You can feel better first thing tomorrow morning by doing two simple things.

Drink 3liters of water- One at breakfast, one through the afternoon and one more in your last hour before bed. Feeling better has many aspects, energy, mental attitude and over health. Better hydration is one low cost way to have that fast.
Take 1000mg. of high quality B-complex. Consume one with your morning meal, and another at the end of your day with water.

Feeling better is about the choice to do so. That means actually taking these simple steps to improve your health fast. Not saying that you should get around to that… Feeling better starts with two fast steps today- all for $15 or less.
Make your choice to exercise your options, to really feel better fast today! The choice is yours

Strong Hamstrings are often thought of as a path to speed. One should give real consideration to their function in stopping.

We rely on them heavily when the heel touches the ground; the point where most Hamstring injuries take place.

Try specifically training this point of control.

On a seated leg-curl-machine; set the resistance to 50% of body weight. Keeping the spine neutral, let your legs straighten as fast as you can , while maintaining control, and suddenly stop them  before full Extension.
Do 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps. Continue as part of your routine every other day, 3 x week. Continue for a maximum of 6 weeks and take 4 weeks of from this exercise.
In addition use a Swiss Ball Leg Curl and the Drop Lunge, to build stability. Remember to really concentrate and Fire those Glutes!

As always, use your own best judgment. Consult a trainer/Coach if you have concerns.

Be safe. Be Fit TodayJ

My problem Today-

I sometimes feel like I’ve lost what I’m going for. Better fitness is illusive at times. Is it really achievable? Do I know CLEARLY what I want? Well this is what I want; a better looking body, faster responses, sharper mind, a more “cut” look, overall health and of course improved performance. How do we measure these things? Some can be done with simple tests, while others are less tangible. A more cut look is easy to perceive, performance can be measured by standards in ones chosen field. Overall health seems easy, but this can be misleading… How are you measuring it? Really how? Stop and answer this question. Body fat %? Cardio respiratory endurance? Have you ever done a environmental pollutants test. See US BioTech- or contact me.

We often chase a goal and are unsure how to know if we’ve ever really met it. I do not wish to speak out against the journey, but we need to be honest with ourselves about where we’re at. Do you really know how far you have actually come? Stop to answer that question- Our bodies are our greatest treasure. For even the mind is hindered in a hollow shell. A sound mind in a sound body. Do you know if your body has the autonomic reserves to take new training? Do you have CVD? Do not assume, I bet you don’t actually you know. A lot of people complain about how their doctor is always running all these tests. Well that’s how we look inside. Are you eating right for your body type? Your metabolic type? Are you a endomorph? Ecto? Take the time to learn about who you are. Understand your body as an individual in the great mass of humanity.

In my daily work counseling for Nutri/Fitness I spend the bulk of my time as an educator. People just don’t know much about themselves. So if you are an Ectomorph,and a Slow oxidizer; how will you build mass? Will you get protein that is actually digestable? Are you making real inroads into fatigue, despite low mass? What is it I’ve talked about today that you don’t know? Tell me and we’ll find out together. If you don’t know your body, if you aren’t measuring your progess, if you do not clearly understand your health today- then you are not meeting your goals. That guys is going NOWHERE.

Body typing and metabolic typing are fast and easy. Contact me today: trainer@fitmantoday.com

“Grazing is good.” That could be a cow talking. But Heather Karsten, assistant professor of crop production and ecology, says that when pastures are managed carefully, the whole agroecosystem benefits.

Gwendolyn Crews
Healthy chicken: A laying hen forages for clover.

First of all, says Karsten, it’s good for the soil. Grass holds soil in place and keeps it from eroding. Grass root mass is like a big sponge, absorbing and retaining water. And grass’s roots are dying all the time, “putting more organic matter into the soil, which contributes to soil aggregation and better water and air infiltration, and to more diverse biological activity, nutrient release, and carbon sequestration,” Karsten says. “The most fertile soils around the world developed under perennial grasslands.

