Weekly Health and Fitness Roundup: 16th-22nd January, 2012

This week’s Inspire Fitness Health and Fitness Roundup has something for everyone: from tips for cutting down your sugar intake, to understanding the important role of recovery and regeneration in your training, along with recent research that shows just how critical it is to stay active right throughout the lifespan to maintain muscle mass and overall function.  Tell us what you think of this week’s roundup in the comments below!

Blogs and News

“What Are The 5 Levels Of Breath?”: Herman Chauw writes for the Why We Run Network, shedding light on an essential skill that is often forgotten in training practice: breathing!  As a general rule, exhaling with the effort is suitable for most strength and conditioning exercises, though there is a place for “flow level breathing”, which in simple terms is the passive control of breathing patterns using compressive and expansive movements.

“Easy Ways To Cut Back On Sugar”: From the FitSugar blog, here are five quick ways to reduce your sugar intake and adjust your eating habits for the better.

“Use It Or Lose It: A Graphic Illustration”: We know that physical inactivity has serious consequences for muscle mass and muscle function when combined with aging.  But more importantly, we know that exercise can slow or even stop the loss of muscle mass and function that would otherwise occur as sedentary individuals grow older.  Need convincing?  Take a look at these cross-sectional MRI scans of the quadriceps (thigh muscles) of a 40-year old triathlete, a 74 year-old sedentary man, and a 70 year-old triathlete – the results are astounding.  (Results drawn from research published in September 2011, titled “Chronic Exercise Preserves Lean Muscle Mass in Masters Athletes” [Wroblewski et al. 2011].)

Social Networks

Note: The links in the following images are all clickable – click through to visit the original source.