Health and Fitness | StringsSG Blogs

October 26, 2022August 31, 2023

The 7 Best Types Of Yoga & Their Benefits!

The origin of the discipline “Yoga” is in India. It is not only a physical but also a spiritual practice that helps us to reduce our body weight and also stabilize our mind. Modern forms of yoga encourage exercising, focusing on our strength, physical and mental well-being and flexibility.

There are so many variations of Yoga like – Hatha yoga, Iyengar yoga, Yin yoga, Yogalates, Power yoga, Yogasthenics etc. Our fitness level determines the type of yoga class is best suited for us. So it is best to consult a doctor and have a personal yoga instructor to guide us with the right techniques.

1. Ashtanga Yoga

It is based on ancient yoga teachings. It synchronizes our breathing and movement in the asanas. Amongst many other benefits this asana helps to improve our blood circulation, removes toxins from our body and betters the joint pains.

2. Bikram Yoga –

This yoga is held in an artificially heated room of 105 degrees! This form of yoga helps to stretch our body, relieve stress, tone and detoxify our body. It also helps to heal pains like arthritis, knee pains or even back problems.

3. Iyengar Yoga

This form tries to find correct alignment in each posture by using different props like blocks, straps, blankets etc.

4. Kundalini Yoga

It is a form of yoga where we meditate to release kundalini energy. Kundalini yoga class starts with chanting and ends with singing along with meditation and pranayama.

5. Hatha Yoga

Traditionally, Hatha yoga brings peace to the mind and body thereby preparing it for deeper spiritual practices. This style is more gentle and slow. It is great for beginners.

6. Jivamukti Yoga

It traditionally means “liberation while living”. According to David and Sharon, ‘there are too many positive physical benefits to list but the main thing is “you build up a body of light” and feel more comfortable with who you are’. Jivamukti yoga, includes, meditation, chanting, pranayama etc.

7. Prenatal yoga

These are yoga for the pregnant people. This yoga is designed to help pregnant woman in all stages of her pregnancy. Moreover, it also helps to get back to shape post pregnancy faster.

The above mentioned forms are only a few of the varied typologies of Yoga. The list is really a never ending one!

Major Benefits of doing Yoga

Increases our physical strength, balance and flexibility – From ages Yoga has been a major inspiration for many across the globe. It is a safe and very effective workout style which helps to increase our physical strength, balance and flexibility.
Prevents the elderly from sudden falls and injuries – Injuries due to accidental falls amongst older people are very common and a global health concern. Yoga helps to improve our body balance and thus prevents the elderly from sudden falls.
Yoga is very good during and post pregnancy – It is even advised to pregnant women to go for yoga classes as it helps to experience fewer problems in pregnancy and labor.
Anxiety and depression – Yoga is a powerful treatment for depression and anxiety.
Gastroesophageal reflux disease – This disease also called as GERD is greatly benefited with Yoga practice. Regular practice of Yoga like Kapalbhati and Agnisar kriya improves GERD to a great level.
Yoga is like a treatment – Doing yoga is good for people suffering from Arthritis and Asthma. It is also beneficial for people with bipolar disorder. It also works significantly for patients suffering with Migraine.
It reduces cancer related fatigue and breast cancer cognitive problems – Survivors of cancer often report cognitive problems, yoga can effectively reduce cognitive problems in survivors of breast cancer.
Yoga improves chronic neck pain and chronic heart failure – Studies revealed that regular yoga practice improves chronic neck pain or any neck-related disabilities or problems. Yoga has also significant positive effects on cardiac function. People under cardiac rehabilitation Yoga programs have had markedly stable health impacts.
Flexibility- Yogacan make our body more flexible. Yoga has positions that act upon the whole body which in turn stretches the muscles as well as the joints.

However it also true that Yoga is challenging for beginners. Moreover if the postures are incorrect it will not help on the contrary we might injure ourselves. Therefore it is always suggested that we should take the help of a Yoga master or Yoga trainer to learn it properly to yield maximum benefits from it.

October 26, 2022August 31, 2023

Top Benefits Of Stretching Exercise You Need to Know!

In fitness world, all fitness trainers are big advocates of stretching. It is important when we look at being fit. Stretching helps us in lot many ways. It makes our muscles stronger, flexible, improves our range of motion, improves our posture and also helps to calm our mind. Stretching loosens up the tightness of our muscles which in turn reduces our joint pains too!

Top 5 types of Stretching

1. Active stretching –

Active Stretching is also called as static-active stretching. It helps to increase flexibility and strengthens our muscles. Here, we use our agonist muscles. We assume a position and then hold it there using the strength of our agonist muscles only. Thus in this type of stretching, our muscles are under the load of body weight in gravity.

Active Stretching-helps to increase flexibility and strengthens our muscles. — Active Stretching for Legs and Hips

2. Ballistic stretching

This type of stretching involves uncontrolled movements that involve momentum and bouncing.

3. Dynamic stretching

Dynamic stretching warms up the muscles and increases the blood flow and thus prepares them for a workout. Unlike ballistic stretching, dynamic stretching involves controlled movement with a defined range of motion.

4. Passive stretching

In this form of stretching, our muscles are at rest while it is being stretched. This is also referred to as relaxed stretching.

