March 15, 2020 at 02:00PM by CWC We got the chance to chat with 74-year-old Kantilal Chiba to discuss the senior mobility exercises and workout routine that he follows to stay healthy. My mobility is addressed by everything that I do in my workouts. I work out five or six times a week, and I start every session with a five-minute warm-up of “animal moves” that work my whole body. I’ll do moves called the bear, the monkey, and the frog, which I learned using the GMB Fitness method. Their philosophy on fitness is a perfect fit for me—they focus on functional movement, and you can watch all of their workout videos online. The animal movements ensure that my body is warmed up and that all of my joints are prepared for the workout, and that I’m also mentally prepared. You really need strength, flexibility, and control in order to work out like this. I make my workouts skill-based, so that each time I train, I’m able to learn and become proficient in selected skills. The advantage of this is that your goal is specific, which makes you fully engaged both mentally and physically. View this post on Instagram Progress, you know you are making progress when you move something from practice to push. My first multi-rep muscle-up ever. came early. A post shared by Kantilal Chiba (@kanti.chiba) on Dec 18, 2019 at 3:40pm PST //www.instagram.com/embed.js At the end of last year, I was working on the gymnastics rings everyday.
Category: Fashion
The only post-work stretches you need to call it a day on tension
March 13, 2020 at 07:00PM by CWC I’m not sure what genius dreamed up the brilliant idea that we should all sit at our desks for one-third of each day to get paid, but that’s the world where most of us live. The resulting tightness from text neck and rolly chair hips means we need to unwind in more ways than one right after work—and that’s where stretches for relaxing really come in. Chalk it up to the recovery revolution, but now many have learned the benefits of taking time to flop down on your living room and move through a quick yoga sequence. It’s like hitting the restart button on your day—even as the sun sets. Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself. Here are 2 videos full of relaxing stretches to do after work [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-_d5hkoIj8] Post-work Flow 1: yoga for flexibility Reclined hand-to-toe: Start lying down with your strap in hand. Bring one leg out straight in front of you, and extended the other straight up, catching it with the yoga strap and pulling it towards your head. Flex your feet so that they’re perpendicular to the mat. Send your foot out to the side until you feel your hips start to lift. Then twist your air-extended leg over the one that’s flat to feel the stretch in the outer leg. Switch legs and repeat on your opposite side. Cat-cow: Move into tabletop pose. Alternate between cat pose and cow pose. Push against the ground to pull the
Literally glide through you next intense workout with these slider disc exercises
March 13, 2020 at 02:00AM by CWC Sliders are one of my favorite toys to use at the gym. Adding a little sliding disk under your foot make moves like lunges and planks a bajillion times harder. Sam Tooley, performance coach and founder of Alpha Fit Club in New Jersey, says the sliders are all about introducing instability. “I am a huge fan of utilizing the sliders, specifically with my endurance athletes in the weight room,” he says. “It allows them to work in all directions and focus on the control of their movement as well as their range of motion. My personal favorite is to perform reverse lunges with one foot placed on the slider.” When you’re gliding back into a lunge instead of stepping back, you’re forced to control your muscles on the way down so you don’t just fall over. Bonus: They’re easy to travel with. Feeling inspired? Step 1: Buy a slider SYNERGEE CORE SLIDERS, $10 These sliders are double-sided, with one side you can use on carpet and another you can use on hardwood. The set also comes in black, neon green, red, and yellow. Step 2: Get to sliding with these slider disc exercises for your core and lower body Below, Ash Wilking, Nike trainer and Rumble instructor in NYC, and Ka’imi Kuoha, personal trainer, martial artist, actress, and the owner of Othentik Gym in San Diego, share their favorite slider moves. Slider Prone Snow Angels This is one of Kuoha’s favorite moves to include during
J-Beauty “doubles” are the key to happier, more hydrated skin
