But it shouldn’t come as a surprise; busted shoulder blades are endemic among computer users. When we sit at a desk all day, staring into a computer, we’re basically doing the opposite of everything our strong, erect-spined, solid-hipped ancestors did—our shoulders round forward, our back hunches, our head juts out, and our pelvis tilts under. This modern day position inhibits the shoulder blades’ ability to pull back and down…which is where nature intended them to be, so they can create space for the shoulder joint to move as our arms pull, pull, reach, and stretch. That’s why the position of the shoulder blades can be indicative of other dysfunctions happening in the body. To discover what they are, you just have to tune in.

Why Your Shoulder Blades Matter

Your shoulder blades, or scapulae, are a duo of triangular-shaped bones in the back, bookending your upper spine. Each scapula forms the socket of the ball-and-socket joints that are your shoulders. (The head of the humerus, or upper arm bone, is the ball.) Connected to the body by multiple muscles and ligaments, the blades slide along the upper back as you move throughout your day.

“I can tell so much by looking at someone’s shoulder blades,” says Brian Bradley, fitness director of Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout platform developed by the experts at Sonima. “The position of the shoulder blades tells me what’s happening in the thoracic spine, the lower back, and the hips.” It’s all connected. Dysfunction in the shoulder blades is an indicator of misalignment in the rest of the body, and vice versa.

The shoulder blades are intended to support other smaller muscles in the back and shoulder. When they are imbalanced and weak, the structure of the body collapses and these smaller, secondary muscles end up compensating. This leads to strain, dysfunction, and a host of physical effects. Slumping over at a computer, for example, contracts your back and collapses your abdominal muscles, which weakens the torso and deactivates the hips.

Related: The #1 Most Overlooked Muscle in Your Workout

And it’s all about the hips. “If the upper back, the spine, and the thoracic are out of alignment and creating compensation, it’s because there is a hip problem below,” Bradley says. The hips are like the epicenter of the body. If your pelvis is out of alignment, then your movement is compromised and your upper back tries to take over, which can lead to backaches and overall discomfort. But if you align and activate the hips, you remove limitations from the spine and shoulders, and they can move freely and functionally. Moreover, misalignment can affect lymph drainage, breath, and digestion. All systems are interconnected. “Think about it: You have 32 feet of intestines sitting on your pelvic floor,” Bradley says. “If your hip is out of alignment, so is your digestion.”

What’s more, activating foundational muscle groups increases your metabolic rate. “When you engage the psoas (the deep core muscle connecting the lumbar to the femur), it turns on the rest of the hip flexors, which carries into the spine and up into the neck and shoulders,” Bradley says. “By doing this, you are using your body at full capacity; you are engaging 100 percent of your muscles.” This total-body activation simply asks your body to use more energy, breathe more oxygen, and in turn, burn more calories.

Related: Always Tired? Put Down the Coffee, and Try This Energizing 8-Minute Workout Instead


The Key to Balancing Your Shoulder Blades

This isn’t about sitting up straighter or willing yourself into better shoulder position. “Pulling your shoulder blades together is a waste of your time without the link to rest of the body and activating at the hips,” Bradley explains. Your focus should be on working the deep muscles in the thoracic spine, the core, and the hip flexors—strengthening from the inside out.

The move below can help restore balance and strength to your shoulder blades. Of course, one exercise is not enough to keep everyone’s scalpulae happy and healthy; that can only happen in the context of a full-body plan, such as Elev8d Fitness. This new home workout program from the experts of Sonima keeps your four key sets of load-bearing joints—the shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles—properly aligned. But an exercise like the one below can help you connect the shoulder blades to the hips, activating and strengthening the deep core muscles.

Standing Arm Circles

The foot position in this exercise is crucial: pointing your feet straight forward essentially traps your hips to react to the shoulder position. As your upper body moves, your hips work to stabilize. The movement of the arms fires the abdominal wall and the hip flexors and pinches the shoulder blades back.

