More than 80% of the adult population suffer from low back pain at some time in their life. It is one of the most common reasons why people take time off work, and may be distressing and frustrating as quality of life often suffers.
Yet gentle, effective exercise, delivered by a properly trained exercise professional, can often help with the prevention and management of low back pain. This was underlined by the publication by NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) in 2009 of medical guidelines recommending that people with persistent non-specific low back pain should be encouraged to stay physically active and exercise.
Good Back Care
It is important to keep your back fit and healthy. This does not only put you in the best position to prevent back pain, but also enables you to control back pain when it strikes.
Staying active
- It is important to keep your back fit and healthy by staying active and participating in regular physical activity. There is no need to run a marathon or become a fitness fanatic to achieve this; small changes to your life style can make a real difference.
Looking after your posture
- Your spine is a very flexible and strong structure that can cope with many of the stresses in daily life.
- Your spine is a ‘S’ shape and it is important to keep this natural curve of your back when sitting. Good chairs follow this natural curve of the back.
- When kneeling, bend from the knees and not from the back, especially when you are having to lift something at the same time.
Keeping your back flexible
- Flexibility is one of the key characteristics of your back. To improve or maintain the flexibility in your back you can do mobilising exercises. You will feel that is especially important to do this after you have been in one position for a long period of time.
- Besides doing some mobilising exercises at home, you can also take part in a structured exercise classes that focus on balancing mobilisation with stabilisation like Ballet Body Sculpture classes.
Lifting
- Lifting heavy or awkwardly shaped items can be a risk factor for back pain, especially when you have to lift repetitively. To reduce the chances of lifting giving you a back injury, you should use manual handling aids and the correct technique.
Healthy eating and drinking
- A healthy diet and drinking sufficient water is important for everyone, including people with back pain. It has been suggested that drinking sufficient water is important to keep the intervertebral discs hydrated.
For more information on how to develop great posture and strengthen the core:
www.balletbodysculpture.com
The process of “burning fat” can get very complicated if you want to go into the finer details but can be broken down to three main steps:
Mobilization
Transport
Oxidation (the burning of)
So, what do they mean?
Mobilization is releasing the fatty acids from the fat cells and getting it into the bloodstream. To do this you need to be doing a short high intensity form of exercise, ballet or similar.
Transport is as it sounds, transporting the newly released fatty acids into a working muscle via the blood. So if you are doing a intense strengthening exercises, the muscles will call upon the fatty acids transported by the blood for energy.
Oxidation, to put this simply, this is when the working muscles use fatty acids as energy and is being burnt.
Sounds simple doesn’t it?
1. Excesses – Clearly this is the big one. People are quick to say why they can not do something rather than actually do it. Even the things that they have never tried before.
2. Intensity – Ballet Body Sculpture workout classes have great intensity, yet it's a very elegant way to exercise and build a beautiful posture as well and burn the calories in your workouts.
3. Eating – This one is pretty clear too, but you’ll be surprised at how many people who follow an exercise plan don’t actually know what the are eating when it comes to calories, and they get upset when they don’t see the results they want.
3a. Eat Protein – Protein is the building blocks of our bodies, hair, nails, muscles etc. If you are exercising you will need to increase the calories you are getting from protein to fuel your body.
3b. Eat Healthy Fat – Good fats like plain nuts and nut butters, coconut oils, grass feed butters etc all have great properties in keeping our fat burning hormones up naturally.
3c. Keep Carbohydrates Low (ish) – Carbohydrates is a non essential macronutrient, our bodies can and have survived without eat carbs. Carbs help raise insulin which puts you more into a fat storing mode if timed wrong. So eat those before the exercise not after:)
4. Excuses!!!
5. Listening To The Wrong People – There are too many people in this world that give out bad health and fitness advice from the Government, media, all the way down to your best friend and the person trying to sell stuff like Herbalife, Forever Living, and Slimming clubs. So its no wonder that people don’t get what they want. With so much information coming at them from different angles what direction do you go down?
Always talk to and only listen to a professional trainer/coach. That might sound biased but a good trainer will teach you more in a few sessions than anyone I have listed in point 5.
So, how to burn fat?
Eat a diet plan mostly proteins and fats, having carbs the third priority. Follow a regular and intense training programme, mostly strength training based , so why not not try Ballet Body Sculpture Classes?:) Group classes or Private training sessions, if you really want to see great body changes coming quickly.
And don't give yourself excuses!:)
Enjoy the summer and I look forward to seeing you in our classes!
