When you perform drills and exercises at full-tilt, your body’s stronger muscles overpower the small-but-all-important stabilizers. Those little muscles play a huge role in protecting you from injury.

If you slow things down and force those tiny muscles to work, the results can be profound as 30-year-old former pro lacrosse player Roy Lang discovered.

“Slowing down is the hardest thing,” Lang says. “The lacrosse mentality is that if you aren’t moving as fast as you can all the time, you aren’t working hard. Everything I did throughout college and high school was about how to be the fastest and how to do the most reps.”

So it was surprising, to say the least, when Lang launched into his first-ever Elev8d Fitness workout and “got my butt kicked.” How could that happen to a guy who trains sometimes twice per day? Because when you focus on movement quality, rather than quantity (number of reps), resistance (how much weight is on the bar), or speed, you challenge your body in an entirely different way. It’s a training technique that Lang wishes he’d tried years ago.

“The reason I got injured after college was because I wasn’t paying attention to those little things,” Lang says.

Like many gifted athletes, Lang got by on raw talent, strength, and speed for years. Those traits took him far: He earned all-everything honors as a captain at St. Ignatius College Prep, one of the top-rated lacrosse high schools in California. He was then recruited by Cornell University, where he played in the National Championship and the Final Four. He was a First Team All-American Midfielder, a two-time First Team All-Ivy, and a two-time Academic All-Ivy. Lang was then drafted by the Rochester Rattlers and played two years professionally. But early in his pro career, he paid a hefty price for his all-out, all-the-time approach to training.

“My lower back gave out at 24,” Lang says. “It was the off-season. I was doing a workout with heavy power cleans and heavy squats when a shooting pain went through my left leg. I’d never missed a game in my life, but suddenly I couldn’t lift my leg for a few months.”

The injury, along with some of the financial realities about playing lacrosse at the pro level (let’s just say there isn’t NBA money in it), led Lang to switch careers. He’s now a salesman at a Silicon Valley software firm. And while he walked away from the pro athlete life, he’s just as demanding on his body as ever, regularly competing in basketball and club-level lacrosse, and training in the weight room to stay sharp for both.

Lang’s hardcore workout regimen is evident when you meet him. He’s tall and chiseled with formidable shoulders. Visible veins run down his arms and marble his forearms. How could someone who’s already in such great shape benefit from adding Elev8d’s short workouts?

Related: Low-Intensity Interval Training: Better Results by Doing Less

“An extreme athlete can view this training as a ‘work up’ rather than a ‘workout,'” says Brian Bradley, director of Elev8d Fitness. “Consider it like the dynamic warm-up soccer teams use in Europe.”

Elev8d Fitness is an alignment-based, home workout program co-founded by Pete Egoscue, renowned physiologist and creator of the Egoscue Method. There are two elements of method that make it even more effective than a typical dynamic warm-up. First, the moves help you develop better body awareness. Second, they are distinctly effective at improving your alignment and balancing your musculature. So not only do you get a great workout, but the benefits last long after your training session ends.

Lang, who did an Elev8d Fitness workout before training and games with his club team, says he noticed big differences.

“[During workouts] I noticed that I was ready to go a lot faster,” Lang says. “I used to need the first 5 to 15 minutes of a game to loosen up. But having those muscles activated helped a lot. I definitely plan on using it before lacrosse from now on.”

Meanwhile, off the field, Lang is standing a little taller, feeling more energized, and generally has a better idea of what’s going on with his body overall.

“I’m slowing down and actually listening to my body,” Lang says. “You start to realize how you’d let some things go, like hip mobility and alignment. Now, I can tell when my hips are tight—and I know how to fix it.”

Related: How Working Out 4 Times a Week Will Change Your Body

Those are a lot of benefits to reap from workouts that can take as little as eight minutes to complete. (Some old habits die hard, however, so Lang consistently took on the 16-minute versions.) As his new job has taken up more of his time and led to some travel, he found that the workouts gave him a way to stay in shape on those days.

“I think I’ll be doing Elev8d Fitness even more as I get older. I have kids and can’t spend an hour and a half at the gym,” Lang says.

