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This routine targets all of your leg muscles, from your butt down. In addition to making your lower half look fabulous, this workout will also help you walk faster. A recent study found that simply doing one move to strengthen your quads (the fronts of your thighs) could increase your walking speed by 15 percent. That’s equivalent to increasing your pace from 3.5 mph to 4 mph. Imagine what you could do if you shape up all of your lower-body muscles. These exercises also challenge your balance, giving your core muscles an extra workout, and improve your posture for a stronger, pain-free stride. (If the balance challenge is too hard, hold on to something sturdy.)

You’ll need a resistance band for at least two of the following moves. Position the band as described, and check that it’s secure before you begin the exercise. If you’re instructed to make a loop from the band, be aware that the larger the loop, the easier the resistance will be; the smaller the loop, the harder it will be. You can also increase the resistance by moving farther away from the anchor point.

If you need to tie the band in a loop around your lower legs for an exercise, you can wrap it around your legs twice for maximum resistance. Just remember, don’t sacrifice good form for increased challenge. Stretching and releasing the band’s resistance with control is key to maximizing toning and avoiding injury. Don’t let the band snap back once you’ve reached the top of the move; pause, then slowly release, resisting against the band’s pull as you do.

Practice this routine 2 days a week for 4 weeks. Start with 6 to 8 repetitions, working up to 12 to 15 reps by the fourth week.

Cross Leg Swing (targets inner thighs)

Main move: Attach the resistance band near the floor around a sturdy furniture leg, a railing, or under a heavy piece of furniture so that it forms a loop. Stand so that the band is on your left. Put the band around your left foot near your ankle. Step away from the anchor point until the band is taut when your left leg is extended out to the side, toes pointed.

Flex your left foot, contract your inner thigh, and swing your leg across the front of your body toward your right leg. Hold, then slowly return to start without letting your left foot touch the floor between reps.

Make it easier: Lower your foot to the floor between reps.

Make it harder: Hold your leg in the up position and pulse it twice, lifting and lowering an inch or so, before returning to start for your next rep.

Moving Squat (targets quads, and outer thighs)

Main move: Stand with your feet together and your arms at your sides. Step your right foot out to the side 2 to 3 feet, bend your hips and knees, and sit back as if you’re lowering into a chair. Simultaneously, swing your arms forward to about chest height. Keep your knees over your feet, not out past your toes or rolling in toward each other. Your upper body will lean forward about 45 degrees. Stand back up, bringing your left foot toward your right. Step to the right again. Continue moving to the right until you run out of space or you’ve completed all of the reps. Then repeat to the left. You may need to alternate going side to side, depending on how much space you have.

Make it easier: Do stationary squats with your feet about shoulder-width apart the entire time.

Make it harder: Tie a resistance band around your lower legs so that it’s taut, then step and squat.

One-Leg Squat (targets quads, glutes, and hamstrings)

Main move: Balance on your right leg with the toes of your left foot lightly touching the floor and your arms at your sides. Bend your hips and right knee and sit back as if you were lowering halfway into a chair. Let your arms swing forward to about chest height. Keep your right knee behind your toes. Press into your right foot and stand back up.

Make it easier: Hold onto a chair for balance and/or don’t sit back as far.

Make it harder: Balance on your right leg with your left foot completely off the floor.

Rear Kick (targets glutes and hamstrings)

Main move: Attach the resistance band near the floor around a sturdy furniture leg, a railing, or under a heavy piece of furniture so that it forms a loop. Stand facing the anchor point and put the band around your right foot near your ankle. Step backward if needed so the band is taut. Balancing on your left leg, with your left knee slightly bent, press your right leg back, with your foot flexed, and squeeze your butt. Hold and slowly lower without touching your foot to the floor between reps.

Make it easier: Lower your foot to the floor between reps.

Make it harder: Hold your leg in the up position and pulse it twice, lifting and lowering it an inch or so, before lowering it completely.

Reverse Lunge (targets quads, glutes, and calves)

Main move: Stand with your feet together and your arms at your sides. Step 2 to 3 feet behind you with your right foot, toes pointing forward, and bend your knees so that the right one is almost to the floor (your right heel will come off the floor). Simultaneously, swing your arms forward to about chest height. Keep your left knee directly over your left ankle; if it’s coming forward, shift your hips back or take a bigger step back. Press into your front foot and stand back up, bringing your feet together. Repeat, stepping back with the left leg. Continue alternating legs until you complete the recommended number of reps with each leg.

Make it easier: Do stationary lunges, with your right foot 2 to 3 feet in front of your left foot (heel will be up) the entire time.

