Tai chi was originally developed in ancient China as an art of self defense. It was not long after the development of tai chi that the many health benefits of repeatedly performing the slow, gentle movements in conjunction with deep and focused breathing became clear. Today, tai chi is practiced in various forms by people all over the world for the purpose of improving their overall well being.

Among the myriad of physical benefits of practicing tai chi are increased muscle strength in both upper and lower body, improved flexibility in limbs and joints, enhanced balance, and gradual aerobic conditioning. If you choose to adopt tai chi as an exercise regimen, it is recommended that you couple it with some other activity which increases heart rate, such as walking, jogging, or biking, because the aerobic benefits of tai chi are slight, due to its unhurried pace. Additionally, studies conducted observing people with medical conditions – as wide ranging as arthritis and osteoporosis, hypertension and heart disease, stroke and sleep disorders – have shown that those who combined tai chi along with standard treatment showed significant improvement over those using medication alone.

One of the most common reasons for people choosing to take up tai chi is relaxation. The slow, graceful postures have at times been referred to as moving meditation. Tai chi can be a great stress reducer because of its flowing, rhythmic motion and deep breathing. Because of the many varieties of movements throughout its several forms, anyone can do some level of tai chi, regardless of physical limitations or age. This is one of the reasons tai chi programs have been implemented by many nursing homes and retirement communities across the United States as a regular activity to benefit residents, improving not only their health, but their quality of life.

We all have our own excuses for not exercising. Some common ones are: I’m not in good enough shape to start exercising; I cannot do enough to make a difference; and, I don’t have time for a fitness routine. The first two examples are fallacies, which can be overcome by simply starting to exercise. While it may be difficult to sustain higher levels of activity if you are overweight and/or out of shape, not moving is just not the answer. Any level of activity trumps idleness any day. Start small by walking around the house, or parking a few more spaces from the store entrance when on errands. Literally every step you take is a step toward better overall health, and you will find that the more you do, the more you will be able to do – and the more you are able to do, the more you will want to do.

That last excuse, however, is far and away the most common. After all, in our busy, hectic lives, where are we going to find time to go to the gym? The fact is, some of us can’t, especially if the gym is across town in traffic, essentially doubling the time you would need to sacrifice for a workout. First, understand one thing: no matter what, it would be worth the sacrifice. Your health should be of optimal importance. Thankfully, though, there are viable options. You can work out at home. If you have a treadmill, bike or elliptical, spend 10 -30 minutes a day on it. No equipment? No problem! Fitness dvds offer an easy, pre-established routine that you can do any time in the privacy of your own home. Anything aerobic will do, and there are so many options to choose from. Walking and dance to yoga and tai chi, you can find the activity and level that is right for you.

If you are not the type to spend 20 minutes in front of the idiot box, you can always just crank the radio or your favorite cd and move to the music. Three songs are all it would take to boost your heart rate enough to reap the aerobic benefit. It’s all about finding your fitness niche; do what you enjoy. No matter what you choose to do, however, just do it. Also make sure that you are stretching properly for warm up and cool down, to avoid the possibility of injury while exercising.

This past semester has been quite a busy one for me. Student Government, Black Student Association, not to mention my job as Men’s Lacrosse manager and then everyday classes and homework take up a lot of my time. The key to a busy schedule for me is a planner. I write everything down, up to and including classes, when I’m going to sleep and when I’m going to eat. The one thing I’ve been struggling to fit into my schedule is when I am going to work out. I am going to be honest and say that I haven’t been to the fitness center here at school all semester, but I figure if I can’t fit in the actual fitness center into my schedule, I could at lease fit in different types of working out so that I can stay healthy.

• Take the stairs: I think this is the obvious one. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. It’s a form of cardio that will get your heart pumping, which in turn will get your blood flowing and will keep you energized throughout the day.
• WALK! Don’t drive! If you’re out of milk or you want to go visit a friend for a few minutes, instead of grabbing the keys to the car, put on your walking shoes and a grab a bottle of water. Walking and running burn more calories, and at the same time you’ll be getting some cardio in and taking care of your errands!
• Bring the iPod! Bringing the iPod or Mp3 player wherever you go will help get you moving while enjoying some tunes. Something upbeat would be best, since you’ll be able to add a little pep in your step while you’re at the grocery store or cleaning the house. Dancing is a great form of exercise and it’s just fun to just jam. I personally would recommend “I made it” by Kevin Rudolph and Cash Money Heroes as the track to keep on repeat.
• Keep your workout shoes with you at all times. There always will be an opportunity to workout each day. Even if it’s doing a few sit-ups in your office or walking a few laps around your office building. My mom is the dean of a small private school, and the property of the school is a circle. She tries to get out there at least twice a week and walk a few laps. Also, one of the librarians at my school keeps her yoga ball with her, and I often see her doing exercises on the ball to stay active.

I think some people see working out as a chore, but if you find ways to make it fun, it can be a blast!

Last week we published an article about how exercise can indeed become addictive. As written in that previous article, it is important to make sure that exercise does not become the focal part of your life and that you are able to balance everything in your life without putting exercise first and foremost.