Lang wanted to be clear, however, that he’d recommend Elev8d Fitness to any athlete, especially younger ones. In fact, it may be even more important for up-and-coming athletes because the program helps strengthen the things that other training methods miss.

“My advice would be to take it slowly and seriously. I would recommend [Elev8d Fitness] even more than yoga because it’s strengthening the joints. And the joints are what goes first,” Lang said. “You’ll find a lot of value in correct posture, hip strength, and mobility. This is 100 percent about taking care of your body.”

Boost energy and athleticism and feel amazing with Elev8d Fitness! Try the Move Better, Feel Better, Look Better Workout Series or the 16-Minute Challenge Series.

The post The 8-Minute Cross-Training Workout Every Athlete Should Do appeared first on Sonima.

“The fitness world has convinced us that you can be fit only with extreme effort,” says Pete Egoscue, world-renowned physiologist and co-founder of Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts of Sonima. “They’ve convinced everyone that fitness is hard and that the key is the more effort you apply, the better your results. In essence, more is better.”

But the focus on quantifying anything and everything in your fitness routine is counter-productive. Doing so takes the focus off of the goal—being healthy—and puts it on numbers and ever-increasing levels of effort.

First, there’s no correlation between an increase in numbers and fitness. We’ve all seen the guy with hulking arms who can bench press 400 pounds but can’t lift his arms over his head. In no way should that lack of mobility be construed as fitness. Indeed, one of the primary ingredients that defines fitness for Egoscue is a full range of motion. So much of what we do, especially in gyms, provides zero benefit for our range of motion.

But there’s another reason that obsession with numbers can lead to an unproductive cycle: It’s not very fun. “That’s why so many people who join gyms stop going after a few weeks,” says Egoscue, who considers fun the second ingredient that defines fitness.

Remember How to Play 

In an effort to track and quantify, we’ve lost our ability to simply play. Think about play in decades past—a sepia-tinged, nostalgic vision of kids playing. It’s one part Calvin and Hobbes, one part summertime stickball, a dash of “Ring Around the Rosie”—all innocence and effortless joy. No one calls it fitness; they call it childhood. There’s no counting reps or judgments about whether Sally ran faster today than she did yesterday. It’s just about having a good time.

Related: How Your Feelings Affect Your Workout

“Play is fun because there are no judgments associated with it,” Egoscue says. “There’s just the joy of participation. There’s the joy of self-actualization. That’s where games came from. That’s where sport comes from. All sport started with a sense of play.”

It may be tough to scare up enough players for a game of stickball in the street, but it’s probably not especially difficult to go for a run in the woods. Or instead of today’s trip to the gym, why not head to the local playground for a half-hour of tag with your kids and see how you feel afterward? Or say you do go to the gym. Rather than follow a prescribed workout, just do what you feel like doing. Jump around or do a few somersaults. A sense of play can breathe life into your fitness routine. You just have to let it.

Fun Is More Effective

I ran a lot one summer and fall, training for the New York City Marathon. Spend 15 seconds Googling and you can find any number of marathon training guides, every week mapped out, each day with its own goal. (Even rest is programmed.) I had a GPS watch that I’d wear on training runs, which told me how fast I was running, how far I went, and how many strides I took per second. I was constantly aware of numbers, times, speed, and more. Information overload.

On one long run, I left the watch at home. I had an approximate path mapped out in my head, but I let my body guide me. If I wanted to turn left, I turned left. If one street looked interesting, I ran down it. I saw my surroundings and enjoyed the run. And when I got home and checked my time, I realized that I ran faster than I had previously. By letting go and having fun, I improved.

Related: This 8-Minute Beginner Workout Will Make You Love Exercise

Elev8d Fitness is predicated, in large part, on having fun. It’s full of exercises that recall childhood freedom. The workouts get you down on the ground and moving around in ways many of us haven’t in far too long. What’s more, there are no set numbers. Yes, the workouts are structured in eight, 16, and 24 minutes, and within each workout, each exercise is prescribed for a timed interval. “But you don’t have to do it for the whole time,” Egoscue says. “Do it as long as you can. If you can only do it for 15 seconds, fine. No one’s judging. That freedom takes away all the sense of drudgery and duty with fitness.”

