Class
Physiology & Fitness
$69.99
At a Glance:
- In-depth Instruction; over 1131 mins
- On-demand video access anytime
- Bonus downloadable PDF resources
- Access to class Q&A
Item:
W01576E
Take a fascinating, eye-opening tour of your body’s anatomy and physiology. Join award-winning fitness expert Dean Hodgkin as he navigates the world of fitness through science-based approaches and results-driven practices — plus 12 30-minute home-workout routines — showing you what happens inside your body when you work out, and how to use that knowledge to feel your best. Enjoy the rich vitality and supreme health that prime fitness offers —whatever your age or current fitness level!
Meet fitness expert Dean Hodgkin and start class by considering the life-enhancing value of fitness and its physical and mental health benefits. You'll investigate cardiovascular health, muscular endurance and strength, flexibility and body composition.
Measuring the core elements of your own fitness is an important step in designing and managing an exercise program. Here, learn about the principal methods of fitness testing and how to set benchmarks to monitor your progress.
In this lesson, examine the logistical and psychological challenges in designing a fitness program and how to overcome them. From there, learn some of the many ways you can integrate exercise into your daily routine.
Next, investigate the cardiovascular system. Learn the primary workouts: continuous training, interval training and cross training, and understand their effects on quality of life.
Explore the respiratory system, particularly the breathing process and lung function. You'll practice a group of breathing exercises from different traditions, noting how they improve cardiac function, decrease stress and aid both physical and mental health.
Exercise offers one of the most effective defenses against stress. Here, look at the root causes of stress, its debilitating symptoms, and specific self-help tactics to counter it, including relaxation techniques, meditation and even laughing.
Contrary to common myths, intelligent exercise provides numerous benefits during pregnancy. Find out how exercise affects the changes taking place in a pregnant woman's body. See how the core principles of exercise apply during pregnancy and learn specific recommendations for pre- and postnatal exercise.
Proper physical recovery is essential to achieving fitness goals. Learn about the physiology of fatigue and rest, then examine physical recovery after exercise, highlighting water therapy, stretching, myofascial release and self-massage techniques.
In this lesson, explore the significant effects of physical activity on brain function and psychological health. You'll see how using mental imagery can boost your physical performance and deepen your well-being.
Now, discover the human body's incredible system of joints. Find out why exercise is crucial for joint health, then consider the various forms of joint problems and specific ways to overcome them.
Learn how to protect yourself from exercise-related injury by studying the psychological factors and approaches to pain management. Then find out how to calibrate your fitness program to minimize or completely avoid injury.
Investigate the processes involved in balance and its role in physical activity. First, practice a spectrum of exercises that help improve your posture, coordination, reaction speed, strength and flexibility. Then, discover advanced techniques for improving your sports performance.
After you've covered balance, explore the body's three basic fuels (carbohydrates, protein, and fat) and its three energy production systems. You'll see how to train these energy systems to achieve your fitness goals.
Immerse yourself in the numerous benefits of water-based workouts. Discover a range of tips for your pool workout, plus variations such as water-based yoga, Pilates, and tai chi.
Learn the basics of muscle construction and action, plus the muscular movements in all the key joints. Then take an in-depth look at resistance training and how to construct dynamic workouts around your fitness goals.
Familiarize yourself with the living structure of the skeleton. Find out how bone health plays a critical role in quality of life later on, resistance training increases bone density, and explore the many training options that can delay or even reverse bone deterioration and osteoporosis.
Study the anatomy of the spine, spinal motion and the concept of core strength, the action of spine-related muscles working together. In filmed demonstrations, you'll learn exercises that target the core muscles.
Drawing on a 3,000-year-old tradition, discover the many proven health benefits of fitness yoga, which aims to enhance muscular balance and strength, develop flexibility, and improve skeletal posture and lung capacity.
Next, discover the remarkable and underappreciated rewards of walking, including its cardiovascular, weight loss and disease-reduction benefits.
Learn three kinds of stretching techniques and guidelines for your own stretching program to enhance your range of motion and physical relaxation, reduce your risk of injury and improve your posture.
