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Yoga
As we return to the group exercise studio, it’s good to remember how a workout community not only brings us together, but helps us thrive.
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Yoga teachers will already be well aware that the yamas are one of the eight limbs of yoga. According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the word yamas can be translated as “abstinences”; in other words, these are things yogis should avoid doing (Satchidananda 2012).
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Yoga can be strategically used in concert with exercise physiology tenets to identify common postural issues that cause movement limitations for clients. Learn how taking a biomechanical approach to yoga offers an understanding of the interrelationships among joint structure, muscles and movement and how yoga postures can release tension, restore mobility, enhance stability and rebalance the body.
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Purpose, passion and people! The fitness industry is all about forging relationships that lift others up. Fitness professionals have energy to spare, and they are dedicated to mentoring new generations of pros, networking with peers, and motivating clients and participants every day.
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Mindful movement practices like yoga and Pilates allow you to incorporate flexibility, core work and body awareness into your current client programming. Core yoga is a practice that blends the precision, control and core-strengthening benefits of Pilates with the mindful and meditative benefits of yoga.
Try this core yoga slow-flow sequence and share it with your clients!
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If you’ve been teaching group fitness classes for any length of time, you’ve likely experienced the dreaded student walkout. It’s the end of class—and time to stretch—and a portion of the class members start putting away equipment and heading for the door. Participants in certain classes are guiltier than others (cycling instructors, are you nodding in agreement?).
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Americans continue to turn to yoga and meditation as leading ways to improve health, according to data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). In 2017, yoga was the most commonly used complementary health approach, practiced by 14.3% of American adults (35.2 million). This represents an increase of almost 13 million practitioners since 2012. Meditation was the second most popular complementary health practice, used by 14.2% of adults. In growth, however, meditation outpaced yoga, with participation more than tripling from 2012 (4.1%).
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What makes a yoga teacher skilled, effective and relatable? In reality, you could answer this in several ways, but there are some key principles that make up the foundation of a teaching practice. Let’s call them The ABCs of Teaching Yoga.
Surprisingly, the ABCs are not always taught in professional training programs, and many teachers find themselves stumbling through their classes when just starting out. The good news is you don’t have to! I’ve outlined everything you need to know here.
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Do you love taking yoga classes? Learning from a skilled teacher is essential for any yoga student, but classes can be full and are sometimes fast-paced. A self-initiated, self-led home practice is an opportunity to enhance your body awareness and sensitivity, shedding light on misalignments or tight areas that might go unnoticed in the studio. Moments of awareness are important because they inform future yoga practice and enhance your knowledge of your body and yourself.
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When I landed at IDEA over 17 years ago, I had tried yoga just a handful of times.
Roll back to 1997. We had moved from Los Angeles to San Diego, and I was working part-time, waiting for my newly minted PhD husband to get hired somewhere (please, anywhere!) as a college professor. Working just 20 hours per week, I had plenty of time to explore San Diego. I bought a gym membership at the University of California, San Diego, and spent a lot of time there, self-guided, trying all the classes and training myself based on what little I knew about movement and the body.
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You’re a student of the body, committed to helping people improve their functional capacity and independence. Human movement is complex and uniquely individual. From a physical perspective, joint structure, neurological patterning, muscles, ligaments, tendons, fascia and skin all affect movement. Psychological and emotional factors may also cause restrictions.
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What makes a yoga teacher skilled, effective and relatable? In reality, you could answer this in several ways, but there are some key principles that make up the foundation of a teaching practice. Let’s call them The ABCs of Teaching Yoga.
Surprisingly, the ABCs are not always taught in professional training programs, and many teachers find themselves stumbling through their classes when just starting out. The good news is you don’t have to! I’ve outlined everything you need to know here.
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Encouraging clients to increase body awareness and pay attention to their surroundings when being physically active may reduce stress.
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If you’re looking for a good cross-training technique for your more athletic clients, suggest they practice hot yoga, which may boost aerobic performance while minimizing exercise stress.
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, researchers recruited 10 elite female field hockey players for observation. All athletes participated in 60-minute hot-yoga classes (30 degrees Celsius/86 degrees Fahrenheit) over 6 consecutive days, during which they did not engage in any other exercise. Following the intervention, the athletes played in a national-team camp.
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The sensory-rich pool environment—soothing and simultaneously challenging—is an ideal setting for mindful movement and a welcome respite from digital stress. It’s also a place where people of all ages and ability levels can thrive. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that aquatic exercise posted the third-greatest growth among group exercise and training protocols in the 2017 IHRSA Health Club Consumer Report, with 12% facility member participation last year, up from 7% in 2014.
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As green exercise and the health benefits of spending time in nature gain more prominence in popular and scientific news, the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, is introducing a Mindful Outdoor Leadership Program in October.
The curriculum includes elements of forest bathing, Ayurveda, yoga, outdoor skills, and research related to nature’s health benefits.
As a yoga teacher, you guide participants through a practice that deepens their understanding of asanas (poses) and how these take shape in students’ bodies. You cue, coach, align, adjust, demonstrate and discuss, and you offer tips on breathing, anatomy, “feel” and sensation. Often, the most effective way to help participants understand a specific element is to slow down, grab a prop or two, and work a little deeper. You may have access to straps, blocks and bolsters, but you might be forgetting another perfect “prop”: the wall.
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If your clients need to improve their flexibility, you may want to encourage them to try Thai yoga during their time away from training. In a review of randomized controlled trials, researchers found that consistent practice of Thai yoga improved muscular flexibility and specific joint range of motion. Thai yoga is from traditional Thai medicine and includes gentle dynamic stretching, deep breathing, meditation and self-acupressure.
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Education is the foundation of the IDEA World Convention, but this fitness event offers plenty more than stellar instruction. For Jonathan Bernath, publicist-turned-personal-trainer, it’s where he discovered the “fitness family” that would guide him in his new career.
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Mindfulness practices such as meditation and conscious eating techniques may offer secrets to losing weight and keeping it off, say researchers from Montreal’s McGill University.
Noting some inconsistencies in prior findings, the researchers undertook a comprehensive analysis of 19 mindfulness and lifestyle modification studies that included 1,160 subjects. Here’s some of what the scientists learned from their investigation:
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