The key to returning to play is to change what you’re experiencing. When it comes to working out, you should be looking to have a good time, have fun, experiment, and enjoy. Forget numbers and reps, and the neurosis of perfection. You’ll love the change and see the benefits.

Take it from Egoscue, a man who knows: “If you’re not having any fun in life, then what’s the point?”

Looking for more fun, playful workouts? Try the Elev8d Fitness eight-minute Get Back in Shape Workout or the Weight-Loss Workout Series.

The post The Secret to a Better Workout? Have More Fun with It appeared first on Sonima.

But here’s the thing: These aches or knots often give you insight into other areas of your body (not just that specific muscle) and your overall alignment. For instance, tight hamstrings could mean you have a limited range of motion in the joints above and below the muscle, or your pelvis, knee, or lower leg, says Pete Egoscue, co-founder of Elev8d Fitness, a total-body eight-minute workout program developed by the experts of Sonima.

Of course, massaging the area—or spending some time stretching—might help temporarily, but it doesn’t address the root of the problem. Here’s how to get to the bottom of poor flexibility and muscle tension.

Activating One Muscle to Stretch Another

“Instead of stretching a tight muscle, we’d rather ask why is the muscle tight,” says Brian Bradley, fitness director of Elev8d Fitness. Typically speaking, “tight muscles are essentially doing what the non-activated muscle group should be doing,” he explains.

In other words, if you have tight hamstrings, that could mean they’re working in overdrive to make up for the lack of effort from your hip flexors. Or if your lower back is feeling uncomfortable, that might reveal your core is putting in zero work. That’s why stretching that hamstring or your low back might feel good for a little while, but without addressing the opposing muscle group, it’ll just keep going back to its uncomfortable state.

Let’s focus on the core for a second and how weakness in your midsection can lead to discomfort and tightness in other areas. This is particularly true of your back. Research actually says there’s a strong tie between back pain in runners and weak core muscles. But strengthen your middle, and you could relieve those aches.

Related: The Surprising Muscle Weakness Linked to Back Pain

Taking that even further, many runners also often experience IT band syndrome. Often times, they’ll spend days on a foam roller trying to work it out and loosen it up. But really, they should look to their core. “Stretching alone will generally not be successful,” says Theodore Shybut, M.D., assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. “Many people don’t realize that tightness or contracture [shortening and hardening of the muscles] is usually secondary to a core weakness or muscle imbalance. A program of core strengthening that addresses the underlying deficiency and corrects running posture and mechanics will be much more successful.”

This same principle holds true in strength training. Take the deadlift, for instance. If you teach your core to fire properly, then you take the movement out of your back into your hamstrings and glutes where it belongs, Bradley says.

Why It’s Time for More Active Stretching

The debate about stretching—whether static works better before or after a workout or whether you should do more dynamic movements—has been going on in research for some time. But experts have come to a pretty agreeable conclusion: To get your body to move most efficiently during your workout, warming up with movement is key. In fact, one review concluded that static stretching pre-workout could hinder your performance, while another said it doesn’t reduce your risk of injury anyway.

“Your body is designed to warm to the task naturally. Walking warms your muscles for running, and running warms you up for jumping,” Egoscue explains.

The Best Way to Increase Range of Motion

Besides simply warming up the body with light movements, another solid way to get started in improving range of motion is with proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), or a contract, relax, repeat approach to stretching or strengthening, according to research.

This is the exact approach Elev8d Fitness takes in their GLAM sequence, a workout to help improve your body alignment and range of motion. “Elev8d exercises go after balancing mechanics, which allow your body to become driven by, say, the hips, which are a load-bearing joint, rather than driven by the peripheral, tight muscles,” Bradley explains.

GLAM specifically fires up your glutes and hamstrings. “The GLAM sequence is great because it helps activate your balancing mechanism by using your big leg muscles, so your hip flexors can turn back on and your lower back and glutes won’t be firing all day or all workout,” Bradley says.

Ready to improve your flexibility and gain strength, in less than 10 minutes? Try the 8-Minute Strength Series or the 8-Minute Total-Body Transformation Workout.

The post A New Approach to Improving Flexibility appeared first on Sonima.