What are the symptoms of being addicted to exercise? Well, to start, those who are addicted compulsively exercise. They like to make any opportunity that they can as one to exercise and go through feelings of heightening anxiety and anticipation. Eventually, the exercise addict will replace the need to exercise with feelings of depression and isolation. Another symptom of this disease is sleep disturbance. Those are all typical signs for anyone who is addicted to something; some more specifics signs are feeling the need to exercise at odd hours or at an intensity level that is much higher than average workouts. They exercise even though they are injured, and tend to have sore muscles and body aches. Also, cortisol is often released, and the amount of testosterone secreted in men is typically higher.

Those addicted usually write down all of their exercises in a journal of some sort and hate to miss anything that they had planned. If they do miss one of their sessions, they tend to get angry. Speaking of getting angry, questioning an exercise addict’s routine or criticizing them makes them go crazy.

Like most addictions, exercise addiction is curable. The first step, as always, is to acknowledge the addiction and commit to quitting. It is best to keep the addict from any form of exercise for a whole month. However, you can, of course, do something else to to feed their need to move around and exercise. Calming activities, such as yoga, meditation, and walking, are highly encouraged. You could also dance, sing, write, garden, paint, or something else that is artsy. The most important thing while fighting exercise addition is to maintain a healthy balance and to stimulate the addict’s mind. This way, they will be distracted and their body will be, too.

When you think of the term addict, what do you picture?  Perhaps it is someone who is addicted to drugs, or maybe it is someone who is a chain smoker.  Regardless, you probably think of someone with an unhealthy habit, not something good for you, such as exercise.  However, some people are exercise addicts, and this addiction (like others) is unhealthy.

I am a person who works out regularly.  In fact, my family enjoys teasing my playfully about it.  So, when I did some reading and realized that for some people the desire to exercise becomes unhealthy, I decided to analyze my own regimen.  I workout six days a week, faithfully.  If we travel, I bring workout clothes.  I have a set routine that I follow all six days.  I eat a healthy diet.  I look forward to my daily workout and enjoy the feeling of completing it.  However, if we have plans that interrupt my workout routine, I will alter my schedule.  If I am injured, I will take time off to heal.

Reading research about exercise addictions, it is quite clear that I do not belong to that category.  I simply am a motivated person who enjoys exercise.  According to Jack Raglin, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of kinesiology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, some signs that a person has an addiction to exercise include:

• Excessive reliance on exercise
• Continuation of exercise when injured or sick
• Withdrawal symptoms when exercise levels are decreased or temporarily halted

While exercise is important, it should not become the focal point in a person’s life (nor does that mean that one should focus on diet or weight loss pills either).  If exercise takes prominence over one’s health or important activities, it probably is time to reassess that person’s workout regimen.  As the Greek philosopher Epictetus stated, “If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.”

So, we are all familiar with soccer, volleyball, cycling, and football, but what about all of those less common sports? Did you know that solo synchronized swimming (a bit of an oxymoron isn’t it) was actually once a part of the Olympics? In fact, it was part of the 1984, 1988, and 1992 Olympic Games. Rather than synchronizing with a group of women, a woman would synchronize with music on her own. Here are some more odd “sports”:

• Wife carrying is not a sport for the weak. The male competitor must carry a female competitor, who doesn’t actually have to be his wife, upon his shoulder across an obstacle course, in the shortest possible amount of time. This sport originated in Finland, but major competitions are now held in many states and countries around the world. (Really!)
• In Octopush, AKA underwater hockey, competitors play on a team and push a  weighted puck across the bottom of a pool toward their opponent’s goal. I’m guessing breath-holding is a very necessary skill to do well in this sport.
• Have you heard of the World Chess Boxing Organisation? It’s a real organization for a sport in which the competitors alternate between four-minute rounds of chess and two-minute rounds of boxing. You need to be smart and strong.
• Broomball, a sport growing in popularity in college, was described in a recently-posted article.
• Distance Plunging was part of the Olympics in 1904. The rules? An athlete would dive into a pool and stay motionless for a full minute or until his head breached the surface, then the distance would be measured.
• In cheese rolling, competitors chase a roll of Double Gloucester cheese that is rolled down a hill with a one second head start. The cheese is rarely caught because it can reach speeds up to 70 mph, so the first one to cross the finish line wins the cheese.
• Last, but certainly not least, Quidditch has been come to life from the pages of Harry Potter and is emerging in several colleges. There was even a match between the Middlebury Panthers and the Princeton Tigers! Watch it on Youtube here.

College requires much time management to get everything done. It is a major balancing act for everyone. There’s work, social life, leisure time, and fitness. While it may be tempting to give fitness the short end of the stick, fitness is perhaps one of the most essential aspects of college life (and it is not just to fight off that college fifteen).

