How To Improve Circulation & Dominate Your Workouts

Circulation is important. How important? By the time you finish reading this introduction, 2.5 to 3 quarts of blood may have circulated throughout your body. This is How To Improve Circulation.

If you’re an athlete, and you happen to be reading and jogging at the same time, that number could boost up to 4 gallons in the same amount of time. That’s why it’s important to learn how to improve circulation.

We’re talking gallons of blood here.

Pour out four gallons of milk in 30 seconds, then imagine all of that being pumped through an organ that’s about 11 ounces or less. That’s a lot of traffic.

Human beings are basically self-sustaining vampires. It’s a great deal; you’re powered by blood, but you get all you need from your own body. Problems arise when your system isn’t pumping it efficiently, though. While we don’t get the super strength or the night vision, we do get the ability to improve our blood’s efficiency and feel better, look better, and live longer.

Oh, and we can eat all of the garlic we want, and garlic’s good for circulation. Take that, Dracula.

Poor Circulation Top 3 Reasons

#1 No Activity

It’s the most common one there is. If you aren’t moving your body enough during your work out schedule, then you aren’t working the muscles responsible for pushing blood through it. Instead, you put all of the responsibility on your heart, which has to work extra hard to get blood through your system. That’s your blood pressure, reminding you that things aren’t working like they should. A lack of circulation can manifest in many different ways, including:

• Erectile dysfunction.
• Difficulty focusing.
• Cloudy memory.
• Headaches or neck tension.
• Reduced sensation in your limbs.
• Difficulty warming up.
• Getting flushed during light activity or nearly fainting.
• Feeling out of breath constantly.

It all boils down to your body’s inability to pump oxygen around through your blood and to circulate it to the organs and muscle building that need it the most. Being active can combat this immensely, but it’s not the only thing.

#2 Overweight

Not everyone who’s overweight has dangerously high or low blood pressure, but there are links between the two of them. The more weight that you carry, the more blood your body needs to pump to perform simple motor actions like lifting your arm, walking, or getting out of bed. Everything is that much harder, and requires that much more oxygen to accomplish without putting any of your organs in the danger zone.

If you’re even slightly overweight, it may affect your circulation, but with cardiovascular exercise, and supplements like nitric oxide, you can actually work to combat the ill effects of body fat while you’re exercising hard to burn it off. Improving your circulation gives you the one-two punch of having more stamina to lose weight, and greater metabolism to keep burning it while you sleep.

The sleep thing in particular, is important, too: You’ll end up losing an immense amount of calories during your rest periods as your body recharges after each exercise. If you’ve ever looked at the amount of calories you burn from something as strenuous as biking for a few miles and thought it just wasn’t worth the effort, think again; your resting caloric burn rate could be enough to slim you down before you know it, as long as you’re putting in both the right work and the right type of calories.

As far as your circulation is concerned, learning how to lose lower belly fat and body fat in general, is going to be an easy win for improving your blood pressure and reducing the strain on your heart, so that your body can pump blood more freely. In fact, focusing on leg strength building exercises, like squats and leg presses, actually works to build the circulatory power in the legs and thighs, which have some of the biggest and longest cardiovascular networks in the body.

#3 Cardiovascular Restriction & Poor Habits

Caffeine

A great tool for exercise, caffeine can give your gym workouts focus and explosive power when you need it, all from a little cup of bean juice. It’s great when you’re properly hydrated and can be many of the top fat burners, but if you aren’t drinking enough water, caffeine can actually restrict your blood vessels, which means that you won’t have free and easy travel of oxygen to muscles.

What does that mean?

Drinking a cup of coffee could actually make you tired, which seems counter intuitive, but is nevertheless true.

If you’re over-caffeinated and seeing signs of dehydration you’re likely to experience headaches from restriction to the head and neck, nausea from restriction to the stomach, and even dizzy spells and fainting in more extreme cases where the heart sends out warning signals that there’s not enough oxygen to go around even though it’s beating its fastest to make up for the difference.

Nicotine & Cigarettes

You already know smoking is bad for your health. If you don’t know by now, then you’ve been ignoring all of the advertising, the educational campaigns, the warning labels on the pack, and the people that cough way too loud while standing next to you at a bus stop or just on the street. They want to get your attention to point out that smoking smells bad and they don’t want to smell it, but they’re also a reminder that smoking is just straight up killing your cardio.

It’s not just the cigarette smoke itself that does the damage, though. Nicotine can and has been used in very select medicinal applications in relation to cardiovascular treatment, similar to caffeine, but in general use it is one of the more common and least helpful restrictors in a person’s easy diet plan. If you’re a smoker, then you’re likely already killing any progress that you make during your cardio days every time that you light up. Not only are you building up what is essentially a wasteland of toxins that your lungs have to fight against to even get oxygen into your blood, but you’re even damaging the simple mechanisms of clear and easy breathing through the nose and throat.

On top of all of this, the restrictions to your circulation are going to kill the recovery periods after your workouts.

If you’ve ever had oral surgery, and had the dentist recommend that you not smoke afterward, that’s exactly one of the reasons why; smoke makes it harder for your body to heal, period. And the more there is to heal, the more blood is necessary to do the work. More blood means more burden on your cardio, and more burden means less resources for other tasks that are important, like just general organ function and muscle activity.

