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Carol Bartram - EzineArticles.com Expert Author  

My name is Carol Bartram and I live in Hull, East Yorkshire, UK. I'm 44 years old and have a passion for personal fitness. I am a qualified Pilates Instructor, Personal Trainer and Massage Therapist.

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  • The Cardio Twister - Twist Your Way to a Beautiful Body
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] The Cardio Twister is that dinky machine that seems to be on all the shopping channels at the moment, very professionally presented by Brenda DyGraf, an international fitness guru who, I have to say, looks to be in pretty cool shape! While I'm not sure if your average user will ever get to the amazing honed and toned shape of Ms DyGraf, I'm pretty convinced that the Cardio Twister can certainly help you on your way.


  • The Ab Rocket and Pilates
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] Using the Ab Rocket for Pilates is a great way to strengthen your core and other deep muscles in order to get defined abs, a neat waist and beautifully toned arms and legs. With mat-based Pilates, you usually perform several sets of exercises in different positions, such as lying on your back, or front, or seated or lying on your side.


  • The TRX Suspension System - Make Your Body Spring Into Life!
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] The TRX Suspension System was originally designed for the training of super-fit Navy Seals, but is equally suitable for any of us ordinary mortals. As a personal trainer I am delighted by its potential, as I mainly train "ordinary" people - who often have back problems, knee injuries and limited range of movement.


  • Lose Fat With the Ab Circle Pro
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] If you have excess weight that you want to lose and you can't face the idea of going to a gym and something you could try is the Ab Circle Pro. This is a piece of home exercise equipment that seems to be on most of the shopping channels at the moment; it ticks a lot of boxes in that it is portable, easy-to-use and simple to put together, folding away neatly after use so that it can be stored under your bed or in the closet.


  • The Ab Circle Pro - A Treadmill For Your Abs
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] There is a phenomenal amount of equipment available on the market that is aimed at the home exerciser. For the uninitiated, this amount of equipment choice can be a minefield. After all, unless you are a fitness professional yourself, how on earth do you know what to go for? Let's face it, some of these devices are definitely weird and wonderful and have so many gimmicks that sometimes even fitness professionals themselves have difficulty deciding what to choose!


  • The Firm Wave and the Experienced Exerciser
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] Recently, I have received a large number of questions as to whether the Firm Wave is any use to the experienced exerciser who is looking to increase fitness levels or perhaps even train for competition. I have to admit being a little remiss on the subject, as most of my articles have concerned the suitability of the Wave for the novice or new exerciser. Shoot me!


  • The T-Bow - A Great Piece of Home Exercise Equipment
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] Blasting into the Home Exercise market, the T-Bow is a new idea in exercise equipment that combines heart-pumping cardio workouts with muscle conditioning and toning and adds core stability for a full-body workout every time! Blasting into the Home Exercise market, the T-Bow is a new idea in exercise equipment that combines heart-pumping cardio workouts with muscle conditioning and toning and adds core stability for a full-body workout every time!


  • The T- Bow Exercise System - Rock Those Excess Pounds Away
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] There are lots of pieces of exercise equipment out there for home use, but how many will fit into a small apartment? Most are huge, unwieldy and - it has to be said - downright ugly! How many times have you been embarrassed when a relative has stayed over and had to share the spare room with a monstrosity of an exercise machine? Well now there's the T-Bow. An amazingly versatile piece of exercise kit that can be used in the smallest of spaces, and cleared away into a closet in a trice when your workout is over.


  • The Firm Wave - Fat Burning and You
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] Whether you are 20 years old or 50 years young, the way your body burns fat is the same. At 20, it is just much easier! But however old you are, The Firm Wave will help you burn fat. The Firm Wave burns fat in several ways.


  • Try the Firm Wave Workout For Fat Blasting Cardio Exercise
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] Discover the secret that makes The Firm's Wave such a great piece of home fitness equipment. For exercising at home, I would say that your best bet with limited space and money is The Firm Wave. This is fairly new on the market, and is produced by The Firm, a U.S. based company with a good reputation for innovative weight loss products and inspirational DVDs.


