HyperStrike

Get Your Nap On

Continuing our blog posts on sleep a nap is always a beneficial idea! Does this situation sound familiar?

When three o' clock rolls around and your exhausted, a nap usually sounds wonderful. Some people are able to take advantage of it and sleep...only to end up sleeping for hours and completely ruining their sleep schedule. So whats the key to get the perfect nap?

First, you must realize that a nap shouldn't be any longer than an hour.  Some health professionals recommend only a maximum of fifteen minutes. Anything longer than that can cause your mind to start to shut down and enter deep sleep and give you that feeling when you wake up of confusion, nausea, or other small ailments from oversleeping your nap!

Second, try "power napping". Enjoy a caffeinated (and preferably healthy) beverage right before your nap.  Nap for fifteen minutes and wake up! Chances are you will feel refreshed and much more awake than if you took a regular nap.  This type of nap is becoming increasingly popular after multiple tests have been performed to see if it is truly effective.

If you can't fit a nap in, be sure to at least try on the weekends! A nap can be very helpful to anyone who is feeling the effects of a lack of sleep!

Be sure to incorporate proper diet and exercise, too! Give HyperStrike a try to help both of those important factors of your life!

Nothing Making Sense? Sleep!

We all know that not getting enough sleep can make you feel slow. But as more scientific studies are conducted the actual effects on the brain are becoming more and more startling.  In a recent study that performed found that while we are sleep deprived that our brain still functions relatively normal, however, there are lapses of slow cognitive ability.

This comes to be more startling as they continue to reveal what exactly is effected.  It becomes a battle of the mind as your brain begins to want to shut itself down to sleep and yet you continue with everyday activity. Doing this provides a false sense of "alertness" or being awake and can have dire consequences. 

During these times your ability to memorize things, process visual information, and many other everyday tasks becomes almost completely inadequate.  This is especially concerning for todays college and high school students who face some of the worse sleep deprivation due to the lifestyle that is now present.

As America continues to try to compensate it's increasing sleepiness with energy drinks and coffee, it is becoming more obviously that a good nights rest is more important!

Energy Drink's Secret

With America supporting its billion dollar empire of highly caffeinated and overly sugared drinks filled with different ingredients to help you achieve a new energy "high", the risks are beginning to become more and more apparent.  From deaths in clubs from mixing a certain drink with vodka to the large ammounts of sugar and America's growing obesity epidemic, energy drinks seem to be collecting some tarnish to their gleaming claims.

Many of the problems with energy drinks start with their ingredients. A carbonated appealing beverage with large ammounts of sugar and caffeine.  While many try to cover their ingredients with "mystical" hodge podge about how they are broken down in the body and provide a sustainable boost, all energy drinks do indeed follow the same pattern. A short lived high followed by a crash.  The crash may be the worse part as it can effect you mentally and physically and ultimately hinder any sort of performance you had going for you.

But what is most interesting is energy drink's ability to elevate blood pressure to unhealthy levels. This may inded be one of energy drinks biggest hinderences in the attempt to give you a little headway. Studies have been performed to test what exactly happens when someone drinks an energy drink. Most findings are startling, consuming larger than 8oz. of an energy drink can indeed raise your blood pressure to a level that is unhealthy.  In one test a regular and healthy young man managed to reach hypertension levels just by consuming a popular 16oz energy drink. His blood pressure levels didn't even return to a regular level after 24 hours! To read the whole story CLICK HERE

The more evidence seems to show us that these drinks are not doing anything positive for the body. The long term effects of regular consumption are still not known. But with all the research and available knowledge of the effects of these drinks, it is safe to say they may not be the best for your body.

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Exercise & Your Mood

It has been discussed that exercise and your mood/mental health are correlated.  Some may even wonder, with 14.8 million American's depressed and even more considered over weight or obese, could there be a pattern? The fact is there is a pattern, as many studies have shown, and that exercise and proper diet and nutrition can increase your mental wellbeing!

In men and women ages 20-88, a study was performed to see if habitual physical activity reduces depressive symptoms and improves emotional well-being. The results were reduced depression and enhanced emotional well-being. The subjects exercise routines contained regular walking, jogging, and running.  The results of this study, "Inverse association between physical inactivity and mental health in men and women", done by the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, correlate with many other studies on the topic!