Begin by standing with your feet hip-width apart, your toes pointed straight ahead. Extend your arms out to your sides at shoulder level, palms down with your fingers gripped flat onto the pads of your hands. Squeeze your shoulder blades together and down, pretending you are tucking them into some imaginary back jeans pockets. Keeping them squeezed and down, rotate both arms forward in small circles (about six inches in circumference). Complete 40 circles. Next, face your palms up and complete 40 backward rotations. If your shoulders begin to shrug or roll forward at any time, take a break, then recommit your shoulder blades to the down-and-back position.

Experience how Elev8d Fitness can keep your entire body healthy and balanced in little time. Check out the 8-Minute Strength Series and the 8-Minute Weight-Loss Series.

The post What Your Shoulder Blades Can Tell You About Your Health appeared first on Sonima.

Running can be hard on the body, and doubly so if you’re out of alignment. Impact from each stride travels through the body, and if the eight load-bearing joints (shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles) aren’t aligned, you’re asking for trouble. This alone is a good reason to incorporate dynamic warm-ups and cool-downs before and after your runs.

Another common pitfall for runners is driving forward motion from the shoulders rather than the hips. “If you’re running with your elbows winging out and your shoulders rounded forward, it could be because your hips aren’t activated,” says Brian Bradley, fitness director of Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts of Sonima. “People are tearing their rotator cuff running because they are overcompensating with the shoulders.” But there’s a way to fix this.

The Shoulder Problem

The shoulders shouldn’t factor into the forward motion of the run. “It’s just not natural for you to drive your gait from your shoulders,” Bradley says. But when the back and shoulders are rounded forward and the hips are tucked under and inactive (and can happen when we sit most of the day), then the shoulders take over for the gait, rotating forward and back. This compensation is a surefire path to injury.

Your body should operate like a well-oiled machine—joints, muscles, and skeleton working in concert. If you have full range of motion in the load-bearing joints and your hips are driving the forward motion, this will naturally take your shoulders out of the equation. A smooth stride and pace is really all about functionality.

Related: A New Approach to Improving Flexibility

In order to be a functional runner, the arms should swing back and forth, and the shoulders should be down and back. If you look at a professional runner, you’ll notice they are upright, shoulders pulled back, upper back relatively still. Their arms swing, but their shoulders aren’t punching forward and back.

A Sequence for Function and Speed

It is essential to set your body into proper alignment before you introduce impact and rapid movement. These three exercises—excerpted from one of Elev8d Fitness’s eight-minute home workouts—free up the shoulders and activate the hips so that you are prepared to stress your system with a cardio workout (or strength training, for that matter).

To improve range of movement in the upper body, you need to free up the scapula, a.k.a. the shoulder blade bone. “The first exercise in this sequence, active cows face, teaches the arm bone how to function correctly in relationship with the shoulder blade. It’s really the same with the relationship between the femur and pelvis,” Bradley explains. This simple movement addresses range of motion in the shoulder, which shifts the mid-back, thoracic spine, and pelvis into better alignment.

Related: The #1 Most Overlooked Muscle in Your Workout

Sequence, Bradley stresses, is everything. Only when your shoulders are in a better position, are you ready for the next exercise, mountain climbers. “With your shoulders down and back, you’re ready to load them and fire your deep hip muscles,” he explains. “Your core will stabilize during this second movement.” Activating your core and hips further establishes function in the spine and shoulders.

Finally, the downward dog bent knee requires you load up the torso and the shoulders and hold the very position that was just activated by the mountain climbers. You’ll notice that in this final static position your upper body wants to collapse. It is crucial to pull the weight off your hands by pulling your hips back, tilting your pelvis forward, and firing the front hip flexors.

How Does This Translate to Running?

Once you’ve aligned your joints and activated your hips, how do you optimize for speed? Leg stride is actually the easy part. The key, Bradley says, is the arm swing. “The body naturally knows how to run, your legs know how to move,” he says. “But if you want to be the fastest person, you need to learn to arm pump as fast as you can.” The hips are driving the movement, yes, but the arm swing will take your pace to a new level.

Faster, stronger, fitter—whatever your goal, Elev8d Fitness can help you reach it! Try the Flat Belly Workout Series or the Move Better, Feel Better, Look Better Workout Series and see for yourself.