  • Exercising at Home - Surf the Firm Wave
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] Nothing to do with the ocean or a surfboard, the Firm Wave is made of strong polymer and shaped like a hump bridge. It is extremely versatile; place it on the floor with the curve side down and it rocks when you stand on it and push your feet from side to side in a see-saw movement. This is fun! "Surfing" the Wave raises your heart rate and gives you the cardio part of your workout.


  • Which is Best, a Treadmill Or the Firm Wave?
    [Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] The Firm WAVE is a cleverly designed, curved exercise system that can be used in several ways. As an exercise professional, I rate both the treadmill and the Wave. However, a treadmill is much larger and more expensive, and cannot be used for toning the arms and shoulders - and I don't recommend trying Pilates on a moving treadmill!


  • Rotator Exercises to Strengthen the Shoulder
    [Health-and-Fitness:Physical-Therapy] A shoulder injury, however caused, can cause months (or even years) of pain and restricted movement. You may not even remember the incident that caused it! Some injuries to the shoulder build up over a long time; repetitive movements can cause overuse injuries, much like those that happen to the wrist muscles (RSI).


  • How to Treat Shoulder Bursitis
    [Health-and-Fitness:Physical-Therapy] Shoulder bursitis occurs when one of the bursa sacs around your shoulder joint becomes inflamed and sore. Often the cause of this is overuse - constant, repetitive movements of the arm rub the tendon permanently on the shoulder bursa, which then causes the inflammation. After that, any lifting of the arm above 90 degrees or overhead causes pain and interferes with mobility. At best, shoulder bursitis is a nuisance, at worst can spell problems for the continuing career of an athlete. If your livelihood depends on you fast-bowling in cricket, then the onset of bursitis can be a disaster.


  • Shoulder Therapy - What Do You Need?
    [Health-and-Fitness:Physical-Therapy] If you are active and play sports regularly, you can sustain a rotator cuff injury. Tennis, golf and basketball players are particularly susceptible to this type of injury as they rely heavily on the shoulder muscles - imagine the muscle power needed to serve a tennis ball at the incredible speeds recorded at top level competition!


  • On-the-Bone Shin Splints and How to Survive Them
    [Health-and-Fitness:Pain-Management] All goes well for a while; you increase to 3 runs a week and your weight starts to go down. But then your shins start to ache during your run. Not too bad at first; it's uncomfortable, but you keep going - can't let those young ones beat you! But then the pain gets worse and comes on earlier in the run. You have to stop and rub your shins to try and alleviate it. It doesn't help, and you end the run at a hobble, close to tears.


  • Pain - Lower Leg and Knee
    [Health-and-Fitness:Pain-Management] There are several reasons why you may get leg pain - lower leg pain in particular may be caused by shin splints. If you are active and doing high-impact sports involving lots of running and sudden turns, the pain and inconvenience of a shin splint can be a nightmare and can become a chronic injury.


  • Running - Shin Pain and Its Causes
    [Recreation-and-Sports:Running] In my job as a Sports Therapist, I see a lot of people who do a lot of running; shin pain is one of their major complaints and running shin splints can cause them considerable discomfort and trouble. My problems come when I have to tell them that the best cure for shin splints is rest. Their faces blanch, and they act as if I've told them to stand on their heads in a bath of treacle.


  • Shin Running Pain and How to Avoid It
    [Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Anyone who has ever suffered from shin running pain will tell you that it is best to avoid it. The pain, usually just above your ankle has a dreadful, toothache quality that does not go away until you rest. If you are in the middle of a marathon at this point, that might be a problem!


  • Shin Treatment - Are Your Shins a Pain?
    [Health-and-Fitness:Pain-Management] Most active people suffer from leg pain at some time. Often it can be traced back to a stumble on a rough surface, or even a fall, but sometimes there seems to be no reason for the pain. If the pain is in the back of your lower leg, it may be cramp or insufficient warmup causing the muscle there (gastrocnemius) to go into spasm. On a cautionary note, if you have unexplained calf pain that lasts more than a few hours and does not go away when you rest, you need to see a doctor PDQ (Pretty Damn Quick!), as you may have an undiagnosed DVT or blood clot.