Another study found that Physical activity protects against depression, and athletic activity in college reduced the risk of psychiatric distress and depression in women.  The ten year study of 3,940  female college students, found that exercise was associated with lower instances of self and doctor diagnosed depression. The study, "Women's college physical activity and self-reports of physician-diagnosed depression and of current symptoms of psychiatric distress" Journal of Women's Health and Gender-Based Medicine, also seems to reinforce the idea that being an active individual not only benefits your physical health, but your mental health.

Having a healthy mind and a healthy body can really help you feel your best and enjoy life to a level you may not have ever experienced before. Taking steps to achieve a better physical and mental health can truly help you. Try HyperStrike's Fitness & Nutrition solutions for a jump on this and help yourself out!

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Air Quality and Fitness

Perhaps you've heard the news about the Beijing Olympic games having much controversy over the air quality (and numerous other things). What exactly is so bad about air quality when you're trying to get your fitness on? Many things!

Firstly, if your sensitive to Asthma, bad air quality can make any workout a tedious and tough experience.  When the particle concentration is high in the air we breath, those particles get lodged in our lunges and eventually begin to build up.  This can trigger severe asthma attacks and completely ruin any type of workout you are attempting to gain results from.

Ozone can absolutely destroy your body. Of course, this is only in the premises that the ozone levels are too high, as natural levels of ozone will not harm your body. Ozone is severely corrosive in large amounts. When you breathe in such amounts your lungs will start to get inflamed and you could be left with long term respiratory complications.

So what can you do? When air quality is bad, exercising indoors can be a good solution. Make sure you find a club or fitness center that has quality air filtering equipment so that you aren't actually making the problem worse. Be sure to avoid exercising when ozone and particle levels can be at their highest.  For a local forecast of air quality, visit AIRnow!

IHRSA Legislative Summit: Acts for a better America!

Our marketing director recent got back from Washington D.C for the IHRSA Legislative Summit.  The summit focused on two particular acts that representatives are trying to get passed to better improve our nations health in the way of holistic instead of reactive! It is an exciting time for the health industry and this is a great opportunity to change the way our health care system works!

The first act is "Personal Health Investment Today". I will be referring to it from now on as PHIT.

PHIT Act

The PHIT act seeks to create a financial incentive for Americans to engage in physical fitness and exercise.  It is in hope that with additional money dedicated to this act, more money would exist to create team sports, fitness and exercise, recreation, and other physical activities. 

The PHIT Bill was introduced in 2007 by Jerry Weller (IL-11).  Since then there are 17 co-sponsors in the House.  Be sure to contact your local representative and get this Act pushed!

Here are some main points of the PHIT bill, as presented by the IHRSA Briefing Booklet.

• THe PHIT Act would help reverse the trend of rising physical inactivity and obesity rates, and the resulting increase in health care costs, by eliminating a federal policy barrier and providing an important tax incentive to promote exercise.
• Public health experts agree that regular physical activity substantially reduces the risk and symptoms of numerous chronic diseases and medical conditions, resulting in fewer hospitalizations, physician visits, and medications, as well as lower health care costs.
• Under the current set-up, Americans predominantly use pre-tax accounts to pay for treatment and detection of illnesses: prescription drugs, doctor visits, and examinations, and screening.
• The PHIT Act would allow consumers to include prevention in the form of increased physical activity, allowing fitness center dues, payments for some exercise equipment, and other fees associated with physical activity programs such as youth sports leagues, to be paid with pre-tax dollars.
• The PHIT Act could help Americans save 25-50%, depending on their income tax bracket, on the cost of physical activities, exercise programs, and related expenses.
• The PHIT Act tax incentive represents and important tangible benefit that the federal government can provide to promote healthier lifestyles and reverse the rising costs of treating obesity-related chronic diseases.
• Fitness-related tax savings would provide a great incentive for Americans to take an important first step toward reversing their sedentary lifestyles and lowering health care costs.

The next act is the Workforce Health Improvement Program, or simply the WHIP Act.

The WHIP Act

Under current tax law, businesses are permitted to deduct the cost of on site exercise facilities and employees are not taxed on the benefit. However, if an employer provides this same benefit at an off site facility, the employees who take advantage of the benefit must pay income tax on the value of the subsidy.  The WHIP act would eliminate this inequity, reaffirming employers' right to deduct the cost of providing off site health club or gym benefits and preventing this wellness benefit from being considered additional income for employees.

