Here’s an EPIC muscle conditioning class that offers big ranges of motion, breathing awareness, and core connection and integration. It is non-stop for 45minutes, so get ready to sweat! A “sticky” yoga mat and light handheld weights (1-5lbs each) or light wrist weights are recommended. Barefoot is best. * The video will appear on Ellen Barrett Mindful Movement by 9amEST Monday, March 14, 2022.
The more grounded you are, the more present you are, and the more present you are the less reactive you are. Reactive behavior is usually not in anyone’s best interest. Some examples include, reactively running to the kitchen and eating a tub of ice cream after a stressful phone call, or reactively shouting obscenities at someone for cutting you off in traffic. Lately in the news, there has been a tremendous amount of reactive behavior on planes! Dare...
You’ve probably heard the saying, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” I have found this to be a thousand percent true. It’s true for me personally and for people I work with. As a personal trainer, the clients that never cancel are ironically the one’s with the fullest plate. At the root of this, it’s because the busy person has a tight schedule and he or she intends to keep it. There’s no time for procrastination. Kids procrastinate...
Being fit always helps. Whatever your career or your lifestyle, having mobility, agility, strength, flexibility, and endurance is always an asset. It’s never not a good thing! The hair stylist with his/her washing, brushing and blow drying, requires quite a bit of arm and wrist strength. The librarian has to climb ladders and crouch down to the lower shelves requiring agility. The preschool teacher goes up and down onto the floor all day requiring mobility. The waiter hustles all over...
“Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there.” – Rumi After years of working with people and being privy to some clients’ destructive inner dialogs, I realized self-criticism is the biggest obstacle to true wellness, and it usually comes from a place of self-loathing. At first, I thought, “Oh, it’s just words” but as my understanding of health and happiness grew, I realized that words stem from beliefs, and beliefs rule the world. How we feel about ourselves...
GRACE (noun): simple elegance or refinement of movement Grace is a mix of self-awareness and serenity, in action. Some people seem to, naturally, have loads of it. Others need to call it in. There is someone alluring about grace and I think grace turns ordinary movement into a thing of beauty. How can we cultivate more grace? It’s easier than you think. All it takes is to move calmly and pay attention. I think “hyper” is the polar...
“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn Mindfulness in movement is self-education. You learn yourself. At first it’s physical things, like you learn how your ankle tracks when you step forward, and that lunging warms up your quads. Then it’s more than physical – just the other day, I learned that my breath tightens with thoughts of the approaching holidays! Our workout today is the most mindful one on the ellenbarrett.com platform. It’s Moving Meditation, 20minutes of meditative...
“Root yourself in this earthand it will root itself in you.”― Sheniz Janmohamed Having good balance gets more and more precious as the days go by. From navigating slippery steps to tripping over the cat and catching yourself from falling, balance is just so handy to have in real life. It’s one of the most underrated byproducts of regular exercise. I really do notice that the people who move their bodies on a regular basis have better balance than the ones...
“No tricks, gimmicks, special pills, special potions, special equipment. All it takes is desire and will.” – Richard Simmons It feels good to be strong. It’s handy to be strong. And it looks good too! But strong doesn’t necessary mean bulging biceps – it can be subtler, especially for women. “Strong” is using core muscles with every movement. It’s stabilizing shoulders when using dumbbells. It’s breathing out on exertion, and breathing in to refuel. It’s being able to support one’s own body weight in...
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” ―Confucius In the fitness world, endurance has a cardio connotation – it’s actually a byproduct of cardio, in that regular cardio leads to greater endurance. Endurance begs the question, “Can the breath keep up with the oxygen demand?” You definitely want the answer to be yes. It’s a yes to capability, to having a huge comfort zone, and to being able to go after all your dreams. There is another aspect to endurance...
