In another installment from our Assistant Director of Trainings, Andrea Russell, we learn the benefits of the Classic Sun Salutations and how to practice them.
I just saw this beautiful video for the first time. I am a VERY long way from being able to do this practice but just watching this gets it into my body mind as a future possibility. Thank you Andrea.
Regularly doing cardio is one of the best investments that you can make in your health. Benefitting both mental and physical health, the benefits of regularly doing cardio are legion. Besides rowing, one of my favorite forms of cardio is biking. The just-right challenge is the key to optimizing the time that you spend doing cardio. I often see people working on the two extremes; "Too easy." Many people spend hours per day being physically active, though they’re not optimizing the time that they’re investing. If you're not breathing hard and heating up, you can likely extract a lot more benefit from the time that you are investing. Even increasing your workload a little bit can make a significant difference in wellbeing. "Too hard." For some people, they spend too much time in the “red” zone. Too much high-intensity cardio can lead to depletion, injury and increased levels of stress hormones and inflammation. High-intensity cardio is important for developing cap...
Both cardio and meditation are strongly associated with improving mental and physical wellbeing. Whether measuring the incidence and severity of diseases, indices of psychosocial wellbeing or inflammatory biomarkers, both cardio and meditation are disproportionately effective in cultivating wellbeing. During my recent pilgrimage, I spent many hours meditating while riding my bike. Since many of us are short on time, I strongly encourage you to practice meditation while doing cardio. The scientific evidence is increasingly indicating that active meditation confers the same benefits as formal meditation, and combining cardio and meditation has the potential to allow double-dipping in the time that you allocate to physical fitness. If you haven’t already tried my MDFL CARDIO classes, I encourage you to check them out via my studio's on-demand library . Interestingly, it appears as though cardio and meditation interact with different anti-inflammatory pathways. University of Wisconsi...
Does your workout regimen include muscle building activities? It’s hard to overstate the importance of maintaining and building muscle mass. While strength, power and muscular endurance are all very important for optimal aging, your overall wellbeing is disproportionately related to your muscle mass. There are several factors that are influenced by muscle mass. Among them are: Muscle mass supports your joints . More muscle mass is generally associated with healthier joints. Your sense of balance is highly dependent on sensations that arise from your muscles. As you lose muscle mass, your balance tends to become shakier Bone density is influenced by muscle mass. When muscles pull harder on the bones, the osteoblasts in the bones respond by increasing bone density. More muscle = more force = greater bone density. Muscles are integrally involved in glucose metabolism ; building muscle is a powerful way to both treat and prevent insulin resistance. The academic article, linked below, des...
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