Here are the Act's main points

• Current tax law excludes from employee income the value of "on-preises" athletic facilities provided by employers. However, if health club services to employees are provided in off site facilities, the value of the benefit to the employee is taxable income.
• The WHIP Act eliminates this equity, allowing employers to deduct the cost of health club memberships for their employees and ensure that this benefit would not be classified as additional income to employees.
• In 2006, the Joint Committee on Taxation determined that the provisions of the WHIP Act would cost $526 million over a ten year period. This moderate budget estimate stands in stark contrast to the $25 billion in annual health care savings the CDC estimates the federal government could achieve if every American adult engaged in regular exercise.
• The WHIP Act alone will not get every American off the couch and moving, but recent polling reveals that 78% of Americans claim that they would exercise more regularly if their employers subsidized a fitness center membership
• By enacting the WHIP Act, Congress has the opportunity to create the cost conducive environment possible for promoting additional workplace fitness programs at companies, both large and small. Given its relatively low cost to high return on the investment, WHIP represents a win-win wellness benefit that will put more money back into Americans' pockets while at the same time promoting healthier lifestyles and reducing the national health care expenditure.

Hopefully these two Acts have sparked your interest and want to help you get out there and do something. Be sure to contact your local representative and get active! Click here to find your local representative!

New Custom Workout Builder!

HyperStrike completely revamped it's ability to create a custom workout.  A much more functional and easy to use workout builder has been implemented for faster workout building and less confusion.  To use the workout builder, you must be a HyperStrike.com member!

Here are some of the major improvements!

• Browse the HyperStrike exercise lab to find the exercises you want to perform
• Personalize your exercise by setting the number of sets and reps, weight used, rest, duration and more
• Compose your workout by putting the exercises in the order you want them in
• Make your workout portable by printing it out and taking it with you
• Create your own custom workout library by naming and saving your newly created workout

The new and functional interface allows easy navigation as well as swapping and adding/removing exercises with less pages and significantly less load time!

Here are a few screen shots!

Functional Fitness

If having a beautiful and toned body is important to you, then so should its ability to perform.  So many of us hit the gym and build up our bodies with muscles that simple aren't functional. They may look perfect on the beach, but is it really healthy for your? Maybe you were carrying that box when you were moving and noticed that, despite your incredible shape, you still managed to blow your back out. So whats a good solution? Functional Fitness!

The first problem is that weight training alone simply isolates muscles.  In real life tasks, our muscles work together in many different motions doing many different things. When using gym equipment you will find yourself training your body to build muscle rather than do anything with it. Functional fitness often implements many free weight movements and using your own body weight. In doing so, you are using many muscles at once and actually getting a deeper, stronger, and fuller workout.

Test yourself. Find out if you have good stability, balance, and can manage your own body weight. Chances are, many of those who can squat hundreds of pounds couldn't even do a one legged squat or stand on one leg for very long. By doing functional fitness you find a greater self awareness of your body, managing your strength, and building muscles you can use!

To get started with functional fitness, try using HyperStrike's exercise lab. Search for no equipment and use some of those exercises to your advantage!

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Dangerously Sweet

Its a general assumption that too much sugar is bad for you. We hear things like diabetes, tooth decay, and hyperactivity as popular negative aspects of too much sugar consumption! However, there are many more problems with too much sugar that aren't talked about.

A lot of people eat sugar for an energy boost. When doing this they ultimately launch their body into a short term energy boost with a crash. The crash ultimately makes you feel even more tired than before and may make you want to attempt to consume more sugar to get your "high" back.

This may work for a while, but ultimately the body takes the toll of the lifestyle. The excess wait will begin to pile on, followed by a lowered immune system, lowered digestive ability, and not to mention the obvious side effects mentioned above!

Ultimately sugar can become toxic. As with many health related things, anything in moderation can be beneficial to your body. A great personal story about the topic can be found at Yahoo! Health! Be sure to read it and find out how one woman cut out sugar and began to live a much healthier life!

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HyperStrike Workouts are Mobile!

HyperStrike has updated their mobile options and now offer complete workout exportation to your Windows Mobile, Progio, or iPhone/iTouch devices. Teaming with Progio to export all your workouts is a simple and powerful solution to bring your workouts with you wherever you go.

Log-in to your account and view your calendar, from there, click the send to mobile button to set up your account with Progio and get your fitness on the go!

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