5. Static stretching

It is a very common form of stretching. In this form of stretching, we hold on to a challenging but comfortable position for some time. Static stretching helps to improve our flexibility.

girl doing static stretching — Static stretching for strengthening muscles and improving balance

Some of the Benefits of Stretching are as follows :

Helps us to do other physical activities at ease – It is often seen that doing some basic stretching before any type of physical activities like for example, any type of sports helps to perform well. This is why even personal trainers do stretching on their clients before and after their workout sessions.
Can calm our mind – Stretching helps to calm our mind. This further helps us to complete many other activities which need focus and calmness.
Helps to increase our flexibility – Stretching means becoming more Flexible! Being flexible is the key to be able to perform many daily activities with ease.
Helps to heal back pain – Stretching helps to strengthen our back muscles and this in turn helps to cure muscle strains and any existing back injuries too.
Stretching gives us relieve from headaches – We often get headaches from stress or tension in life. Stretching helps to relax our mind and this in turn helps to reduce our headaches from tension.

However, it is very important to stretch correctly. It is the best idea to train under professionals like a personal trainer or a certified trainer, who can help us to get the most out of it. It is true, that sometimes we get into the dilemma as to whom to hire as our own trainer; what if he is not good or it doesn’t work for us.

NOT TO WORRY!

STRINGSSG HAS COME UP WITH ANSWERS TO ALL YOUR WORRIES AND CONCERNS!

Stretching under the guidance of a personal trainer. — A personal trainer can help us with the correct forms and postures of Stretching.

STRINGSSG PROVIDES YOU A PLATFORM WHERE YOU CAN FIND THE BEST PERSONAL TRAINERS AS PER YOUR CRITERIAS AND CHOICES!

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May 13, 2018August 31, 2023

Educated, Certified and Experienced Personal Trainer

Educated, Certified & Experienced Personal Trainer

We are all aware, that, ‘exercise’ is the key to that ‘sculptured body’ we dream of; but , ‘HOW’ to exercise is the ‘anthem’ of succeeding it. The answer to this how is an ‘Educated, Certified and Experienced Personal Trainer’ – the faster we understand this the better for ourselves.

Today, at every step of our lives there is competition which snatches our time to focus on ourselves. We rush ourselves to the gym and with our head full of day’s ordeals we mostly end up working out ineffectively. This further adds on to our stress when we see that, in spite of working out after a busy day the scales doesn’t come up with positive results. This is exactly why we need somebody else, dedicated, to think on our behalf for our fitness and well being and that somebody is the certified personal trainer.

WHAT CAN WE GET FROM OUR PERSONAL TRAINERS –

Focused Individualized workout routine – The work of a fitness trainer is to understand not only what is our goal but also our physical capacities and constraints. It is only after a thorough understanding that he creates an effective personalized fitness routine which takes us closer to our goal and also takes care of our safety.

Helps to set realistic goals – Most of the times when we decide to shed off those extra kilos or build muscles, we get over excited and put ourselves into goals that are barely reachable in such a short duration. Personal trainer who knows the limits and bounds helps to focus on smaller targets and thereby set a goal which can be attained safely. He is the one to remind us that fitness is not a one day show; it is rather a lifetime attire that we need to showcase.
Efficiency is their target – As an individual, we may workout for hours but get disheartened with results. This is solely because we might have wasted our time by doing inefficient workouts. Appointing a certified and experienced personal trainer means we get that perfect weight loss program that would yield optimum results in minimum time.
Correct techniques and safety – Injuries are very common especially when we hit the gym and workout following a video but end up doing wrong postures. A personal fitness trainer is always a good investment as he watches our form and accordingly trains us. He helps us with the small detailing and technicalities and accordingly push up or slow down our workout, saving us the injuries.

Educated, Certified and Experienced Fitness Trainer — Your correct techniques & forms are your trainer’s responsibilities.

Motivation – One of the major reasons why we fail to reach our fitness goal is that, we soon get exhausted with the boring workouts and tend to lose interest in it. This is where the role of a personal trainer comes in. He helps to motivate by providing, a structured workout program best for our body type.
Nutrition and dietary suggestion – True that personal trainers are not dietitians, however, overtime with experience they do develop the understanding of personal nutritional needs according to the body types which has direct effect on losing weight and building muscles. Implementing their advises definitely helps us to achieve our fitness goals faster.
Workout at home – Many of us are a private person or in lack of time to hit the gym. Today, personal trainers are even flexible to bring out the best in us at our convenient place and time. We can hire a personal trainer, choose from their various lucrative packages after a consultation and exercise with them at our home!
Fun classes- Personal trainers makes the otherwise boring routines fun-filled and interesting by incorporating self challenges for the client and thereby giving the workout sessions a whole new dimension.

So let your dream of attaining a sculptured body be a task for your personal trainer and you enjoy the results in no time!!

Tags: Fitness trainer Singapore, Weight loss program, Personal trainer Singapore, Female personal trainer Singapore

May 1, 2018August 31, 2023

PETSERCISE

We all have those bad and tiring days, when, even the most motivated fitness freak feels to skip the day’s workout. There are days when we feel laid back too when our workout partner excuses himself for the day. However, our pet is our workout partner that will never skip out on us.

YOUR PET – YOUR MOTIVATOR

Yes, Petsercising is a recent trend in the field of fitness. A survey of dog owners conducted at the University of Western Australia and published in Health Promotion Journal of Australia in August 2008, revealed, that dogs are a great motivators for walking. The more we run with our dog, the more he will expect it to be his daily activity and hence pull us out of our comfy couch to get his daily exercise which in turn makes us exercise!

Your pet – your motivator-your strength

WORKOUT WITH YOUR PET – OUTDOOR OR INDOOR

Not only outdoors, but we can choose to exercise with our pet indoors as well. There are so many types of workouts in which our pet can partner with us! However, please check with a fitness trainer or coach before you start to exercise as each of our body types and capacity is different and it could be dangerous if you start off being a novice about what is good for you.

So let not excuses hold you back any further. Get up and move!! Take out your pet. Let him be your motivator.

P.S. – Please do not indulge into having a pet just for the sole purpose of exercising if you really can’t look after it.