March 12, 2020 at 09:00PM by CWC It wasn’t until a few months ago that dermatologists woke us up to the idea of “moisturizer layering,” which involves using moisturizing ingredients in every step of your routine in order to maximize hydration. But in Japan, this methodology—referred to as “doubles”—has been a way of life for generations. Japanese skin-care doubles refers to the J-beauty method of double cleansing, first with an oil-based cleanser followed by a water-based one, then double moisturizing with an essence and a cream as a way to ensure hydration at every step. According to Junko Gomi, CEO of Japanese skin-care brand H2O+, it’s a common skin-care practice in Japan, and one that is taught from a young age. “Double cleansing is popular because the Japanese are very particular about removing dirt. For example, Japanese people take off their shoes when entering the home, they take baths and wash their hair every day, and when worshipping god at the shrine, it is common practice for Japanese people to wash their hands and rinse their mouths to purify the body,” she says. As for doubling up on moisturizer, Gomi explains that adding layers of hydration helps to soften skin and even out the texture. Because of this, many Japanese skin-care brands, like Tatcha and DHC, sell basic skin sets featuring four items: an oil cleanser, a gentle water-based cleanser, a hydrating essence, and a moisturizing cream. “Having optimal skin hydration is the primary solution to achieving soft, healthy-looking skin
Harvard Health’s 3-step ‘BEEP’ program helps you maintain balance as you age
March 12, 2020 at 05:00PM by CWC As you get older, your ability to keep your balance declines—and pretty quickly, too. And when your balance is poor, it can increase your risk of getting hurt. That’s why you need to introduce BEEP into your life, which focuses on the best exercises for maintaining your balance as you age. According to Harvard Health, BEEP—balance-enhancing exercise program—is a study-backed method to improve your balance. In a 2016 study published in Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, people who stuck to it not only had better balance, but also had a quicker walking speed and more confidence. While the program is primarily meant for those between 60 and 80 years old, experts say it’s best to focus on your balance earlier rather than later after it’s gone. “I always tell my clients to look at bigger picture fitness—not fitness for right now, but fitness forever.” —Holly Roser, personal trainer Brad Manor, PhD, the associate director of the Mobility and Falls Translational Research Center with Hebrew SeniorLife, says working balance exercises into your routine now can keep your sense of balance strong as you age. Holly Roser, a personal trainer and owner of Holly Roser Fitness. “The last thing you want is to be in your 70s and worry about falling,” she says. “I always tell my clients to look at bigger picture fitness—not fitness for right now, but fitness forever.” There are three exercises the BEEP program focuses on that you can start doing right
Flow through this at-home Pilates workout for better hip mobility (and, of course, core strength)
March 12, 2020 at 11:00AM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=510FdqCvZ-k] Out of all of our body parts, our hips tend to get the brunt of time spent sitting at our desks. This is why hip mobility work is so important—because, ya know, we want to be able to move fluidly and without that annoying tightness. Enter: a Pilates workout for tight hip flexors. In this week’s episode of Good Moves, East River Pilates instructor and physiotherapist Chloe Gregor brings us a 15-minute full-body Pilates workout that gives special TLC to tight hips. It’s something you can flow through literally anywhere, with zero equipment—all you need is a mat (and maybe some cute leggings). Though you’re definitely going to feel the burn in your core (including your obliques), this Pilates sesh will strengthen all of your muscles from head to toe. And, yes, a lot of the exercises are going to strengthen the muscles in your hip area as they boost your mobility. Try this Pilates workout for tight hip flexors Roll down: Start seated with your legs extended in front of you, hip-width distance apart. Flex your feet. If your hamstrings are really tight, you can have a slight bend in the knees. Reach your arms forward in front of you, lengthen your spine, and keep that length as you scoop your tailbone and start to roll your spine back. Work your abdominals as you slowly roll back, chest open, and pause before the bottom. Then, roll yourself back up, sitting tall at the top.
