Month: December 2018

December 07, 2018 at 07:36AM Nailing a move like the lunge can make you feel like a rockstar. By simply stepping forwards or backwards, you can work your quads, hamstrings, calves, and glutes all at once—the perfect addition to a leg day workout, with endless variations. You can even do it with weights, incorporating bicep or hammer curls as you lunge back. And then there are Swan Lake-style ballerina lunges, that whole lunge-around-the-clock sequence from Ariana Grande’s trainer, and—a basic but highly beneficial upgrade—side lunge. Side lunges are ideal because they take the typical forward-and-back movement to a lateral level, which then works your butt even more. (Yes, please.) The thing is, while they look simple—you just side-step and bend, right?—there are easy mistakes to make. Take it from Obé fitness trainer Megan Roup, who happens to be leading our Well+Good Retreat in Miami later this month. “I see this a lot in class—it’s a simple mistake, but you’ll see a lot of people not shifting their weight onto that working leg,” she says. “There’s a little bit of a hip swivel.” Essentially, you’re supposed to keep your weight balanced, take your butt back—and lean into the leg that’s lunging out. “What I want to see is you tracking that working leg and shifting that weight back into the working heel as you come back up,” Roup explains. “Hinge forward with a neutral spine. It’s like your butt is being pulled back to that back wall. But most importantly, I’m tracking that working

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December 07, 2018 at 07:08AM The act of washing your hair isn’t exactly rocket science. Lather up, then rinse. Condition your strands, then rinse—and that’s pretty much it. It’s the same two (maybe three, if you’re feeling fancy and want to add in a moisturizing mask) basic steps you’ve been practicing forever. So, at this point you probably don’t even really have to think about what you’re doing every time you hop in the shower. But once in a while, the tried-and-tested routine you’ve relied on your whole life just won’t cut it, and even though your hair may look clean, your scalp feels itchy…and smells, well, gross. Enter: Scalp scrubs, another step worth adding to your shampoo queue in order to keep your roots as squeaky clean as possible. “Think about the scrubs as you would a scrub for your face or a scrub for your body. What are you doing? You’re exfoliating. So that’s exactly what the scrub for your scalp is doing as well,” says Riawna Capri, co-founder of Los Angeles’ Nine Zero One Salon. “I think it’s absolutely a great thing to do.” She makes a good point. Considering it’s been ingrained in us that we should exfoliate the skin everywhere else at least once a week, why should our scalps be any different? Pretty much everyone can benefit from regularly sloughing their scalps. “If you have a dry scalp, it will help exfoliate some of the dry flakes off, if you have a super greasy scalp, it

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December 07, 2018 at 06:15AM In my opinion, there is no feeling in the world quite as joyful as a good knuckle crack. It even beats out the bliss of someone else folding your laundry, mom jeans that don’t give you front-butt, and yes, even the secret thrill of picking your nose. But buzzkills love to try and suck the joy out my knuckle-cracking habit by telling me things like, “It will give you arthritis!” “You’re hurting your joints!” “How could that NOT hurt?” So, I decided to take these fear-mongering theories to Alejandro Badia, MD, board-certified hand and upper extremity orthopedic surgeon with Badia Hand to Shoulder Center in FL, and Marina Mangano, DC, founder of Chiro Yoga Flow, to learn once and for all: Is cracking your knuckles bad for you? First, the basics of what’s actually going down when you crack your knuckles. According to a 2015 study, the popping sound is caused by the formation of bubbles that form in the fluid around the joint (called “synovial fluid”). Dr. Badia explains that when you pull or weirdly bend your fingers these bubbles—which are primarily made of nitrogen— literally pop. “This is no big deal. The minuscule amount of nitrogen simply goes into your blood stream and dissolves back into fluid,” explains Mangano. So, even if it sounds like bones or breaking or damage is being done to the joint, it’s just these little bubbles collapsing. And despite what your grandma says, both experts agree that cracking your knuckles does

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December 07, 2018 at 05:30AM You’re up early for a workout, working all day, and by the time you’ve made dinner and gotten yourself ready for the next day, you’re probably ready to crash. So even the thought of weekday sex? LOL. Who has time for that? Even if you’re in a committed relationship or you live with your partner, sex during the week can often end up feeling like more of a to-do list item than, well…not that. If that scenario sounds all too familiar to you, take solace in the reality that you’re not even close to alone. The number of people having sex at least once a week dropped from 45 percent in 2000 to 36 percent in 2011, according to the General Social Survey, Time reports. Research published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior backs up the notion that people are having less sex these days—but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some scientists even contend that sex once a week correlates with optimal mental health and happiness, while greater frequency doesn’t further improve well-being. So go ahead and feel great about doing it less than you think you “should.” And, there’s even more convenient evidence to validate your no-funny-business-on-school-nights MO, thanks to your hormones. The ideal time to have sex for both men and women is actually mid to late afternoon, (think: 3 p.m.). That makes weekends—when you likely have fewer midday obligations—the prime time to get it on. The ideal time to have sex for both men and

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