The modern view of fitness, simply put, is that you have to suffer in order for your workout to work. Think about some of the most popular trends in exercise: CrossFit, P90X, or the Insanity DVD series. The method and philosophy is high-intensity interval training, or HIIT: You push it to the limits for a few minutes or seconds, try to catch your breath, then repeat.

There’s plenty of good research that supports this approach—for those who can consistently do it.

But here’s the thing: With consistency, just about any fitness protocol works. The issue is finding something that works for you. Then, once you discover your activity, you can actually get much better results with what may seem like far less effort.

“With these high-intensity methods, the fitness world is basically responding to two things: some research and scientific data, and pushback from the public about time,” says posture and alignment expert Pete Egoscue. “We’re missing the elephant in the room, and that is: It’s not what you do, it’s the body you bring to what you do.”

“If your posture is compromised, your big muscles are already under a lot of stress. When a structurally dysfunctional person does high-intensity training, what they’re really doing is further stressing themselves,” Egoscue says.

That’s why, for many, the result of HIIT isn’t fitness, it’s frustration. For proof, you need only look around at a basic fact and your circle of friends.

First, the fact: CrossFit and P90X have both been around for nearly 20 years now, yet America’s obesity rates continue to rise.

Now on to your friends. Of all the people you know who’ve tried CrossFit, how many stuck with it? Probably not many. Of all those mail-order fitness DVDs, how many are sitting in cabinets right now? Probably most.

You can easily understand why. There are only three types of people who’d be willing to put themselves through something that can feel so miserable:

1. Those who are already fit and functional, and therefore find that level of activity enjoyable.
2. Masochists.
3. Those who are forcing themselves to do it, thinking that they “have” to in order to get in shape.

Most of us fall into that third category. We work out because we think we have to. We muscle through with determination and willpower, which works—until it doesn’t. Research shows that willpower is an exhaustible attribute. As you tire, it fades.

After you’ve tired yourself out from performing wildly strenuous workouts, the predictable result happens: You quit. That’s what most people do, and that’s the bad news.

Related: 14 New Workout Ideas That Will Make You Love Exercise

Here’s the good news: There is a better way. You can train in a way that not only delivers positive physical results, but that also makes you feel more positively about yourself. The method may sound simple and easy, but in a way that’s the point. Simple and easy is repeatable. Being repeatable is the key to consistency. And consistency is the true key to fitness. What is this method? It’s low-intensity interval training or LIIT.

We told you it would sound simple. Perhaps it even sounds funny. But isn’t fun something that’s missing from most workouts? How nice would it be to have fun while being active? Wouldn’t you be more likely to do it—and keep doing it—if you were having fun?

“‘Low intensity’ has more or less become a guilt statement,” Egoscue says. “‘High intensity’ means ‘I’m out of breath,’ while ‘low intensity’ means ‘I had fun and enjoyed myself.’ People think they can’t enjoy themselves training. They’re wrong. You can.”

What Is Low-Intensity Interval Training?

Low-intensity interval training (LIIT) is performing exercise at the minimum effective dose so that you yield every ounce of results without any diminishing returns. It’s tuning in to your body, giving it what it needs in the time you have available, and then getting on with your day.

What Exercises Do You Do During Low-Intensity Interval Training?

You can perform almost any exercise or activity with LIIT. The protocol is less about “what” you do than it is “how” you do it.

Take an example like box jumps. “In high-intensity interval training, people do 20 of them in a row until they get tired, move dysfunctionally, and wind up doing more harm than good to their body,” says Elev8d Fitness head coach Brian Bradley. For proof of this, watch any one of these many videos of people failing at box jumps.

“In a LIIT program, you’d do far fewer box jumps—let’s say five,” Bradley says. “The focus would be on doing each one well. And then you’d move on to some other exercises or moves that improve your mobility. The result is that the moves teach your body’s systems to work better together. It will clear up imbalances and help re-establish functional movement patterns stemming from your hips and pelvis.”

That’s the idea driving Elev8d Fitness. You perform just enough of just the right movements, in workouts that are only eight or 16 minutes long.

Related: Challenge Your Body and See Results With These 16-Minute Workouts

“It comes down to the minimum effective dose,” Bradley explains. “This creates a residual effect for the next 24 hours, like the heater got turned on. Your metabolic rate stays on, and the furnace is still burning” even after your workout is over.