Top 3 Things That Aren’t Killing Your Circulation:

• Age
• Years alive.
• Time spent on Earth.

In all seriousness, age is one of the easiest things to blame for a reduction in your circulation, especially for men that are worried about erectile dysfunction. While it’s true that getting older can have some adverse effects on your body’s ability to circulate blood, with regular activity and by avoiding smoking and drinking, you actually do a lot to make sure that you can stay active, and active, no matter how old you get.

Older men in particular can benefit from supplements like nitric oxide, as they can pack in the power that gray wolves need to power through those exercises and get back to the important things, like running businesses, or telling their children to quit asking them for money, or just complaining about the quality of modern music in general.

Of particular note: women need cardio health too, and maybe even more than the guys. Each time that women have a child or just age in general, they can increase their risk of different conditions related to cardiovascular health, not the least of which is the threat of blood clots that can form in the lower body. Pregnant women especially are at risk for these conditions, and while cardio isn’t the cure-all silver bullet protection policy against these events, they can certainly help you to avoid an embolism. It’s really a win-win.

Now, on to the reason you probably even clicked on this article:

How To Improve Circulation And Dominate The World

(or at least, your workout)

High-Intensity Interval Training

You’ve heard about it, you’ve pondered it, and now you can do it yourself. HIIT cranks your engine and pushes it to the limit for very controlled periods. The entire HIIT workout can be anywhere from 15 minutes to 35 depending on your level of fitness and your goals, but one thing’s certain; the work that you put in during that brief period of time is going to be some of the hardest you’ve ever done, and it should be. The idea is to build up a caloric debt that your body is going to be burning off well after you’ve stopped. Up to 24 hours afterward, in fact.

The key to proper HIIT utilization is proper breaking and breathing periods, as well as staying hydrated. The result is that you spend far less time at the gym or on a treadmill, and far more time actually building and recovering important muscles and circulatory power. It’s the easy win you’ve been waiting for.

Just don’t overdo it. If you’re older, talk to your doctor before you attempt any HIIT training regimen. It really does push your heart hard.

Spicy Foods, Cinnamon, Turmeric, the Whole Nine

Now is the time to get adventurous with your diet. Spicy foods can work wonders for improving your circulation, as can foods like garlic, cinnamon, turmeric, and even red wine in moderation. Spicy foods get the job done by increasing blood flow throughout the body, which not only gives your circulation a little boost, but also means greater blood flow to your digestion, which in turn means a kick start to your metabolism. Spicy foods, along with cinnamon, are often referred to as having “thermogenic compounds” as well, which really means “helps you burn calories.”

Garlic is another thermogenic, but it contains compounds that become hydrogen sulfide, which in turn works to increase blood flow. Ginger is yet another food that can provide similar benefits, along with aiding and soothing digestion after those spicy meals.

It all comes down to eating spicy, flavorful foods. Our suggestion? If you’ve got the tolerance for heat, Szechuan Chinese cuisine often contains these ingredients, along with healthier alternatives to the usual cooking oils, reduced amounts of sugars and sauces, dishes that have little to no breeding, high protein, and peanuts.

Who doesn’t like peanuts?

Traditional kung pao chicken contains chili oil and garlic, among other ingredients, and as an added bonus, it’s amazing. Really.

Supplements

The final stretch: If you aren’t taking supplements as part of your workout routine, you need to start. Also, looking at the best creatine supplements.

Many supplements will contain important chemicals that can boost your energy levels, reduce your recovery times, and give you more bang for your buck every time you hit the gym. One supplement type in particular, is going to be relevant to your circulation, though, and it’s nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide supplements contain loads of different compounds aimed at improving your circulation. Nitric oxide boosters like NitroCut packs great things for blood flow:

• Vitamin D3
• Vitamin B6
• Vitamin B12
• Arginine-Alphaketoglutarate
• Arginine AKIC
• L Arginine Monohydrate
• L Citrulline Malate
• Fenugreek Extract
• Tribulus Terrestris
• Avena Sativa Extract
• Tribulus Terrestris
• Raspberry Ketone

Arginine in particular, has been heavily researched for its ability to improve blood flow. Other ingredients, like the B12, boost your energy levels. Ketones give fat burning. Fenugreek helps all sides of the equation. The point is, nitric oxide boosters can improve circulation and get all of these great compounds rushing through your body’s mighty circulatory river. Perfect for that pre-workout supercharge that you need to absolutely destroy your personal best and set all-time highs.

The best part about this supplement, though, is the lack of caffeine. In a lot of supplements, you’re going to see caffeine being used, and while caffeine itself isn’t harmful and can actually be beneficial to your exercise, as stated earlier, there is too much of a good thing to watch out for.

Conclusion

In closing, circulation is going to be your jet fuel. Without a healthy heart and blood-fueled muscles, you aren’t going to make much, or even any, progress. Even worse, your recovery periods are going to be longer, you’re going to feel tired, and you’re going to lose that motivation and focus that you need to hit the gym. Learn how to improve circulation, and you’ll feel like a brand new you.

-Terry Asher