“From a human perspective, the animals are out there grazing their own forage, managing their own feed, and spreading their own manure, so there’s not as much labor, equipment, storage facilities, or energy involved for the farmer. And grazing systems, if they’re well managed, can be very profitable.”

From the animal perspective, grazing is good for nutrition. With careful pasture management, grasses can provide high levels of protein and vitamins.

Cows graze. Goats graze. Horses graze. Why not chickens?

“Animals with just one stomach, like chickens and people, don’t have the digestive micro-organisms needed to get all their nutrients from pasture,” Karsten admits. But there are advantages to raising even chickens on grass, she insists. Poultry raised on fresh pasture instead of stored grain get more unsaturated fats and vitamins in their diets. “It’s like the difference between fresh and canned vegetables. There are more nutrients available in the fresh,” she says. Pasture-fed chickens can also get bonus nutrients by eating grass-dwelling insects. And grazing chickens on a pasture that has already been munched on by ruminants helps with the break-down and spread of manure. The chickens’ diet must be supplemented with grain, but Karsten thinks it could still be cheaper to raise chickens on pasture and grain than on grain alone.

Not all grasses are equal, however. “The leafier the plant, the higher the digestibility for the animal,” says Karsten. If a pasture is overgrazed or the grass is too mature and “stemmy,” the nutritional benefits fall off. And in a recent study, Karsten and Ellen Seconi, a graduate student in agronomy, determined that legumes like alfalfa and clover are higher than grasses are in omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to lower health risks including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune disorders. Armed with this information, Karsten and Paul Patterson, associate professor of poultry science, set out to find the best pasture-plant species for optimal nutrition for the animal that could then be passed on to the human consumer.

Over a six-week period, Karsten, Patterson, and undergraduate assistant Gwendolyn Crews rotated 25 chickens from grass, to red and white clover, to alfalfa, grazing them for two weeks on each species. To facilitate rotation, they designed a mobile chicken coop with help from students from the Agricultural Systems Management Club. The coop, which could be trundled around the field on wheels, provided the chickens with food and water, protected them from predators, and served as a nest box. During each rotation, egg samples were taken and analyzed for levels of unsaturated fat and vitamins in their yolks. The researchers then compared eggs produced on each section of pasture to eggs taken from chickens raised in commercial cages on a typical grain diet.

They found that the pastured birds produced about three times more omega-3 fat in their eggs than did birds raised on an industrial diet. Regarding the best pasture mixes, “On average across all these periods, the mixtures highly dominated by legumes — clover and alfalfa — produced 18 percent more omega-3 fat than grass alone,” Karsten says. Eggs from the alfalfa pasture had 25 percent more omega-3s than grass-produced counterparts. “In absolute amounts, this was not a very big increase,” says Karsten. “But with more research and some different feeding regimes, it might go higher.”

Pasturing also boosted levels of vitamins A and E. “On average, we saw about twice as much vitamin E and 40 percent more vitamin A in the yolks of pasture-fed birds than in the caged birds. The longer the animals were on pasture, the more vitamins they produced,” Karsten says.

“From this study we confirmed three nutritional advantages of raising hens on pasture as compared to on an industry diet in cages: the increases in omega-3 fatty acids and in vitamins A and E. We also found that differences in omega-3 levels in plants have an effect on the eggs. And we learned how to manage chickens on pasture.”
— Joanna Lott

Heather Karsten, Ph.D., is assistant professor of crop production and ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, 251 ASI Building, University Park, PA 16802; 814-863-3179; hdk3@psu.edu. Paul Patterson, Ph.D., is associate professor of poultry science in the College of Agricultural Sciences, 223 Henning Building, University Park, PA; 16802; 814-865-3414; php1@psu.edu. Gwendolyn Crews is a junior in agroecosystems with a minor in horticulture. Ellen Seconi is a graduate student in agronomy.

Reprinted from

http://www.rps.psu.edu/0305/poultry.html

From This it is easy to see why Oragnic, Free-Range eggs are worth every penny.