April 29, 2019 at 08:30AM by CWC Squats never fail to provide the best and worst burn. With a single movement, you’re working your glutes, core, thighs—more muscle groups than you probably realized. While there are numerous challenging variations of the traditional exercise, cossack squats offer the ultimate twofer with a tighter butt and improved hip mobility. Cossack squats require some serious control. Instead of being totally stable on two feet, they’re performed side-to-side. Each time you lower down, most of your weight is supported by one leg while the other leg is positioned straight out to the side, resulting in a burn unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Especially when you get to the point where your seat is nearly touching the floor. “The cossack squat is unique in that it works in the frontal plane or laterally. Most of the movement we do in life and in training occurs in the frontal plane, or front to back,” says Eric Johnson, co-founder of Homage. “To offset this, we want to include movement variety that involves all three planes of motion. You can effectively utilize the exercise in a dynamic warmup, an assistance exercise, or as a regression to the pistol squat.” According to Emily Samuel, a trainer at New York City’s Dogpound, cossack squats target your adductors, quads, glutes, upper back, and hip flexors. But you’ll reap more benefits than just toned muscles. They can also help reverse the negative effects of sitting at a desk all day. “The cossack squat
Category: Fashion
All of the new fitness tech that editors can’t stop talking about
April 26, 2019 at 10:02AM by CWC Here at Well+Good HQ, nerding out on fitness tech is kind of our thing. Whenever something new comes across one of our desks, the entire team crowds around to take a peek and give it a try (similar to what happens when Kells McPhillips’ dad sends cookies). And over the last few months, there has been a lot of cool stuff that we’ve collectively fan-girled (and fan-boyed—hi, Jamie!) over. From recovery tools that make foam rolling suck exponentially less than usual to headphones that will never, ever die during a run to the smartest socks we’ve ever seen, scroll through to see the latest and greatest in fitness tech for 2019 that Well+Good editors can’t stop talking about. But beware: Should you choose to invest in one of these for your own arsenal, you may become just as devote about fit-tech as we are. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Keep on scrolling for the best of the best. Photo: Theragun Theragun Liv ($299) Your favorite piece of recovery equipment just got two major updates. The latest addition to the Theragun family is both quieter and more affordable than the original device, two things we can definitely get on board with. The muscle-massaging tool is essentially like foam rolling at your fingertips, and utilizes vibrational therapy to help get rid of soreness and tension. It retails for $299 (a full $100 less than the G3Pro), and is small enough to fit in your gym bag.
Why men need to be a bigger part of the infertility conversation
April 25, 2019 at 12:23PM by CWC May and Dan* had been trying to get pregnant for over two years when May first visited her general practitioner for help. Over the next six months, she underwent a battery of ultrasounds and blood tests, all of which came back normal. Finally, her fertility doctor recommended checking Dan’s sperm. Dan, it turned out, had low sperm motility and count along with abnormal morphology (sperm size and shape)—factors that all affect a couple’s ability to conceive. May and Dan were told to consider using donor sperm. While Dan went to an andrologist (a male hormonal specialist) for more testing, May looked into natural treatments to improve Dan’s sperm quantity and quality. They changed their diets, began seeing an acupuncturist twice a week, and started taking Chinese herbs. In less than four months, May found out she was pregnant with her son Dylan, who is now 6 months old. “I wish that we had looked at our health in a more holistic way sooner,” says May. “I honestly think it might not have taken so long to get pregnant and we could have avoided a lot of stress and invasive tests.” Stories like May and Dan’s aren’t uncommon. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 35 percent of couples struggling with infertility are dealing with both male and female reproductive issues (and 8 percent are struggling with male-specific reproductive issues). Yet that’s not often brought up in conversations surrounding infertility—which is
5 Eco-Conscious Sneakers That You’ll Never Want To Take Off
April 25, 2019 at 01:44AM Shoes you can feel a bit better about. Continue Reading… Author Ray Bass | Life by Daily Burn Selected by iversue
There’s A Fashion Revolution Taking Over The Planet. Here’s How To Join In
April 25, 2019 at 01:17AM Dress for the future you want to see. Continue Reading… Author Emma Loewe | Life by Daily Burn Selected by iversue
The kang squat is probably why people started saying #SoreForDays
April 24, 2019 at 08:49AM by CWC Squats are the solid foundation of any fitness routine. With proper form, it doesn’t take long to feel the burn and see results. Standard squat variations—like sumo and single-leg—target your glutes and your quads, but kang squats are a posterior chain exercise, which means you’ll feel the burn everywhere. No, seriously. #SoreForDays was made for this move. “A kang squat is a combination of a good morning and a back squat. It combines a hip dominant and knee dominant move all in one, making it much more challenging than a solo or good morning squat,” says Emily Samuel, a trainer at New York City’s Dogpound. “It’s more of an assistance exercise, meaning it will optimize your performance for other exercises.” The kang squat might not be as commonly known as other varieties, but it’s one you’ll want to learn how to do. The movement is often used as part of CrossFit WODs. “You’ll work essentially all the major muscle groups on your backside, including your hamstrings, glutes, back, and spinal erectors, as well as your rectus abdominis (what you think of when you think abs), your obliques (the muscles on the sides of your stomach), and your quads,” says Samuel. How to perform kang squats 1. Get into position by racking the bar on your upper back. Squeeze your upper traps and shoulder blades together like you would for a back squat so it creates a muscular “shelf” for the bar to rest on.
