For all types of exercise, your warm-up activities should: Take each of the joints through full range of motion. Increase body temperature. Get you psychologically tuned to what your body will be doing. Physiological reasons for warming up. Warm-ups help the body and its muscles to perform more effectively by: Slowly increasing muscle temperature. Serving as a dry run, which alerts the individual to potential musculoskeletal yogaandpregnancies and other problems that may occur yogaandpregnancies at higher intensity. Reducing the risk of exercise-related heart problems by increasing coronary blood flow. Improving the elasticity of soft tissues. Preventing early lactic-acid buildup and fatigue. Stimulating motor units of the muscles in preparation for a heavier workload.

Like their leader, many haven’t stopped smiling and laughing since the class yogaandpregnancies began. For a dance/aerobics class, the group’s choreography looks amazing. Still, the instructor isn’t satisfied. “Y’all didn’t get that easy step?” she laughs, presumably referring to the aforementioned “grapevine.” “We’ll do it one more time.” If hip-hop and funk aren’t your thing, don’t worry: Aerobics enthusiasts today have more choices than a couch potato with a satellite dish. You can still sign up for a traditional step, low-impact or high-impact/low-impact class, but if you want to learn some self-defense while you sweat, you can check out a cardio kickboxing class.

©2003 www.yoga-stress-meditate.com All rights reserved.