The post 3 Targeted Moves for a Faster Run appeared first on Sonima.

For the next three minutes or so, you will perform the following series of movements to the beat:

1. Start with burpees and arm circles.
2. Transition to shadow boxing.
3. Dive into crocodile push-ups.
4. Do a crunch variation that Elev8d Fitness calls “polar opposites”.
5. Finish up with a little core work.

By the end of this speedy session, you’ll be feeling pretty darn tough. Go for round two and play it again if you have the time and energy!

If you enjoyed this workout, you’ll love more of Elev8d’s quick, effective routines. Check these out:

8-Minute Weight-Loss Workout Series

Do-Anywhere Total-Body Workout Series

16-Minute Challenge Workout Series

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

The post Try This Awesome One-Song Workout appeared first on Sonima.

But this traditional understanding of stretching is flawed. Flexibility doesn’t come from stretching the muscles to a more impressive length—flexibility is actually the absence of tension in the muscles. And to get to the root of this tension, you have to address why your body is tight in the first place.

“People always come to me and tell me that they are genetically tight, that their body just isn’t flexible,” says Brian Bradley, fitness director of Elev8d Fitness, the new 8-minute home workout program from Sonima. “But this is a misunderstanding.” You’re not inflexible because your muscles are short. You’re inflexible because your body is out of alignment, and that impinges your full range of motion.

How Does Alignment Improve Flexibility?

Proper alignment starts with the pelvis. “The hips are the epicenter of the body, so when you have function in the hips, all the muscles that originate in that area are no longer under tension or restricted,” Bradley explains. The better the position of your hips, the better its relationship with the upper back, mid-back, shoulder blades, and all connected areas of the body.

“When you align the body, the bones where the tendons connect move into a more aligned position, which loosens the tension in the muscle. It’s freeing up your muscles to their full and natural length,” Bradley explains. In other words, you are changing the position of the skeleton where the tendons attach. When you put these attachment points into alignment, the muscles can relax into their full range of motion. As you slowly loosen tension in this or that muscle, the body comes into concert with itself, unifying as one system rather than a collection of disjointed parts. And that, Bradley says, is where real strength and wellness happens.

Related: Move Better, Look Better, and Feel Better with This Workout Series

Elev8d Fitness is designed around this fundamental principle: Align the body so that it can move through its full range of motion, thus balancing and unifying the musculature as a functional, efficient system. “You’ll actually get your body to the point where you don’t feel like you need to stretch,” Bradley says.

A Workout to Improve Flexibility

In this 8-minute workout, Elev8d Fitness co-founder and world-renowned physiologist Pete Egoscue will coach you through a sequence of one-minute movements. As you fire the hip flexors and core, notice a subtle release of tightness is the upper back and knees. Remember, form is critical. In order to align and balance the body, you have to pay close attention to the position of your spine, shoulders, and hips. For example, be sure to pinch the shoulder blades in the Da Vincis and maintain a slight arch in your back when you squat down for the Elev8d Side Unders.

Related: Can’t Touch Your Toes? These Three Exercises Will Change That

“You’re going to feel some work in these exercises,” Bradley says. “What we’re doing is training your muscles at their full length.” Strengthening your muscles in this state of zero tension or tightness is key—that’s the way to train your body back into its natural and functional alignment.

“This eight-minute sequence is literally changing how each section of your spine relates to your hips and shoulders,” Bradley says. As you work your way through the exercises, your range of motion is increasing exponentially. So much so that if you started the whole thing over again from the top, you would notice a dramatic difference in your flexibility. That’s because you’ve freed up your shoulders, mid-back, and hips, thus loosening the tension in the muscles.

You’re not necessarily going to feel a stretch with this workout, though. “It’ll feel like work and you may start breathing a little heavy. But then all of the sudden, you’ll be able to reach down and touch your toes,” Bradley says.

Transform your body in a little as eight minutes! Try the revolutionary Elev8d Fitness Flat Belly Workout Series!

The post A Quick Workout to Fix Tight Muscles appeared first on Sonima.

