Velvet Vigor - Fitness Tip:

Anyone who has trained with weights knows that if we try to lift too much, we can tear down the muscles; on the other hand, if we don't lift enough, we don't develop our strength. The hardships of our lives serve as the weights we lift in order to streghten our spirits. Adversity gives us the chance to discover our true capacity. We can only show courage in the face of fear.

Courage is like a muscle; we strengthen it with use.

Ruth Gordon

Body - Mind - Spirit

Fitness and vitality used to refer to brute power, size, or muscularity. In recent years, however, our concepts of fitness have grown more sophisticated and internalized. Now, cardiovascular efficiency and aerobic capacity have replaced body armor as the touchstones of fitness. Even this more meaningful measure may soon give way to a new paradigm, defining fitness in terms of a supple, relaxed, balanced body; a calm, clear, focused mind; and open, expressive emotional energies.

Fitness Today !

Exercise strengthens muscles, including the heart; it expands our lung volume, increasing oxygen supply to our brain, other organs, and all our cells; and it stimulates our nervous system. In addition to these well-known physiological benefits, exercise clears blocked emotional energies and also raises our metabolic "fire," developing an artificial "fever" that helps purify the body of toxins, making it less hospitable to invading bacteria and viruses.

Exercise - Good For The Body

Anything - including exercise - can be done to extremes. Any choice or action has benefits and liabilities. Sometimes an activity has few liabilities; other times it has many. When we overdo anything - when we lose our natural sense of proportion - the liabilities begin to outweigh the benefits.

The principle of diminishing returns applies to eating, sexuality, exercise, and any other activity. For example, lifting weights can build strength, but if we lose our sense of proportion and it becomes an end in itself, we end up building more muscle than we need for anything but lifting more weights. Muscle weighs more than fat, so we end up carrying around extra weight that serves no useful function.

Extremes