Dance fitness improves brain function, so let your body move to the music
April 23, 2019 at 12:00PM by CWC Coachella is officially in the rearview mirror (some may sigh; some may say thank god). But that doesn’t mean that you need to bid goodbye to dancing your heart out with your friends and reaping all the sweaty benefits of busting a move. You can tell just by how sweaty the dance floor gets on a Saturday night that getting down to Cardi B and Ariana Grande can be a workout just as much as any other cardio-based activity. Yes, it gets your heart rate up and tones your body (twerking is basically a level up from holding a squat), but the benefits don’t stop there. It turns out that when you take the time to learn dance moves—like in a dance-based fitness class—there are a lot of science-backed benefits for your brain, too. Intrigued? Here, two experts in the space go deep into the hidden benefits. Keep reading to find out how dance-based fitness classes not only work your body, but your brain, too. Photo: Getty Images/People Images 1. It strengthens neuroplasticity There are some workouts, like running or spinning, that you can do and just completely zone out. Learning choreography in a dance class can be meditative too, but in a different way. “When it comes to dance, you have to be cognitively ready to function,” points out DanceBody founder Katia Pryce. “It doesn’t take the same amount of mental processing to hop on a bike and just spin the wheels.”
A dream psychologist explains how to interpret the 7 most common dreams
April 23, 2019 at 09:01AM by CWC “Any specific detail in a dream is not random,” certified dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells me on a phone call. To be clear, that means that anytime you’ve woken up certain that your dreams involved sexy times, chasing a giant slice of avocado toast up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower, or reliving a scarring memory from middle school, it wasn’t a a random coincidence. Loewenberg says that each dream contains one or more key takeaways for waking life. There are millions of permutations for somnolent occurrences. Of the 75,000 dreams Loewenberg has studied in her career, she says that seven arise most commonly among clients. “Your dreams are like your second brain. They’re always on alert, they’re always paying attention,” explains Loewenberg. “The things we ignore during the day rise to the surface at night when we’re dreaming and try to talk to us. To give us information about what’s happening in our lives.” Ready to listen? Here’s the deal with common dream meanings: the good, the bad, and the just plain wacky. Ready to hear the 7 most common dream meanings? Photo: Getty Images/Hero Images 1. If you’re falling in dream, you feel let down IRL. You can take these types of dreams literally. “This sort of dream is connected to having some kind of let down in real life,” says the dream psychologist. “Someone [or something] let you down.” If you’re merrily walking across a sun-soaked beach and a black
Can’t touch your toes? These 8 flexibility moves will get you there
April 23, 2019 at 07:00AM by CWC Remember being a kid, and sitting in a straddle while watching TV, or just being able to bend over and tie your shoes without wincing a little? If those fleeting memories of flawless flexibility feel like a lifetime ago, it’s time to reclaim your flexibility. “Flexibility is imperative to the overall functioning of our bodies and our lives,” says Bethany Lyons, founder and CEO of Lyons Den Power Yoga. “If you want to be able to stand up straight and maintain good spinal function and posture, your quadriceps, hip flexors, and hamstrings must be able to move enough to be able to accommodate this. And if you want to be able to pick up your kids, your groceries, or anything that drops on the floor, you need to have the functional flexibility to be able to do so.” Most people associate flexibility with yogis, dancers, or gymnasts—and power to them all—but flexibility is about more than being bendy. By stretching just a little bit a day, even if you have super tight muscles and think you’re not good at stretching, you’ll improve your posture and range of motion, and will decrease your chances of injury. 8 moves to loosen up your hamstrings, quadriceps, and hip flexors. https://content.jwplatform.com/players/np12lrKz-dUl83MEz.js 1. Downward dog with across stretch Start in downward-facing dog, with the hands shoulder-width distance apart, the toes tucked, and the hips back and lifted. Hold for five full breaths, then take the right hand across
Trail running made me feel like a beginner in a sport that I felt like I’d mastered
April 22, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC I felt as though I was barely moving. I wanted to stop. I most definitely wanted to cry. The original invitation to participate in an all-ladies run camp in Ibiza sounded like a dream: Run through beautiful landscapes, learn how to properly recover, connect with other like-minded women. Check, check, check—I was down for all of it. Fast forward a month later, and there I was, alone, and running to the soundtrack of my breath in the steep, rocky Spanish mountains. It wasn’t as though I wasn’t prepared. Roughly five days a week at home, I start my day on foot. I’m a seven-time marathoner, including last year’s Boston, which was all sorts of apocalyptic with 20-to-30 mile-per-hour headwinds and a windchill in the 20s. Those 26.2 miles were arguably the hardest that I’ve ever earned, and they instilled in me that I can accomplish anything that I set my mind to. Yet, mentally on a 64-degree day with the sun shining down, I felt as though I was back on Heartbreak Hill. With inclines topping anything I’d ever tackled on a treadmill at Equinox, I had fallen behind the leaders of our group, but managed to stay ahead of the back of the pack. Even though I’d been on trail runs before, it was nothing like the task at hand. The views surrounding me were stunning, but I felt my chest getting tighter with each stride. Every single time I had a