What you may not realize is that the position of sitting could also be the reason you want to curl up for a nap in the afternoon. Luckily, the right kind of movement can combat these negative sitting effects, and you can do these exercises from your home office or other workplace for a quick pick-me-up.

How Sitting Affects Your Energy

We often don’t realize just how much our posture impacts our health. When your anterior contracts and your posterior is rounded, you effectively constrict the flow of oxygen through your body. In this rounded position, your spine is in a C-shape rather than its natural S-shape, cramping the diaphragm so that you can’t take full, deep breaths. What’s more, the C-shape in the spine tucks the hips under. When your psoas and hip flexors are tucked and unengaged like this, the body essentially collapses forward, crunching the vital organs into a smaller space.

Your energy flags post-lunch because you’ve spent the better half of the day collapsed forward and inert. When this happens, it’s all too easy to turn to sugar and caffeine. But what if there were a healthy, more holistic option?

Related: The #1 Most Overlooked Muscle in Your Workout

The solution to activating the hips and improving posture is actually quite simple: Move more. We’re not saying you need to quit your job or stop watching your favorite TV show, just simply get up and move around every 30 minutes. While you’re at it, give your body a quick alignment prompt with the three dynamic movements below from Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts at Sonima. This routine takes less than a minute and does wonders for shaking loose the cobwebs and improving your posture.

Related: 4 Posture Exercises to Do While Sitting At Your Desk

3 Moves to Boost Your Energy

The Active Cows Face requires you to stand up and engage the deep muscles around the shoulder blades (the rhomboid muscles, trapezius, and deltoid). This effectively opens up the front of the body, allowing more oxygen into your lungs and more blood flow to your head, heart, and vital organs.

Next, the Downward Dog Bent Knee activates the hip flexors and the psoas while also loading up the shoulder blades. By engaging these deep, core muscle groups, this static position ignites a higher intensity burn. A true total-body exercise, the Downward Dog Bent Knee positions your head below your heart, which brings increased blood flow (and oxygen) to the brain.

Lastly, the Standing Arm Circles strengthen the muscles between the shoulder blades while also requiring static resistance in the core muscles, especially the obliques. This may look like a shoulder exercise, but notice the perturbance in the abdominal wall; you are working your abs too. Hand position is key, and remember to keep your shoulders down and back.

In combination, these three movements reset posture and increase blood flow in less than a minute so you can sit back at your desk with a clearer head and more energy. What’s more, if you make a daily practice of these three movements, your posture will improve in the long run. Give it a try!

Active Cows Face | 15x Per Side

1. Stand with your feet fist-width apart, toes pointed straight ahead. (You may even pigeon-toe them slightly.)
2. Reach your arms out at shoulder height with palms facing forward so your body forms a “t” shape.
3. Raise your right arm toward the ceiling, bending at the elbow so your hand reaches toward the center of your back. Simultaneously extend your left arm toward the floor, bending at the elbow to reach your left hand toward the center of your back, getting your right and left fingers as close to touching as possible.
4. Return arms to their original position and repeat, moving your arms in the opposite direction to bring the left to the center of the back from above and the right from beneath. That’s 1 rep.

Downward Dog Bent Knee | 30 Seconds

1. Start on hands and knees, then push into downward facing dog.
2. Bend your knees slightly, without touching the ground.
3. Hold this position as you pull the hips back to the heels, keeping the pelvis angled up and the back flat. You should feel this in the hip flexors.

Arm Circles | 40x

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, toes pointed straight ahead. Put your hands in a golfer’s grip: Make a thumb’s up and fold your fingers so the tips are on the top pads of your palms.
2. Extend your arms out at your shoulders with your thumbs pointed forward, hands palms down, and shoulder blades pinched back.
3. Keeping your shoulder blades pinched, circle your arms forward 20 times.
4. Pause, then flip your hands palms up, thumbs pointed backward, and circle your arms backward 20 times.
   
   

Transform your body in as little as 8 minutes a day! Try the revolutionary new approach to fitness that helps you achieve better results by doing less. Check out Elev8d  Fitness now on Vimeo.