Explore the nature of aging and the extraordinary capacity of exercise to slow and even reverse your body's biological clock. You'll establish an exercise blueprint for each decade of your life.
As the flip side of physical activity, prolonged sitting poses real hazards for your health. In this lesson, study the physiological effects of sedentary living. Find out how to improve your future health by introducing more activity at work, at home and while flying and driving.
View exercise as a dynamic tool for weight loss. Discover exercise programs and approaches for weight-loss training and the factors involved in successfully maintaining your new weight.
A perfectly flat stomach remains the most popular aesthetic indicator of fitness. In understanding this key area, uncover the structure of the mobilizer and stabilizer muscles and their unique functions. Then practice a series of exercises to tone them.
This first workout uses your body's weight against gravity, providing a whole-body workout that you can do anywhere with no cost or special equipment. Follow along as Dean shows you 13 core floor and standing exercises that target all areas of the body.
Prized by athletes since ancient times, the medicine ball is an ideal exercise tool to develop power. You'll perform a complete top-to-toe workout with the ball, targeting flexion, extension, rotation movements and muscle groups including your shoulder girdle, triceps, abdominals and core muscles.
Using a simple step platform, this workout combines cardio and strength exercises that work your upper and lower body. Alternating one minute of cardio and one minute of strength work, you'll perform a comprehensive range of exercises to burn calories, improve balance and tone muscles.
Using the principle of your muscles' adaptation to work against resistance, practice a series of eight dumbbell exercises targeting alternating muscle groups in your arms, shoulders, legs, chest and abdominal areas.
Using no equipment, this workout employs intense cardio combat movements and develops the skill-related elements of agility, balance and coordination. Learn a series of defensive blocks as well as dynamic punches and powerful kicks, linking them together in sequences to burn calories and reshape your whole body.
Challenging you to work against an unstable surface, this large inflatable ball is a versatile tool for achieving whole-body strength and alignment. Practice a range of exercises in different positions with the ball, working muscle groups including the gluteals, hamstrings, quadriceps, inner thighs, back muscles and rotator cuffs.
Exercising with a balance board challenges your body's joint receptors that control movement and balance. Here, learn 13 key exercises using the board in a total-body workout for toning, balance and core strength.
The kettlebell allows for swinging movements and working with momentum, stimulating a different muscular response from other resistance tools. Practice an eight-exercise workout using the kettlebell to build your cardio fitness, endurance, core strength, posture and coordination.
Also known as jump training, plyometrics uses the principle of increasing muscular power by stretching muscles before contracting them. In this time-efficient, intensive workout, focus on six jump-based exercises, dynamically working both your legs and upper torso, burning calories and toning all of the major muscles in your body.
The resistance band, an elastic tube with handles on either end, is an ingenious exercise tool, allowing you to do a full muscular strength workout at home or while traveling. Using the band's resistance in various positions, work a range of muscle groups in your arms, chest, back, shoulders and legs.
Weighted and roughly 3 feet long, the training bar is a convenient home-use tool for building muscular strength and endurance. Practice a spectrum of exercises that will work and tone numerous muscle groups, develop your arms and legs and integrate strength in your upper and lower body.
This concluding workout is designed as both a daily flexibility routine and a sequence you can use at the end of any of the other workouts. After reviewing the core principles of flexibility training, practice a pleasurable and invigorating group of static stretches that will release all the areas of your body.
Dean Hodgkin
International fitness ambassador Dean Hodgkin is a three-time World Karate champion and a two-time European Karate champion. Dean has taught master classes and seminars to fitness instructors in more than 30 countries. He has served as the resident fitness writer for Bodyfit magazine, contributing editor at Zest, and is a regular contributor to publications including Health & Fitness, Women’s Fitness, Cosmopolitan, Weight Watchers, and She. Dean was voted "Best International Fitness Presenter" at the One Body One World awards in New York, and recently won the IFS Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the fitness industry.
Physiology & Fitness - Class Materials
Bonus Materials available for download after purchase.