What Should Low-Intensity Interval Training Feel Like?

LIIT should feel energizing, Bradley says. “It should feel like you just had fun, like you just accomplished movements that maybe you even thought were a little corny, but you were surprised at how difficult they were when you performed them correctly and finally started generating the movement at your hips instead of through a compensation pattern,” he says.

Sometimes, performing a move correctly will mean that you do it slowly and gradually, like with Elev8d’s Side Unders. They’re far more challenging when you do them deliberately. Other times, you may still move fast, like you would with Elev8d’s Finish Line Abs.

“Finish Line Abs is a fun exercise that safely lets you sprint—even if you haven’t sprinted in 20 years or more,” Bradley says. “You perform a move that makes you feel like a kid again and takes you back to your childhood when movement was fun. That’s mentally empowering. And you’ll definitely feel the results in your abdominal wall.”

How Often Should You Perform Low-Intensity Interval Training?

One great thing about LIIT is that, because it’s low intensity, you can return to it regularly, even daily, and do so without the risk of getting hurt or tiring yourself out. It’s not like traditional exercise modalities such as lifting or distance running, which can take a heavy toll on the body and require long recovery times.

What Does Low-Intensity Interval Training Do for You?

Like any form of exercise, low-intensity interval training creates stimulus—one that’s a welcome break from the day-to-day patterns most of us live, like sitting in a chair typing on a computer, or worse, staring at a smartphone.

This stimulus, Egoscue explains, “creates an increased metabolic demand by removing you from the repetitive motion of your environment. This not only increases your basic metabolic rate, it can lead you to feel different emotions about exercise. You stop criticizing yourself and thinking that you’re ‘lazy’ or ‘out of shape,’ or that you ‘can’t do it.’ Instead, you see that you can do it, and wind up wanting to do it again because it was fun.”

The result: A reinvigorated body and mind, one that’s more capable and willing to do—and do again.

Fall in love with exercise thanks to the low-intensity interval training plans from Elev8d Fitness.  You’ll see and feel the difference in your body with the 8-Minute Strength Training Series.

The post Low-Intensity Interval Training: Better Results by Doing Less appeared first on Sonima.

But of course, staying active can be a challenge. That’s where Sonima’s Elev8d Fitness plan can help. The Elev8d program focuses on eight core body movements that are combined into a variety of exercises and workouts designed to target specific fitness goals such as weight loss, increased strength, or overall functionality. Most important, Elev8d uses the power of your body’s own weight to deliver a complete workout that can be done virtually anywhere—your apartment, your yard, your park—it’s your choice.

Elev8d Fitness workouts range from 8 to 24 minutes and provide total-body results because they utilize the larger, deeper muscles rather than just the smaller muscles closer to the surface. Engaging these deeper muscles burns more energy in a shorter amount of time and maximizes the overall results.

Try it for yourself with any of our free workouts below—and keep moving! (And check out the Sonima Elev8d streaming platform for the full library of all of the workouts.)

8-Minute Total-Body Transformation

This is a quick and efficient way to tighten every limb, move every joint, and target every major muscle. And you’ll feel fantastic!

8-Minute Sculpted Butt and Hips Workout

Everybody wants a tighter butt. And the way to it is through the calves, quads, hams and hips. This workout targets all of these areas, giving you an enviable rear.

8-Minute Get Back in Shape Workout

Need to get back in the fitness swing? This workout reboots your body in just 8 quick minutes. You’ll be on your way back to doing all the fun things you used to love to do in no time.

16-Minute Flat Belly Workout

Flat abs look great, but they also support the whole body. This workout has you moving your arms and legs so you have to engage your abs to stabilize the rest of your body. And that leads to a flatter and stronger belly.

16-Minute Core Stability and Strength Workout

A strong core provides muscle stability throughout your system, but because of postural dysfunction, many “core” workouts actually don’t reach the core. This one does. You will feel the difference right away and every day after.

24-Minute Fat-Loss Workout

The most efficient way to burn more fat is to engage more muscles. This workout focuses on all the major muscle groups, helping you drop pounds.

The post 6 At-Home Workouts That Will Keep You Moving appeared first on Sonima.