The post Try This One-Minute Energy Boost appeared first on Sonima.

You’ve probably already heard, but this sitting habit is really, really bad for you. According to a 2017 study in Annals of Internal Medicine, even if you exercise regularly, not moving for excessively long periods of time increases your risk for early death. It can also negatively affect your posture by conditioning your body to position itself in an unnatural way.

Unfortunately, sitting is inevitable. But rather than resigning yourself to a sedentary slump, you can train for sitting in order to avoid some of its negative effects, Bradley says. In fact, there are certain movements you can practice while sitting in a chair to improve your posture and overall well-being.

How Does Sitting Affect Your Posture?

The way the body tilts and torques to sit in a chair is in opposition to its natural, functional alignment. When you sit, your pelvis tilts back and your butt tucks under. This deactivates your hips so that they’re no longer supporting the top half your frame or engaging your glutes and core to support your spine. As a result, your spine shifts into one long C-curve instead of the natural S shape. When working at a desk, your shoulders round as your hands reach for your keyboard, and your head juts forward to get closer to the computer screen.

This “desk slump” affects more than just your ability to stand up straight—it may also contribute to your mid-afternoon energy slump. Korean researchers found the posture most of us take on while sitting and typing on our phones actually restricts our ability to breathe properly and efficiently. And a lack of oxygen translates to less energy and lower concentration, Bradley says.

If you think you’re exempt from this biomechanical malfunction, consider this: A 2015 Australian study found when people sat in a position that felt natural to them, they naturally slumped at the lumbar spine. When they were encouraged to correct their position just based on their own intuition, their lumbar angle was still overly curved. In other words: We need directions.

Related: Move Better, Feel Better, and Look Better With This Workout Series

How Can Posture Exercises Help?

“The amazing thing is that we can correct our posture by just moving the body the way in was designed to naturally move,” Bradley says. “To put your body back in the most ideal alignment, you need to use 100 percent of your deep, stabilizing muscles.”

That’s why the experts of Sonima developed Elev8d Fitness based on this straightforward principle. The at-home workouts incorporate a variety of dynamic movements that reset alignment. By adjusting and stabilizing key muscle groups, the exercises create foundational strength and symmetry in the body.

Although daily Elev8d Fitness workouts are the most comprehensive solution for improving posture, you can apply the following elemental movements while sitting at a desk or on the couch to dramatically enhance the quality of your sitting position. Do this routine in the order specified halfway through every sitting session (i.e., a day at the computer, a two-hour train ride). Not only will you find yourself standing straighter after hours spent sitting, you’ll also experience improved blood flow and deeper breathing, which boost oxygen flow for increased acuity and improved focus.

Related: An 8-Minute Workout for Total-Body Transformation

Chair Arm Circles | 40x each direction

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1. Put your thumbs up, and fold your fingers forward so that the tips are on the top pads of your palms.

2. Sit in a chair with your feet hip-width apart, flat on the ground, and pointed straight ahead.

3. Extend your arms directly sideways, straight out. Point your thumbs forward, palms down, and pinch your shoulder blades back.

4. Move your arms up and forward in a circular motion 40 times. Keep your shoulder blades pinched.

5. Next, flip your hands palms up, thumbs pointed backward, and move your arms up and backward in circles 40 times.

Cats and Dogs in Chair | 5x each direction

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1. Sit in a chair with your feet hip-width apart, flat on the ground and pointed straight ahead.

2. Beginning the movement at the hip, roll your back slowly upward so that it finishes in a rounded position like a mad cat, your head down, chin resting on your chest. The lower half your back should be touching the chair back but your shoulders should not.

3. Then, beginning the movement with the hip, lower your back into an inverse arch, your head and tailbone up, your shoulder blades pinching toward each other. Your low back and shoulders should be touching the chair back but your mid-back should not.

4. Repeat 5 times each direction.

Da Vincis in a Chair | 5x each direction

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1. Sit in a chair with your feet hip-width apart, flat on the ground and pointed straight ahead.

