Eating chocolates is not only fun, it also has health benefits. From improving your heart health to boosting your performance at the gym, there are many ways that eating chocolates can boost your wellness.
1. It Lowers Blood Pressure –
The main antioxidants in chocolate are flavonoids, which help lower blood pressure. By relaxing the blood vessels, they prevent your heart from having to work harder. This can help decrease your risk of heart disease and stroke.
2. It Reduces the Risk of Liver Damage –
Researchers have found that people who consume chocolate regularly are less likely to develop liver disease.
3. It Can Improve Your Cognition –
The antioxidants in chocolate have been linked to a number of positive effects on the brain, including improving your focus and memory. It’s also a good source of potassium, magnesium, and iron.
4. It Can Reduce Your Stress Levels –
The valeric acid in chocolate can help regulate the body’s serotonin and dopamine levels, which help your mood stay upbeat. This can help you relax and feel better after a stressful day, says Joy DuBost, PhD, RD, a food scientist, registered dietitian, and owner of DuBost Food and Nutrition Solutions in Arlington, Virginia.
7. It Can Boost Your Energy –
The polyphenols and flavonoids in chocolate can boost your energy levels. This is because they release nitric oxide into your bloodstream, which makes the cells in your muscles more efficient at using oxygen and other nutrients.
11. It Can Protect Your Organs –
The flavonoids and other phytonutrients in chocolate can protect your organs by preventing damage from free radicals. This can help you avoid conditions such as kidney disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
5 Ways to Grow Bigger Cavalry Muscles
Whether you’re running uphill or simply walking, your calves help stabilize and support your ankles, and they play an important role in your mobility. They also allow you to do movements like jumping, bending, and turning. If you want to increase your calf size, you’ll need to find exercises that specifically target this area and force them to work against resistance.
1. Your calf muscle fiber composition and already trained status can make it easy or hard to grow bigger calves
Genetics play a major role in how you build muscles, and it’s no secret that your calf muscle fiber type and your already trained status affects how well you can develop calves. If you have a higher percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers in your soleus, for example, then training it will be easier than the gastrocnemius (the largest calf muscle).
2. You may favor one leg over the other when doing calf exercises
It’s common to tend to favor one side of your body over the other. This can make it harder to build the full size of your calves, even when you train them with the same exercises.
You can avoid this by training each calf exercise on only one leg at a time. By doing this, you can ensure that the muscles of each leg are receiving equal stimulus, and that they receive it at a rate that is proportionate to their size.
3. Increasing your calf workout frequency
There is an old adage that if you want to build big muscle, you need to train it frequently. This is true of all muscle groups, but it especially applies to the calves since they are not damaged very often by training, and recover fairly quickly.
4. Adding volume to your calf workouts
You’ll see results from training your calf muscles if you add more repetitions each workout. This will stimulate greater muscular hypertrophy, which in turn results in larger and more developed calves.
5. You can train your calves barefoot
If you want to get the most out of your calf workouts, consider training them barefoot. This can stimulate the calf muscles and shins in ways that aren’t possible with conventional shoes.
6. Use uphill walking and jumping rope to challenge your calves
If you don’t already do it, you should start doing uphill walking or jumping rope regularly. Both of these activities will challenge your calf muscles and improve your coordination.
7. Stand calf raises with weights
Standing calf raises are an excellent exercise to develop your calf muscles, as they focus on the gastrocnemius, which is the largest muscle in the calf. These exercises can be performed with or without weights, and are a great way to build muscle size and definition in your calves.
8. Do farmer’s walks with your toes up
Farmer’s walks are a great exercise for grip strength and physical conditioning, but they can be enhanced by putting your calves under load. By doing this exercise on your toes, you can force the gastrocnemius to contract more strongly while also improving your balance and agility.
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