Exercise improves digestion, promotes healthier skin, improves weigh control, increases your energy, and increases self-confidence. Active students are less likely to suffer from depression. Exercise can provide stress relief and a form of release for one’s day to day problems. There are many different ways to get involved in exercise in college:

• Varsity sports: Each college is either considered Division I, II, or III. Athletes are often recruited and offered scholarships to play at the Division I level, while for Division III, no scholarships are offered but both function much like high school teams, in which they compete against other schools in their respective divisions. Being a part of a varsity team is the most demanding commitment to an athletic activity in college.
• Club Sports: Club teams also play against other colleges, but they are not sanctioned by the NCAA like the Varsity Divisions. Students will not receive scholarships to play at the Club level, but Club sports are still moderately demanding.
• Intramural Sports: Many colleges organize teams within a single college to play against each. These are intramural sports, and they not as demanding as Varsity-level athletics and are often for simple recreation.
• Classes: Many colleges offer various classes, such as yoga or dance (often for free), of which a student easily can take advantage.
• Access to Facilities: Most colleges have accessible weight rooms, fitness centers, pools, or courts available for student use. Go ahead and use them!

At most colleges, the majority of these options are available for a wide variety of activities from aikido to Quidditch, yes, Quidditch, and it is up to the student to choose just how much competitiveness or commitment he or she wants.

The idea of staying in good shape or losing weight is just not always a good enough reason to get a person motivated to exercise. What if you added another reason, the responsibility to keep your pets healthy and happy as well? In today’s society there is no doubt that many pets are given much less attention than they should be receiving. Instead of taking their dogs on walks, some owners try to build bonds by giving the dogs extras snacks or bones. If a dog is being fed snacks, you can bet its owner is doing the same. A dog’s pattern of life really can start to mirror its owner’s.

The objective should be to turn this relationship into an active one. Dogs needs air and exercise every day, and we all do, too. There is one obvious way to make this happen: take your dog on a walk with you. Doing this you can keep up with your own fitness, keep your dog healthier, and continue to build your relationship with your four-legged friend. What’s great about dogs is that they really get attached to rituals. If you start to take your dog on a walk at a certain time every day, your dog will learn to expect it. So if a day comes when you don’t feel like moving, your dog is there to keep you on track.

But what if the dog’s too slow for one’s pace? One solution is to play with one’s dog until during an abdominal or strength workout. One can do a workout while intermittently throwing an object for the dog to retrieve at its own pace. And what about cats? Many cats are overweight, and this can lead to diabetes, just like in humans. An overweight cat is at risk; akin to dogs, cats should get exercise. If you have a cat that will still follow a laser pointer, take full advantage of this during core workouts.

Keeping our pets moving is equally essential as keeping ourselves moving. Consider making workouts more entertaining and fruitful by adding a pet to the mix!

There are many aspects about school that make me excited to come back to Northeastern; however, I am really pumped to come back to play intramural sports. Intramural sports are not too competitive. While varsity sports and club sports are the types of activities that are played against other colleges, intramurals are sports in which the games are played amongst people in the college.

Intramurals are more recreational than they are competitive. There are, of course, people who get really into the games, but in general, they are just played for fun. Last year I played volleyball during both the fall and spring seasons.  This year I am excited to learn a sport that is new  to me. It is called broomball.

Broomball originated in Canada. Broomball is kind of comparable to hockey but with sneakers instead of skates, a ball instead of a puck, a broom instead of a hockey stick, and those are just a  few of the examples that I can think of. A broomball game consists of two teams, consisting of six players each: a goaltender and five others. The point of the game is to score the most goals. Goals are scored by hitting a ball into the opponent’s net using a broom. The broom may have a wooden or aluminum shaft and looks similar to a typical household broom. To people outside of North America, broomball is often mistaken for the sport of curling.

Broomball is a really popular sport to pick up–especially in college. The sport is not too popular in the sense of a “varsity” sport, but it is a huge intramural sport. In fact, at Northeastern University, broomball is the most popular intramural sport that is offered! Following that sport comes volleyball. I had a ton of fun playing volleyball, and I am so excited to play broomball in the fall.

It’s tough to calculate how many calories are burned through a normal daily routine, or even how many are burned while most of us sleep in bed. Some students from Georgia Tech, however, have made it much easier.

Through the invention of a device called the HappyHR, users easily can take note and measure just how many calories are burned off on a daily basis during any type of activity, even sleeping as mentioned above.

The device rightfully is named after the brief period where endorphins kick into the brain and body allowing users undergoing extreme exercise to feel bliss, which is also known as the “happy hour”.

Twenty-one year old Garret Langley, the project leader has commented, “It’s a completely converged device, it’s a single unit that provides complete fitness monitoring and management.” Langley is a senior in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

The device is the size of a small rectangular wrist watch and can be worn either on the wrist or the ankle. It uses a combination of information about the users heart rate, and amount of exercise to determine the total caloric burn-off throughout the day. The data can then be transferred via Bluetooth technology to a PC where users can match up and analyze their caloric statistics using special software.

Langley is working to manufacture the HappyHR device and make it available to average consumers by sometime in fall 2009. He is projecting a retail price for the calorie measuring unit somewhere in the $100 vicinity.

Langley also commented that, “Ideally, this could change the way America stays in shape.”