2. Make sure to create a small arch in your lower back, reestablishing the natural S curve.

3. Extend your arms straight to the side, your hands palms-forward with the fingers spread wide.

4. Keeping your hips and head stable, bend to one side using just the spine and bend back to the other side.

Cats and Dogs in Chair | 10x each direction

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1. Sit in a chair with your feet hip-width apart, flat on the ground and pointed straight ahead.

2. Beginning the movement at the hip, roll your back slowly upward so that it finishes in a rounded position like a mad cat, your head down, chin resting on your chest. The lower half your back should be touching the chair back but your shoulders should not.

3. Then, beginning the movement with the hip, lower your back into an inverse arch, your head and tailbone up, your shoulder blades pinching toward each other. Your low back and shoulders should be touching the chair back but your mid-back should not.

4. Repeat 10 times each direction.

The post 4 Posture Exercises to Do While Sitting at Your Desk appeared first on Sonima.

Each exercise is geared toward shifting your body back into alignment. When the body is in alignment, oxygen flows freely to the muscles and creates more energy. This way you can burn calories and skip the afternoon coffee. Give it a try!

If you like this video, check out more quick routines from Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program brought to you by the experts of Sonima. Every routine uses only your body weight to help tone your body, boost fat burning, and become functionally fit. Try these eight-minute weight-loss workouts or the Flat Belly Workout Series.

Thirty Cubed

Exercise #1: In a standing position, reach your arms straight out and run in place, bringing your knees high, for thirty seconds.

Exercise #2: Drop your arms and run in place so that your heels kick your butt for thirty seconds.

Exercise #3: Squat low with your feet pointed straight forward. Then spring up as if to jump, driving your arms straight up, but do not let your feet leave the ground. Repeat these ‘fake jumps’ for thirty seconds.

The post Burn 100 Calories in 90 Seconds appeared first on Sonima.

Brian Bradley, fitness director of Elev8d Fitness, a new, posture-based home workout program from the experts of Sonima, has a different view of things. “Sitting doesn’t have to be bad for you,” he says. “We just have to view it as another form of activity.” In his eyes, sitting isn’t the problem. Instead, the horrifying health statistics are a reflection of how we’re sitting. Most of us perch with compromised posture, meaning the spine is in a C-shape, the pelvis is tucked under, and the chin is jutting forward. This poor sitting form is what is leading to the myriad of problems.

Related: The Simplest Change You Can Make for Better Health

But Why Is Sitting So Bad?

Here’s an example: You sit in front of a computer and use one hand to click and scroll with a mouse. The arm (shoulder, elbow, and wrist) controlling the mouse is moving a lot more than the other, inactive arm. This creates a muscular imbalance. And if you have not fired the deep core muscles around the shoulder blades, this one-arm mouse activity isn’t anchored and can strain the joints and spine. What’s more, an imbalance in the shoulders will inevitably throw the rest of your body out of whack.

The next time you’re in the office or a coffee shop, notice the posture of the people sitting around you. More likely than not, their backs are rounded and their hips are tucked under. This poor posture basically compresses the body, restricting the proper functioning of its various systems. For example, you can’t digest food properly with a restricted digestive tract, nor can you breathe fully with a cramped diaphragm. When you consider it this way, it’s no wonder sitting is linked to so many health issues!

Related: The 8-Minute Weight-Loss Workout Series You Can Do at Home

How Can You Correct Your Sitting Form?

To improve your sitting and body, first change your mindset. “People assume that when you’re sitting, there’s no work going on in the body,” Bradley says. “But there should actually be a lot going on. You have to treat it as a sport.”

Before you sit down for a day of work, it is crucial to set your body into alignment. When your hips are engaged and in dynamic connection to your spine, rib cage, and shoulders, you are setting course for more functional movement for the rest of the day.

“With just a few dynamic movements at the start of the day, you can essentially prevent bad posture and all the discomfort that comes along with it,” Bradley says. Imbalances like with the mouse example above can be repaired by accessing and firing the deep stabilizing muscles in the core, from the shoulders down to the hips.

This short sequence designed and ordered by Bradley and the experts at Elev8d Fitness will prepare your body for a day of functional sitting. Each movement increasingly connects and engages the deep stabilizing muscles that are so vital to proper alignment.

