Everyone recognizes exercise as a way to improve health and lose weight, but few people realize how important it is to ensure that their bodies are well prepared for it. Failure to do so will allow undetected limitations to cause chronic pain and injury. For this reason, it’s critically important to assess your capacity to exercise safely and address any identified limitations before they lead to significant problems.

Chances are that you have at least one physical limitations that you’re not aware of, and if you choose to exercise without identifying and correcting it, you may very well end up with one of today’s many common complaints and end up worse off physically than if you never exercised at all. Such complaints include pinched nerves or bulging discs in the neck or lower back, tendinitis or bursitis of the knee, hip, shoulder, or elbow, and more generally, an increased risk of chronic pain and acute injury. By making an effort to assess physical characteristics such as your posture, range of motion, and balance of strength, and by including corrective measures in your exercise routine to improve any identified limitations, you’ll greatly increase your resistance to pain and injury and improve your physical function.

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Christmas is about spending time with friends and family and giving them gifts that will enrich their lives. Since there are few things that are as empowering or invigorating as excellent health, why not give some gifts that will help the people you care about most experience this for themselves?

The following are some gift ideas based on items that have improved my life, and I still use many of them on a regular basis. I hope that they truly help the people you may choose to give them to, and I also hope that you thoroughly enjoy the satisfaction that results.

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Many people who have desk jobs spend a large majority of their day sitting. This is major factor in the pain related disorders that are so common today.

Posture is Important

There are hundreds of muscles in the human body. Most of them are connected to joints and are arranged in ways that oppose each other. This is what enables a joint to move back and forth in opposite directions. Poor posture promotes imbalance among these muscles and causes uneven tension on joints that often leads to painful problems.

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Although we take millions of breaths without even a single thought, breathing is something that’s critical to our health and often goes overlooked. Each and every one of the trillions of cells that we’re made of requires a steady supply of oxygen to function properly. In fact, going without it for longer than just a few minutes will result in death!

Because we can breathe without thinking, it’s easy to take for granted. To give yourself a quick reminder of why breathing deserves more attention, hold your breath for as long as you can and closely observe how it feels.

The Significance of Each Breath

Breathing is probably much more involved than you may realize. We take about 20,000 breaths each day and use up to nearly 20 different muscles during each one. The manner in which these muscles are used can restrict oxygen intake, and as a result, cause cell malfunction and possibly lead to disease.

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