  • Shin Splint Treatment and Prevention
    [Health-and-Fitness:Physical-Therapy] A shin splint is caused when the small muscle at the front of your lower leg becomes inflamed. As a Sports Therapist I come across these evil little beasties regularly - in fact, the moment a client complains of Pain Lower Leg, I feel for the telltale squashy swelling close to their lower shinbone and start thinking of shin splint treatment.


  • For Natural Weight Loss - Eat Whole Foods
    [Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Natural weight loss refers to all the methods of dropping pounds in a natural manner - such as altering your eating habits and adding some exercise into your daily routine. I class unnatural weight loss as the initial extreme loss following starting a crash diet, or weight loss caused by a liquid diet or the use of slimming pills. Crash dieting - cutting your daily calorie intake to less than 1100 calories - gives an immediate dramatic weight reduction, but it isn't fat that your body is shedding.


  • How to Lose Weight - Calories Are Important
    [Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] If wishing could melt calories away, we'd all be beautifully slim. How many times have you heard the people around you sigh, "I wish I could lose weight." But when it comes to actually doing something about those excess calories, then nothing happens. Losing weight stays on the wish list and never becomes reality.


  • The Common Sense GI Diet
    [Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] A diet that I think is full of common sense is the GI Diet. GI stands for Glycemic Index, which is a measure of how quickly foods containing carbohydrate are absorbed by the body and turned into fuel. Foods with a high GI listing are absorbed quickly and cause blood sugar levels to rise sharply, which prompts the body to release insulin to bring levels down. Insulin release is linked to fat storage, so basically, the slower food is absorbed, the better.


  • Are You an Idiot For Trying Fat Loss For Idiots?
    [Health-and-Fitness:Popular-Diets] Fat Loss 4 idiots promises an initial weight loss of up to 11 lb in the first 9 days of using, with no slimming or appetite-controlling drugs and no laxatives. Wow! That's one hell of a claim to follow up, and I didn't expect to be impressed when I saw the blurb. In my opinion as a Personal Trainer, weight loss of that magnitude is not desirable in a short space of time. You may have initial success in dropping the pounds, but if you starve yourself by going on a very low fat, low calorie or no-carbs regime, you are doomed to failure.


  • The Medifast Diet - Is It Worth The Price?
    [Health-and-Fitness:Popular-Diets] Here's a diet for those of you who don't like following diets. The Medifast diet has been around for many years, and as the name suggests, used to be only available from a doctor. Nowadays, it is freely available and claims that you can lose up to 5lb per week.


  • The Zone Diet - Does It Burn Fat?
    [Health-and-Fitness:Popular-Diets] This diet works on the premise that your body needs to be in a certain state to burn fat at a steady, stable rate - which means you will lose weight and keep it off. This state is referred to as "The Zone".


  • The Three Day Diet
    [Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The promise of this diet - which has been around for over 2 decades, believe it or not - is that if you follow it to the letter, you will lose up to 10lbs in weight in the 3 days. That's a hell of a lot of weight to drop!


  • Fabulous Fat Burning Foods
    [Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Fat burning foods are those that use up more calories when our bodies digest them than they actually contain. And it's no surprise that they just happen to be some of the healthiest foods around. So if you were hoping that the pizza with extra pepperoni that you're just about to eat is on the list - sorry to disappoint you!


  • The Benefits of Getting Fitter
    [Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] It's official - becoming fitter is good for your health. As if we didn't know. Health and fitness go hand-in-hand. Admittedly, you can be healthy and unfit, but are you willing to play Russian Roulette with your health?


  • The Truth About Low Calorie-Low Fat Diets
    [Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] So many people believe that, to lose weight fast, all you have to do is hardly eat anything. Dead simple. And, yes, you certainly will drop pounds if you skip breakfast, have soup and lettuce for lunch, and a bit of chicken with 3 carrots for dinner every night. The scales will show a dramatic drop, especially in the first week. And you'll probably feel dramatically awful!


  • For Natural Weight Loss - Fit Exercise Into Your Day
    [Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The best kind of weight loss is natural weight loss - no restrictive diets, no pills or potions. Your body uses the food you eat as fuel to power you through the day, and fat is reduced in a safe, steady, wholly natural way while at the same time your muscles are strengthened and toned to be sleek and beautiful. Sounds impossible doesn't it?


