THE YOGA ROPE

Yoga in its essence - MEDITATION

Choosing one thing to FOCUS upon is meditation. In yoga, when you choose to focus upon your breath it is called pranayama. Choosing to focus upon your current and next yoga movement is also a meditative focus. Combining breath and movement together through a fluid progressive series of exercises is called the MEDITATIVE vinyasa aspect of yoga. When you commit a yoga routine to memory this is BODY MEDITATION or BODY MEMORY. This is you in your meditative zone focusing on your body - monitoring it, growing with it and celebrating its revival, as day by day, you enjoy your routine.

Yoga in its essence - PREPARES

Yoga “prepares” in advance for something. Prepares for what? For instance, for ATHLETES it prepares them for their sport activity by warming up their body before they participate. Yoga, warm up, stretching to me are all synonyms…. For busy WORKERS, going through a simple 8 minute yoga routine first thing in the morning prepares them for their WORK day ahead. For RETIREES a little yoga prepares them for decades of quality living ahead. Success they say is when "Preparation meets Opportunity".

Yoga in its essence - REVERSES

Another important aspect of yoga is that it reverses. Backward bends, for instance, reverse the constant sitting we endurance on a daily basis by opening up the front of the body. Inversions, or hanging upside down reverse all the time we spend on our feet. Certain yoga exercises can reverse the poor posture conditions we inherit. Yoga twists help to reverse many of the pains we may have.

The Yoga Rope can emphasize and expand on this important REVERSAL aspect of yoga. It can bring REAL RESULTS to restore balance to your body by focusing on reversing IM-BALANCES.

Thorax Theatre Promotes Upper Body Strength

The Thorax Theatre 8 exercise routine was designed to improve upper body posture by developing upper body strength. The first 3 exercises VERTICALLY ARCH the area between the shoulders and shoulder blades.  The next 2 HORIZONTALLY ARCH the chest. The last set of 3 focus on the  all-important TWISTING of the upper thoracial spine.

Start out gentle on this 8 minute daily routine getting used to it for the first few weeks to a month. Begin to step up the tension gradually as your muscles wake up to the call of duty. Continue on gently until the 90 day mark and then take a review. Is this program doing anything for you? If so, what type of progress would you like to make for the next 90?

Upper Body Strength Exercises Being Critical for Women

The fact that women lack natural upper body strength is not a secret. On average, men's upper body strength is often equal to their lower body strength.  Women’s upper body strength equals only about 50% of their lower body strength.

For example, most men who can bench press 100 pounds can also leg press 100 pounds. However, the average woman, who can leg press 100 pounds, will only be able to bench press 50 pounds.

Making matters worse is the fact that, unlike men, women loose a great deal of their upper body strength as they age. Experts believe that this is mainly due to hormonal changes that contribute to muscle loss. In an effort to help improve women’s health, an overwhelming amount of research has made a compelling case for the fact that all women, especially those over the age of forty, must incorporate a certain degree of weight training into their regular workout routines.

Muscles, Muscles and More Muscles

The human body has over 600 muscles. Muscles that need to be kept fresh and exercised as we age. So let's get going.... not only on memorizing all their Latin names, but also figuring out how each and every one works ;-)   Doing our cardio is easy; just make sure our heart beats a little faster than usual. Yet, muscles are much more complicated; however, just as important for our long term health. And this is where good exercise design work comes in. Good yoga programs are engineered to make sure the student works those 600+ muscles - without even knowing it. 

Muscles make up about 40% of our total body weight and burn three times more calories than fat. Let's take cared of this important system in our body. Following simple yoga routines may be the ticket. 

Slow is Smooth ~ Smooth is Fast

Avoiding injury is the fastest way to muscle fitness, if you are someone who hasn't exercised in a while. Going too fast - too strong - too soon at first will tear  a muscle and bring a quick halt to your progress. The yoga rope allows one to dial in their own TENSION, so let the tension become your best friend. Be slow with all those muscles you haven't talked with in awhile. Just focus on becoming familiar with the exercises (proper technique and correct order)  while using  just a LITTLE pressure. 90 days to a year is a FAST time frame to wake and warm up your body's muscle matrix system that may not have been called upon to act in decades. So whatz the motto " Slow is Smooth, and Smooth is Fast!"

Muscles Decline As We Age

From the time you are born until about age 40, your muscles grow bigger and stronger. But at some point in your 40’s, you begin to lose muscle mass and function. People who are physically inactive lose muscle mass at a greater rate of decline than those who regularly practice strength training exercises. The process is so gradual over the years that one barely notices the decline.  If left unchecked, the muscle decline of a sedentary life style leads not only to a loss of flexibility and strength, but eventually to aching stiff joints, arthritis and osteoporosis. This restricted mobility ultimately leads to frailty and a loss of independence in peoples' later years.

The Solution: a progressive and consistent muscle training routine like yoga as soon as one can get started. No age is too late to reverse the decline, to turn back time, to improve quality of life - a life free of avoidable chronic conditions. 

Longevity

Longevity is a good topic to consider as we gaze into the crystal ball. Reading recent research I have narrowed down my study to 3 main factors: quality nutrition, cardiovascular fitness and muscular fitness. One can find volumes of literature over the past few decades concerning both Nutrition and Cardiovascular fitness as indeed they are important. How about muscle fitness though? It is currently being discovered that muscular fitness is much more important than we had previoiusly thought. Yoga predominantly is about MUSCULAR FITNESS and keeping the muscles from declining as we age. Muscle maintenance is critical as we age because muscle mass DECLINES as we age. Focusing on muscle maintenance is critical for LONGEVITY.

The Five Tibetans

My first yoga practice consisted of  5 yoga moves that were performed 21 times each. The Five Tibetans written by Chris Kilham became a staple for a couple of years on a daily basis. I loved the simplicity. I loved the easy directions. Each day the 5 exercises became easier. These 5 moves were said to be suffiecient to keep the total body limber for one's lifetime. I agree. I learned early on that a little arsenal could become a huge arsenal if it became one's ROUTINE and was practiced on a DAILY basis. In the same spirit, along with the yoga rope I have created a 48 yoga move arsenal that is broken down into 6 easy-to-learn routines that take into consideration how one might for a life time maintenanee their human body.