Importance of Heart - 1

Our heart works tirelessly to provide the power needed for life. Learn how to take care of it!

Why do we need the Heart?

• The cells of the body take up oxygen and release carbon dioxide just like our car uses the fuel to get the energy to drive and then it puts out exhaust through the exhaust pipe.
• The heart is the organ that supplies blood and oxygen to all parts of our body.

Arteries and Veins carry the blood:

• The oxygenated blood circulates all around the body through arteries.
• After the tissues use the oxygen, the blood coming from the cells is carried in the veins back to the heart.
• The arteries and veins are next to each other in arms, legs and core of the body.

The Heart helps our blood carry oxygen:

(From The Above Picture)

Step 1: Heart pumps blood to all the cells and tissues of the body. The arrow is red indicating that this blood is oxygen rich.

Step 2: Release of oxygen poor blood from tissues and cells of the body, that has used the oxygen to provide the energy to the cells. This blood shown in blue arrow returns to the heart.

Step 3: Heart pumps this oxygen poor blood to lungs where it picks up oxygen carried in the air we breathe.

Step 4: The oxygen rich blood is returned to the heart and pumped out to the body.

The two sides of the Heart: ( Right & Left)

Since the left side has to do so much more work, the left side valve is thicker than right.

Did You Know:

The bottom of our heart is tipped to the left, so we feel more of our heartbeat on left side.

        Will be continued.....

How Muscles Work & Grow Part 2

This blog explains why we don't need to be an athlete to appreciate the importance of muscles in our everyday life.

How to Maintain Your Muscles:

• Muscles are constantly remodeling: some cells grow and others shrink.
• If you don’t use your muscles, they shrink.
• You must exercise and nourish your muscles to prevent shrinkage.

Strength Conditioning:

A strength workout will make our muscles strong and we look and feel better too.

Regular strength workout sessions will offer us other benefits like

• Healthy Bones
• Great Posture
• Increased Metabolism
• Improved Balance

Muscle Strength Decreases with Age

Muscle Strength:

• Is relatively stable through age 50.
• Decreases 50% per decade between ages 50 to 70.
• Decreases 30% between the ages 70 to 80.

With aging, the ability to engage in physical activity declines, due to loss of muscle strength.

Decreased physical activity contributes to muscle loss and alters body composition in number of ways.If we don’t move, muscle mass is decreased while fat mass is increased. People with sedentary jobs and senior citizens with decreased physical activity loose muscle tone. So make sure to maintain healthy active lifestyle.

Keep your Muscles Hydrated:

• A 1.5% decrease in water results in a decrease of muscle strength.
• Staying hydrated can help you maintain your strength and help you build muscles over time.
• The more fluid inside the muscle cell, the larger the muscle cell will be.

Nutrition for Healthy Muscles:

• High quality protein.
• The right building blocks from amino acids in protein
• Vitamins & Minerals
• Healthy Carbohydrates for quick energy

How Muscles Work & Grow Part 1

What do Muscles Do?

• Without Muscles we will not be able to do anything.

• Muscles let you move your arms and legs and life weights.

• Muscles move blood throughout the body.

• Muscles help your intestine digest food.

Working Of Muscles:

• Muscles are made of special cells that look like long thin tubes, with two sets of sliding fibers.

• A little protein motor moves muscle fibers together to contract muscles and apart to relax them.

• During exercise, when we stretch fibers apart, we stimulate muscle cells to grow.
• When muscles grow they recruit small cells called satellite cells.

• These satellite cells add proteins, so the muscle fiber gets larger. This is how muscles grow larger.

• Eating any food, particularly food higher in protein after workout helps muscle to recover faster.

Did you know?

Types of Muscles:

Three types of muscles are key to help blood move throughout your body, to move your limbs and exercise and to help digest food.

1.      Cardiac muscle cells help move blood.

2.      Skeletal muscle cells help you exercise.

3.      Smooth muscle cells help digest food.

Maintaining all types of Muscles is important for our health.

In our next session, we will discuss in detail regarding:

•        Types of muscles
•               How to maintain Muscles?
•               Strength conditioning
•        How Muscle strength decreases with age?
•       How healthy and active muscles can be maintains?