  • Weight Loss Tips - "I Eat Like A Bird - Honestly" - Part Two
    [Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Here's some ideas for you about how to sort out your food problems: Try keeping a food diary for 3 days, including a weekend day. Everything you eat and drink - EVERYTHING - goes on that list, together with the quantity and the time of day.


  • Weight Loss Tips - "I Eat Like A Bird - Honestly" - Part One
    [Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] This is what many of my weight-loss clients tell me, while looking at me all wide-eyed and innocent. "I've no idea how I've put on so much weight. I must have a slow metabolism, surely. It's not my fault."


  • The T-Bow - Home Fitness Exercise Equipment
    [Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Well I bet you've never heard of a T-Bow or TBow. Am I right? Thought I was! Actually, neither had I until a few months ago. We were at a Fitness exhibition in London when I saw this - Thing. Looked like a small humpback bridge in bright orange with a blue exercise mat fixed to the convex side. Gaps in the sides meant you could pick it up and carry it like a briefcase. I lifted one - not heavy; I could easily carry 2 and I'm not exactly built like Charles Atlas.


  • Long Term Side Effects Of Phentermine
    [Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] I've just read a study dealing with appetite-suppressing drugs, principally one called Phentermine (that's the generic name; it's branded with other names such as Fastin). I had to read the report three times before I understood it...full of long words and clinician-speak! But it seems to me that this drug deals with the symptoms of the problem, i.e overeating rather than the problem itself, i.e why people overeat.


  • Pilates and Osteoporis Part Two
    [Health-and-Fitness] And here come the Do's regarding osteoporosis. Try not to get it in the first place! We rarely think about the future when we're young too busy living. But, like our pension, our bones are something we should invest in before we start having problems with them.


  • Pilates and Osteoporis Part Three
    [Health-and-Fitness] And here is the last part of the article on osteoporosis. If you do have osteoporosis – and you MUST take your doctor's advice before doing any exercises – here are a few "do's" and "dont's":


  • Pilates and Osteoporis Part One
    [Health-and-Fitness] Ok, so what about Pilates and osteoporosis? It's more a series of "Don'ts" from the look of it. If there's any osteoporosis in the thoracic spine – the bit between the shoulderblades – over time the spine will crumple in on itself to form what is known as "Dowager's Hump".


  • A Tale of Two Ladies
    [Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Once upon a time there were two ladies who had been friends for most of their lives. They met at primary school, went through the giggles and general insanity of the Teenage Hormone years together, kept the other one sane at their respective weddings and were godmothers to each others' various offspring...


  • Pilates and Sciatica - Part One
    [Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Lots of people come to me with sciatica, and so I've been doing some research on the subject. It was really interesting, so I thought I'd write an brief article about it. I've missed out all the long Latin words that describe it in Doctorspeak as I could neither spell nor pronounce them!


  • Do Pilates, Live Longer - Part Two
    [Health-and-Fitness] Sometimes we have been suffering from stress for so long that we almost get used to it. This is dangerous as we then regard the way we feel and act as “normal”, simply because we cannot remember being any other way. There are many warning signs of stress. Listed below are just some of them:


  • Pilates and Sciatica - Part Two
    [Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] This is the second part of our article on sciatica. Please can I re-iterate that if you do get the symptoms of sciatica you MUST get checked out by a medical professional before embarking on any kind of exercise.


  • You Can Be Sincerely Wrong
    [Health-and-Fitness] Sometimes I see people exercising with such bad form that it makes me want to shoot myself. My lecturer Alan(Yoda) told me once that, when I qualified, I wouldn't see dead people, but bad posture. He was right. Boy, was he right!


  • Do Pilates, Live Longer - Part One
    [Health-and-Fitness] This is an article I wrote a few months ago about stress. I was stressed when I wrote it! People do not realise the insidious damage that stress causes to health, mental and physical, when experienced on a long-term basis. Have a read of this. Then examine your own life and sort your stress before it sorts you!


  • Pilates, Build A Firm Foundation
    [Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] You wouldn't build your house on sand would you? An unstable surface that is unable to support any structure built upon it. Then why do some people insist on training their body hard when their foundation is weak?




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