Recovery sneakers have arrived, because we all deserve a foot massage after the gym
March 12, 2020 at 02:00AM by CWC Sneakers are getting smarter. Last year, Nike designers launched the Zoom Vaporfly Elite to make the sub two hour marathon a reality, and On added a little extra bounce to our steps with their pillowy CloudTec soles. The same technology once earmarked for performance, is now laser-focused on recovery. A crop of companies has started creating the footwear equivalent of foam rollers. Leading the charge is Oofos: a shoe designed to absorb 37 percent more impact than the average sneak. Shock-absorbing footwear, designed to propel you forward with maximum energy return is hardly new: Adidas Boost hit the market in 2013 and Nike React foam cushioning followed suit five years later in 2018. But Oofos president Steve Gallo says that the brand’s signature recovery sole—”Oofoam Technology”—has no desire to emulate those products. In fact, the brand wants to do the exact opposite. “Our foam, which is the entire footbed, is made out of a proprietary mix of different chemicals and foam, and what it does is the exact opposite of what you see with Nike React and Adidas Boost. The idea is, when you step down on it, it actually requires less ankle power when you walk,” says Gallo. In other words, the technology doesn’t just absorb the shock of your foot hitting the ground; it literally makes every step easier. (Oofos’ brand-sponsored University of Virginia lab study found that Oofoam technology reduces ankle exertion by up to 20 percent.) In theory, that means
I didn’t expect Harvey Weinstein to be convicted—and that’s a problem
March 11, 2020 at 04:25PM by CWC On February 24, a jury in New York convicted producer Harvey Weinstein on two of the five charges for which he faced trial: rape in the third degree and criminal sexual assault in the first degree. As the news broke, my colleague Katie (who asked to use a pseudonym) and I—both victims in our own right—were shocked; we didn’t think Weinstein’s victims would be believed or protected. And that, I think, is a pretty good indication of how far we still have to go in the war against sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination, despite sporadic victories yielded by the #MeToo movement. UPDATE: On March 11, Harvey Weinstein, 67, was sentenced to 23 years in New York State prison after his conviction on felony sex crimes. My #MeToo experience involved the movie business, and it has given me an empathy for the victims that I just didn’t think Weinstein’s jury would be able to muster. Much like his victims, I’d had to walk a tightrope; on one side, my livelihood was threatened and on the other, my sense of safety. In order to report the male executive who was harassing me (I was an assistant), I’d had to strategically circumvent the “old boys club” that ran the studio. I knew that if I told my (male) boss what was happening, he would protect the (male) perpetrator, and that I would be the one to lose my job. I was too scared to approach the
What does it mean to celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020?
March 08, 2020 at 10:00AM by CWC In the photograph below, a woman unfurls a banner with two neat rows of stars down the center from a second-story balcony. On the ground beneath her, a group of women raise their arms and clap their hands in celebration. It’s August 18, 1920; the woman on the balcony is Alice Paul, women’s rights activist and chair of the National Women’s Party; and the 19th Amendment has just been ratified by Tennessee, the 36th and final state needed to make it federally illegal to deny voting rights on the basis of sex in the United States. The image is joyful, victorious. It’s also very white—from the ratification banner’s long, crisp, panel to the women’s long, crisp, dresses—and the undoubtedly white skin beneath those dresses. This homogeny may have been by design. “The suffragists purposefully distributed portraits and other images, visual propaganda, all of white women…so that people at the time would think of suffragists as white,” says Allison K. Lange, PhD, an assistant professor of history at the Wentworth Institute of Technology and author of the forthcoming book on the suffrage movement, Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. “That has shaped the way that we think about the suffrage movement.” The women of color who were part of this movement—because there were many (Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Terrell Church are names to remember)—have been erased, quite literally, from history books and, in turn, public understanding. And so,
Yoga has literally thousands of poses, but a stretching expert says this one unwinds every muscle
March 06, 2020 at 11:00PM by CWC No one has an exact count of the number of asanas out there (it could be thousands or millions), but trainer and massage therapist Joe Yoon, author of the newly-released book Better Stretching, says that one pose outperforms the others when it comes to better mobility and flexibility: cat-cow stretch. “When I was a trainer, I thought ‘oh this is just a yoga move for the extension and flexion of the spine,” says Yoon. Once he started studying up on stretching, he learned that the movement works way (and I mean, way) more than just your vertebrae. “When I started to actually look at the movement, I noticed that you’re moving your shoulder blades into protraction and retraction, too,” says Yoon. “So it’s almost like you’re reaching for something and then when you’re dropping your chest down and pulling your shoulders down and back.” And that’s just what cat-cow does for your upper body. Cat-cow asks you to pull your chest forward (cow) then puff up your back (like an angry cat), but this move doesnt’ happen in isolation, it pulls the rest of the kinetic chain—your middle and lower body—along with it. For example, “It’s great for [alleviating] pelvic tilt. So your hips tuck under and then they arch. That’s another thing that people just don’t have awareness of,” says Yoon. But reader, this is just scratching the surface. Below, Yoon and yoga teacher Beth Cooke share the tiny cat-cow tweaks that can