Health Touches

The chin-up requires some strength. For new trainees, it’s better to start a strength program and use a series of progressions.

Pilates exercising is popular all around the world. The exercises teach you how to control your breathing, developing abdominal power, aligning your spinal area and pelvis, and by using these in training you’ll get greater muscle flexibility.

The role of exercise in helping to lower stress - and the subsequent beneficial effects on health - has been widely studied.

A good workout routine will test you, but shouldn’t damage you. As muscles get used, especially somewhat beyond their usual range, lactic acid, micro-tears and other physiological changes occur that result in muscles being built up stronger than before.

Here are some simple exercises to help stretch and strengthen those all-important back muscles.

Exercise after surgery can be part of recommended physical therapy, or a return to pre-operative routines. In either case, done properly, exercise will help create flexibility, improve balance - by strengthening muscles that help stabilize joints - and keep the cardiovascular and other systems functioning well.

In generations past, exercise was believed to be mostly for the younger set. It was even believed that older people couldn’t increase muscle mass or strength if they wanted to. Studies at Harvard and elsewhere have now firmly put that myth to rest.