Fitness

I have been teaching yoga for 17 years, and one of the most frequent complaints I hear from students and yogaphobes alike is that they don’t have enough time for practice, so they avoid it altogether.

Avoiding a regular practice of stretching will never get you the healing benefits that come with the work. Even if you only do one pose a day, you will make a huge difference in your body, brain and well-being.

What motivates you to exercise? Is it weight loss? A healthy heart? A clear mind? Some jeans hidden in the back corner of your closet? All are viable and helpful motivators for exercise. And the more motivators you have to stay active, the more likely you may be to stick to your routine.

Here’s another motivator to add to your list: save the planet.

By The FIRM Master Instructor Annie Lee

My philosophy is all about the 3 E’s: effective, efficient exercise. Here’s a quick how-to video of my personal total body workouts that focus on the 3 E’s.

If you want to increase the amount of joy in your life, it has to begin with the way you love, treat and honor yourself. If you are reaching outside of yourself for people, things, food, drugs, alcohol or jobs to be your source of joy, you will be at the mercy of circumstance. Real power comes when you realize you can feel joy for no reason at all.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”     — Eleanor Roosevelt

By The FIRM Master Instructor Emily Welsh

You can work out every day or even hours a day and get little benefit if you are not fully engaged in the process. I have found that if I’m not paying attention to what I am doing when I work out, I move mindlessly through each set of exercises, not getting the best benefit from each repetition. I call this being on “auto-pilot.”

A few weeks ago, I taught my Core Immersion Training at the Century City Equinox in Los Angeles, Calif. Each day, we valet parked our cars before entering the club. Those who live outside of Los Angeles may have to re-read the prior sentence: Yes, we VALET PARKED our cars to go to the gym, as do thousands of other Angelenos all around the city, where valet parking is an unfortunate fact of life in a city where the car is king, and vast distances separate us from getting here to there.

My student Mary came to me nearly in tears one day after class. She’d been working for years to get into a headstand, yet continually watched newer students lift up with ease before her. She asked, “What am I doing wrong?”

Since Mary had come into my yoga classes only the week before, I asked her if she was using her bandhas to help her attain headstand. “What’s a bandha?” she asked, looking puzzled.

By The FIRM Master Instructor Louise Smith

If you’re short on time like I sometimes am, it’s great to have a leg routine that will leave your legs burning and your workout done in a flash. I call this go-to routine my Tri-Set Lower Body Blast. It targets all the muscles of the hip and thigh — the glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps — with unilateral, bilateral, single joint and multi-joint exercises. Here’s a quick how-to video we shot at the studio to show you the moves. You’ll need just one heavy set of dumbbells or a sculpting bar.

Numbers on the scale often become the center of focus when trying to determine a healthy weight. Annual exams at the doctor’s office include a weigh in; weight loss centers determine success by a drop in pounds; and there is talk from time to time about Body Mass Index (BMI) in the media, which refers to your “appropriate” weight based on your height.