on your health

Alcohol suppresses your better judgment; it also has an effect on your physical co-ordination, causes loss of balance and slurred speech. Drinking large amounts of alcohol at any one time is called binge drinking and can lead to coma or even death.

The long term effects

Drinking large quantities of alcohol ever week greatly increases the risk of diseases, drinking excessively is associated with:

• Loss of the brain cells.
• Epilepsy.
• Liver failure.
• Irritation of the lining of the stomach.
• High blood pressure.
• Certain types of cancer.

Tips for cutting down

• Go out later than you would normally do and don’t try to fit in the same amount of alcohol, drink slowly.
• Stop taking lunch breaks in the pub.
• Have at least two days free from alcohol.
• Buy beers and wines with low alcohol content.
• Change your routine go to see a movie instead of going for a drink.

Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death and disease the world over, over 4 million people a year die from smoking and cigarette smoking accounts at least for 30% of all cancer related deaths.

Smoking is the major cause of many types of cancer including, lung, larynx and oesophagus cancers and is one of the main contributing causes of cancer of the bladder, liver, cervix, stomach and colon.

It is thought that about 87% of those who develop lung cancer have smoked at some time in their lives and lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among both men and women.

What other risks does smoking pose?

Smoking contributes to the early onset of many other diseases including:

• Asthma
• Bronchitis
• Emphysema
• Stroke
• The severity of pneumonia
• The women’s reproductive health
• Can be a cause of miscarriage
• Cause premature birth
• Low birth weight

Health benefits gained from stopping smoking

• Stopping smoking has immediate health benefits for women and men of all ages, health benefits can be felt with or without smoking related diseases.
• People who have stopped smoking live longer than those who continue to smoke, for example a person who stopped smoking at the age of 50 has one half the risk of dying during the next 15 years as the person who continues to smoke.
• Stopping smoking will decrease the risk of lung cancer, heart attack and stroke.
• Women who stop smoking before they become pregnant or during the first 3 to 4 months reduce the risk of harming their unborn child.

The risk of developing lung cancer through smoking is related to a lifetime exposure to smoking, it is measured by the age you started smoking, how many cigarettes you smoked each day and the number of years that you have smoked.

The body’s healing time after stopping smoking

It is hard to stop smoking and there is no easy way out, there are nicotine patches and chewing gum in different strengths to help you quit but it is mostly down to sheer will power and wanting to quit to let your body begin to repair the damage you have done to it.

• Within 8 hours of having your last cigarette nicotine will start to leave your system, your heart rate and blood pressure will start to return to normal.
• Within 24 hours most of the carbon monoxide will have left your body giving the body better access to oxygen.
• Within 2 days all of the nicotine byproducts will have left your body, you will start to sleep better, eat better, the taste of food will improve as well as your sense of smell.
• Within a month your lungs will have started to improve, you will be able to walk uphill without the chest feeling tight and wheezy.
• After 9 weeks your blood pressure and blood circulation will have improved and you will feel a general sense of well being and your level of fitness will have improved.

Walk your way to a healthier you

Walking is one of the best all-round forms of exercise we can have, it is a way of keeping fit and losing weight that doesn’t cost anything but the rewards we can reap from it are endless. To lose weight we must burn off more calories than we eat and walking is one form of exercise that can help us to do this.

As a general guide a person weighing 60kg would burn off 150 calories if they were to walk at a brisk pace for a half hour. A heavier person would burn off more calories per half hour and a lighter one less calories.

Walking has been known to reduce stress and anxiety and to bring about a feeling of well being leaving the person more relaxed, it also gives us more energy though at first if you have been inactive for any length of time you may feel a little tired at but this will soon wear off after your body has got used to your new routine.

Any physical exercise is proven to help greatly with people who suffer from sleep problems and a gentle stroll before going to bed will help you relax as well as burn off some of the calories you had at your evening meal.

Walking has also been proven as excellent therapy for people suffering from back pain and also helps in relieving problems with the joints.

As well as helping you lose weight now and become fitter and healthier walking can help to prevent a wide range of problems occurring from carrying too much weight around in the future. Evidence has shown that walking can help with

• Lowering high blood pressure
• Help burn off body fat
• Promote healthy blood sugar levels
• Give a boost to the immune system
• Improve depression and anxiety

Cycling for your health

Cycling has been proven to be an excellent form of aerobic exercise for those wanting to shed a few pounds, cycling burns off roughly 300 calories per hour if you cycle at a moderate pace.

There are many indirect benefits to be gained from cycling; cycling can help to improve co-ordination, which is of particular help to older people as this gives better balance and reduces the risk of falls which could result in fractures.

Cycling is an excellent form of exercise for building up strength particularly in the legs and improving your cardiovascular system which helps people suffering from asthma.

Recent studies carried out showed that even the smallest amount of cycling can bring significant gains to fitness levels, the study showed that after just 6 weeks of cycling only short distances for 4 times a week aerobic fitness levels were raised by 11%.

Results also showed that people who started to cycle after never doing much exercise before moved from the third of the population who were the least fit to the fittest half of the population in just a few short weeks.

Many people are under the impression that for exercise to be beneficial to our health it has to be strenuous exercise, in fact research has shown that exercise done in a mild to moderate form is actually more beneficial to our health.

In order to determine exactly how much exercise we actually need per week we have to be clear about what we actually want to achieve from our exercise routine, do you want to exercise for fitness or for a healthier you. This may sound confusing for often the terms are used to mean the same thing but they do have very different meanings.

Fitness

Fitness is defined in relation to something called physical work capacity, which in simple terms means how much the body can do. A scientific way of telling how fit a person is to measure how much energy they can produce using a cycle erogmeter when cycling at a specific rate or timing how far the person can run on a track in a given time.

Fitness also relates to endurance, strength, power and flexibility, professional footballers and boxers for instance have to have high levels of fitness and endurance.

Health

Health is a broader concept and to be healthy we have to be not only resilient to diseases but also our spiritual and mental wellbeing plays an important role, usually when we say a person is fit we use the term fit and healthy together but this isn’t necessarily true.

An example of this would be if someone exercised regularly say for example playing football but they suffered from a problem such as alcoholism.

It is important to be able to distinguish between healthy and fit for the amount of exercise differs between the two. You need more exercise to get fit and remain in top shape than you do to be healthy.

Fitness training

Many people need a certain level of fitness to enable them to carry out the job they do, for example a fire-fighter, or if they are chosen for a football or rugby team. In order to achieve fitness of this level and maintain it then you would have to follow a structured training regime.

Training such as this is usually carried out in a gym under the supervision of a trainer; examples of training regimes such as these are track running and weight lifting.

The key point to achieving such a high level of fitness is the intensity of the regime and you will probably do more vigorous training than if you were just working out to be healthier.

Exercising for your health

Everyone can benefit from regular mild exercise, not only do we feel better about ourselves but also exercising helps to ward off many diseases, such as heart disease and obesity.

To become healthier we don’t have to train as intensely as we would for fitness, you can gradually increase the amount of activity you do and fit it into your daily routine.

Exercising this way can consist of simple everyday activities such as walking; a lot of people can be put off starting out on the road to becoming a healthier person simply because they think they need to work out at a level of high intensity to feel any benefit but this is untrue.

Slow and steady progress is all that is needed on a regular basis and the results will begin to show on your health, you’ll find yourself sleeping better, looking better and feeling better about yourself and have peace of mind knowing you’re doing something to help fight off the onset of early diseases.