Day: April 8, 2019

April 08, 2019 at 10:55AM by CWC Sometimes when I look around the weight room at my neighborhood gym, I think, “Wow, these people are contorting their bodies into works of art.” One such masterful move I’ve witnessed is the single-leg squat, also known as the pistol squat. Done correctly, it can make a fitness buff look like a human arrow. But it also happens to be one of those exercises that looks deceivingly effortless. You can hack it, though, with three doable (yet challenging) modifications, says Maillard Howell, owner of Crossfit Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. The first thing the trainer tells me about these supercharged squats is that they’re excellent prehab and rehab. Working each side of the body independently is a surefire way to become holistically stronger. Before you get in the ring with the pistol squat, however, Howell says you’ll need to know the components required to  balance on one leg in an “ass to the grass” position. “The first thing is strength. The other variables are flexibility and balance,” he says. Skill levels vary across these three modalities, so you’ll need to tweak the single-leg squat depending on your strengths and weaknesses. Below, Howell explains exactly how to inch your booty closer to that gym turf. How to modify a single-leg squat—whether you’re lacking strength, flexibility, or mobility. For each of the following modifications, complete 5 reps on each side. Start by alternating right, left, right, left. Then, work your way toward doing five in a

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April 08, 2019 at 10:53AM by CWC No matter how hard I try to prevent them, those dark under-eye circles just pop up randomly and make me look more tired, dehydrated, and drained than I actually feel. And so I’ve tried everything in order to hide them—including an acupressure trick, a snail slime under-eye patch, and an artfully placed warm compress in order to quash the issue. Nothing has fully satisfied me. The easiest (and quickest) method in the book, though, is dabbing on some concealer. But not just any ol’ concealer—the #keytosuccess is to essentially color-correct the problem by choosing a concealer in the perfect shade that makes those dark circles a thing of the past. Basically, you’ve gotta be strategic. “Concealer alone works well to cover minimal dark circles,” says Gabriel De Santino, makeup artist and CEO of Gabriel Cosmetics. “To get the best coverage, I’d suggest a shade or two lighter than your skin tone for the under-eye area—this will conceal and also brighten your eyes.” Just don’t go too light, or your magic trick will reveal itself. But the real secret is to pair your concealer with a color corrector. These are essentially a magic eraser for dark under-eye circles and work to directly offset the unwanted shade in the area by using an opposite color. “When dark circles are major, I often use a concealer paired with a color corrector,” says De Santino. “If your circles have a green undertone, you can balance with peach or pink;

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April 08, 2019 at 10:32AM by CWC Sometimes, despite my best efforts, I’ll peer into a mirror midday and see that my skin is aggravated and red. It’s not like I did anything different (that I know of), it’s just that my complexion develops a subtle—and extremely annoying—red hue. But skin redness is very common. It seems like it’s a topic of conversation among every friend who I talk beauty with, and I get lots of people asking me about how to quash it on the reg. After asking the experts, my suspicions were confirmed: Skin redness is complicated and doesn’t just stem from one cause. Why facial redness happens Any manner of factors can make your skin red—and, BTW, I’m not talking about sunburn, but the slight redness that can show up in blotches or certain spots like around your nose or your cheeks. “There are many root causes of facial redness, including genetics, the nervous system, stress, food sensitivities, allergies, an upset stomach, and even high blood pressure,” explains Graceanne Svendsen, celebrity facialist, health coach, and practice manager at Shafer Plastic Surgery. Um, that’s a lot. While most people scramble to fix the issue topically, there’s usually a root problem that causes these things. That’s not it, either. “Red skin and uneven complexion is a common complaint in my practice,” says Yunyoung Claire Chang, MD, a dermatologist with Union Square Laser Dermatology. “It can be caused by sun damage, rosacea, seborrheic dermatitis, acne, eczema, and other less common conditions

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April 08, 2019 at 10:11AM by CWC Let’s imagine confidence on a spectrum, shall we? On one end there’s insecure Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, and, on the other, Icarus of Greek mythology (whose hubris led to a failed—and fatal—flight too near the sun). A new study suggests that even if you think you might personally identify with one of these classic characters, you might—sorry!—be dead wrong. Whether it’s dancing, kissing, or conversation, most of us are either underconfident or overconfident when it comes to perceiving our own abilities. After challenging study participants to rank their proficiency in performing 100 different skills, mathematician and ClearerThinking.org founder Spencer Greenberg determined that we’re all largely flip-flopping the strength and weaknesses of our “expertise.” Greenberg asked people if they believed they would be able to outperform or underperform 50 percent of the other participants at a given task, reports The New York Times. The results are worth bookmarking (or at least a brief LOL). According to Greenberg’s findings, people tend to overestimate their abilities to get animals to like them, drive, win at trivia, kiss, use a computer, and take charge of their emotions. Simultaneously, many people underestimate their capacity to dance, save humanity from an apocalyptic scenario, drive a race car, and recite the alphabet backward, he concluded. (If you take anything from this, please let it be the fact that you’re better prepared to battle zombies than to get behind the wheel of your car.) Take this quiz designed to reveal

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