Make it harder: Add a heel lift. As you stand back up and bring your feet together, rise up onto your toes. Hold for a second, then lower and step back into the next lunge.

So many people that are concerned with improving their health over look the health of their liver. The liver is called LIVE -R for a reason. The reason is the liver is involved with digestion and assimilation. It processes nutrients to give life to your body, to repair diseased and damaged tissue. It removes toxins and eliminates pathogen from getting into the blood that flow to all of your body cells.

Over 27,000 people every year die from chronic liver diseases and Cirrhosis. People with diabetes have a high number of deaths from liver deterioration. Over 60,000 people die from liver failure. It is estimated that 9,000 die from Chronic Hepatitis C and over 12,000 from liver cancer. Over 25 million people create some form of liver and gallbladder disease every year.

Liver disease is the Seventh killer of American people.

Don’t dismiss the health of your liver as you layout your plans to improve your health. Most people have some from of liver weakness and don’t even know it until it too late. Why not learn what you can do to treat your liver right so it can give you good LIFE.

Here is a list of symptoms that you will have when your liver is not working like it should.

* Frequent headache not related to stress, eyestrain, or shoulder muscle tension

* Frequent menstrual problems

* Blurry vision or red eyes

* Constant bitter taste in mouth

* Excessive anger, depression or moodiness

* Tenderness in the liver area – just under your right rib cage

* Acne, psoriasis, eczema, rashes, and other skin problems

* Weakness in your muscles and joint areas

Any one of these symptoms can be an indication that you have liver weakness. If you have two – three of them for sure you have some liver weakness.

So what can you do if you feel that you have some liver weakness?

The first area to work on is to examine the types of fats and oils you eat and make the changes that will give you better liver health.

Saturated fats, such as found in butter, meat, lard, and other oils are highly susceptible to oxygen damage through the process called oxidation. When these fats are oxidized they become rancid and form free radicals.

But Saturated fats are not the only fats that can be oxidized. Even unsaturated fats, the good oils, can be oxidized. Still it is better to eat most of our fats unsaturated since saturated fats are associated with heart conditions.

All fats can become oxidized outside the body by using them to fry your food or inside your body though the natural oxidation processes.

Liver cells are highly susceptible to free radicals. These free radicals are destructive to liver cell walls and weaken the health of the liver over time.

Also, Scientists have found that 17% of the oxygen you breathe and have available in your body becomes a free radical. These free radicals, again, attack and destroy liver cells.

To counter eating free radicals and the free radicals that are created in your body, you need to take anti-oxidant supplements and eat fruits and vegetables. The yellow and red colored fruits and vegetables are the highest in anti-oxidants. Of course it is best to also limit eating fried food and not use oils that have been sitting around to long.

 

Want to look younger or less tired? Focus on the area around your eyes, a new study suggests, because that’s where people get visual clues about your age and level of fatigue.

When asked to estimate the age of people in photographs, participants in a study looked at the eye region almost half the time, researchers found. The number was about the same when the participants tried to figure out how tired people in the photographs were.

The findings might seem obvious, but the study’s lead author, a plastic surgeon, said they’re important because cosmetic-surgery patients don’t always get treatment where they need it.

Wrong treatment
“They want to look younger and less tired, but if you look to see what they’re being offered, it’s often not things around the eyes,” said Dr Peter A. D. Rubin, a US plastic surgeon and an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Centre.

Rubin and his colleagues launched the study to figure out how people gauge age and fatigue. “What better way than to see where people are actually looking when they’re making these judgments?” he said.

The researchers recruited 47 college students – 15 men, 32 women – and told them to look at photographs of 48 older people on a computer monitor. The monitor analysed reflections from the eye to determine where the study participants were looking. The participants then rated either the age or the fatigue level of the people in the photos.

When gauging the age of people, the students looked at the eye region 46% of the time, followed by the nose (19%), forehead (13%) and the area between the eyebrows (11%).

The numbers were similar when the students were trying to figure out how tired the people in the photos appeared.

The study findings were published in the journal Ophthalmology.

Why eyes reveal so much?
The eye region makes up just 21% of the face, according to the study authors. So why does it seem to reveal so much?

“There is a lot going on around the eyes,” Rubin said. For one thing, eyelids are the thinnest skin on the body, making swelling more prominent. Also, he said, the eye region undergoes many changes during ageing and suffers from significant sun damage.

“Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder,” Rubin said. “It’s also in the eye of the beholdee.”

Timothy J. Slattery, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of California, US, said the study findings reflect those of other research that has found that people fixate on the eyes when they look at photos of faces. – (Randy Dotinga/HealthDay News, February 2009)