Check out Yahoo! News for all of them, but here’s a taste:

Frog Stretch

A frog stretch is a great exercise for an athlete looking to increase thigh strength, since it works a lot of the muscles inside the thigh, and in the groin area. For this exercise, you should lie on the ground with your arms down to your sides, keep the palms facing upward, and allow for your heels to touch each other. The heels should then be extended upward to the groin area, while keeping the knees in a relaxed position, and hold this pose for 10 seconds. Move back to starting position, then repeat the frog stretch 10 times, making sure to hold the position each repetition.

Source/Read More: Yahoo!

As reported on WebMD:

Obese adults with arthritis are 44% more likely to be physically inactive than obese people who do not suffer from the painful disease that causes inflammation and stiffness of the joints, the CDC says in a new report.

According to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for May 20, arthritis is common in adults who are obese. And arthritis-related joint pain may reduce or discourage physical activity among obese adults, the report says.

The report says arthritis affects 35.6% of obese adults in the U.S. and that it may be a “potential barrier” that prevents the exercise that could lead to weight loss and help make people feel better.

Like I said, not too shocking. Some of the other findings of the research were more enlightening, however, such as the fact that women were more likely to have both arthritis and obesity (or arthritis only).

Source: WebMD

Yes, experts say, but…

The games need to be intense enough to elevate your heart rate to a certain degree. And they need to be played long enough, and frequently enough, to make a difference.

The games more likely serve to augment a fitness regimen rather than supply the basis for it, some experts say.

And while they’re probably not good training for an Ironman triathlon, they do get people moving. In an era in which most people live an all-too sedentary lifestyle, that’s a big deal.

An interesting article on an emerging tool for exercise and weight loss goals. You can read the whole thing at My Health News Daily.

The first was a study conducted by researchers at Emory University and other US universities:

“Exercise not only reduces the risk of a heart attack but protects the heart from injury if a cardiac arrest does occur,” reported The Daily Telegraph. It said that researchers have found that keeping fit helps the heart produce and store nitric oxide, which turns on chemical pathways that relax blood vessels and increase blood flow.

This research was mainly animal research, which looked at how heart attack damage is affected by whether mice have been exercising or not. Its findings suggest that nitric oxide, and other related proteins and chemicals, play a role. The researchers also found that the levels of a chemical made from nitric oxide in the body were higher in trained endurance athletes than non-trained individuals.

The second was conducted at the New York Langone Medical Center:

The study, presented recently at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Chicago, analyzed data on 982 patients who underwent colonoscopies. Polyps were found in 29.5% of the study subjects. Patients who hadn’t exercised at least one hour a week had a polyp prevalence of 33.2%, while the prevalence rate among those who did exercise one hour or more was 25.3%.

Sources/Read More: Heart study: NHS; Colon polyp study: LA Times

Speaking at a press conference on the opening day of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2011 Scientific Sessions, Dr Paul Bhella (John Peter Smith Hospital, Fort Worth, TX) explained that heart muscle size—typically measured by left ventricular (LV) mass—peaks early in life and diminishes with sedentary aging.

Bhella conducted a study to look at the effect of regular exercise on this process and found that being physically active over the course of a lifetime can “preserve the heart’s youthful elasticity.” He noted that as the heart muscle atrophies with age, the heart becomes weaker, less capable of responding to increasing demands such as those associated with physical activity, and, in many circumstances, this leads to a stiffening of the heart by increasing the relative proportion of connective tissue compared with cardiac muscle.

Source: TheHeart.org

In the study, published in The Journal of Pain in September, the scientists recruited 74 adults and had them do exercises meant to induce muscle pain and inflammation. Over 11 days, the subjects ate either two grams of ginger a day or a placebo. Ultimately, the ginger groups experienced roughly 25 percent reductions in exercise-induced muscle pain 24 hours after a workout.

Click through for more evidence that ginger does seem to have an effect on muscle soreness in the days following a workout.

The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, finds women in the exercise group decreased the overall risk of having any fracture, compared to a control group. No hip fractures occurred in the exercise group during the follow-up period, while five hip fractures occurred in the control group.

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Exercise May Reduce Fracture Risk in Women

“The key is getting exercise whenever you can – whether it’s morning, afternoon, or evening,” says Cedric X. Bryant, PhD, chief exercise physiologist of the American Council on Exercise. “Your goal is to move your body as much as possible.”

But by starting your morning with physical activity, you set the day’s pace, Bryant says. “Morning exercisers tend to stick with their exercise habit,” he says. “By doing the bulk of exercise first thing in the morning, you get your exercise in before other distractions can intrude. We can all relate to that — because once the day gets going, it’s hard to get off the treadmill called life.”

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Lose Weight With Morning Exercise

A study of 5,000 Danish men aged between 40 and 59 found that those who were fit and active were better able to cope with working long hours compared to their couch potato counterparts.

Men who worked between 41 and 45 hours were almost 60 per cent more likely to die of heart disease than those working fewer hours. And unfit men were twice as likely to die as men working less than 40 hours.

Click the link below for the complete article!

No exercise and working long hours doubles men’s risk of heart problems

How much you should eat is a significant part of the refueling process.

Calories eaten after a workout are less likely to be stored as fat because they are used to replenish glycogen. But working out doesn’t mean you can eat as much as you want. If you overindulge, calories will be stored as fat.

As a general rule, you only need to eat after working out for a long time or at high intensity. For example, eating right after a brisk 30 minute walk probably isn’t needed because your muscles won’t use up all of your glycogen stores.

How much food you need depends on a few factors…

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Why, What and When You Should Eat After a Workout