The Standing Arm Circles pin the shoulder blades together and fire the mid-back, and they also access the deep hip muscles that are essential to active sitting, Bradley explains. The speed of this exercise is what requires action from the hips, so remember to keep a steady pace.

After you’ve fired up the muscles in the deep hip, the One Arm Bridge loads the shoulder to condition it to stay in the right position. This classic core exercise activates the entire length of the body for 30 seconds on each side.

Last, the Finish Line Abs kick you into high gear with a minute of rapid arm, abdominal, and hip work. The arm swing again requires the deep stabilizing muscles to fire at maximum capacity. “This last exercise is major. It’s setting you up to be able to move [and sit] from the right posture,” Bradley says.

Put them all together, and “these three simple exercises are really prepping you for better positioning to handle whatever activity you’re doing,” he adds.

Transform your body! Try the Move Better, Feel Better, Look Better Home Workout Series to build strength, boost energy, and have better posture without beating up your body.

The post A Short Workout to Prepare You for a Day at a Desk appeared first on Sonima.

Most of us view post-workout soreness as an indicator of a solid sweat session. But soreness isn’t necessarily a good measure of the quality of the workout, says Carlos Uquillas, M.D., sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles.

What Causes Muscle Soreness?

It’s pretty simple. If you tax a muscle that isn’t used to being taxed, you’re going to feel sore. “Eccentric loads create tension on the muscle fibers, which breaks them down and disrupts certain elements of the muscle cells,” Uquillas explains. Breaking down the muscle fibers initiates a cascade of inflammatory responses, leading to pain, swelling, and soreness.

Related: 7 Natural Pain Relievers That Really Work

Soreness and inflammation are mostly attributable to eccentric movements, such as dropping down for a squat (rather than standing back up, which is concentric movement). The soreness response can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to develop, which is why sometimes you work out and don’t feel stiff or achy until three days later. That’s totally normal and more common when you do unfamiliar movements.

“Soreness isn’t a marker of not being in shape; it just means the exercise is new to your body,” Uquillas explains.

Similarly, soreness isn’t a marker of the quality of your workout. “You can get a great workout—increasing strength, increasing endurance—and not be sore,” Uquillas adds.

When Is Soreness a Warning Sign?

There is definitely a threshold that separates good and bad soreness. Extreme soreness can develop into a condition called rhabdomyolysis—when the muscle tissue is so broken down that the fibers actually die instead of repair, releasing toxic contents into the bloodstream. This will make you crazy sore, but could also potentially land you in the hospital.

Don’t worry—rhabdomyolysis is pretty rare and you’re really only at risk if you’re hitting super intense workouts all the time, says Brian Bradley, Fitness Director of Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts at Sonima.

The grey area of being just sore enough and too sore is totally a personal thing. “Aside from rhabdomyolysis, being ‘too sore’ isn’t bad for you, except that it dissuades a lot of people from working out,” Bradley says. “Personally, I can’t stand being super sore.”

Uquillas agrees: “If you work out really hard and feel so terrible for two to three days that you take the next two weeks off from working out, then when you try again, you’re going to be sore all over again, and that cycle becomes super discouraging.”

Related: The New At-Home Weight-Loss Workout Program

Being over your threshold for tolerable soreness can also inhibit your ability to feel better. “When you’re so sore it hurts to move, you’re inclined to just sit with that feeling,” Bradley says. “If you do a less intense workout, though, you have that satisfaction of feeling sore but also the ability to flush out your muscles and move the next day.” 

How to Prevent Being So Sore You Can’t Move

Ease into a new workout gradually rather than going from zero to 60 on something you’ve never tried before. And stay hydrated: “When you’re dehydrated, your muscles are working with beef jerky instead of filet mignon,” Bradley says. You need water to help flush out your system, including metabolic particles that contribute to the post-workout pain and swelling.

You may also benefit from a low-intensity exercise program such as Elev8d Fitness. “The intensity of Elev8d workouts has been perfected to be the minimal effective dose your body needs at the chemical level, creating change so you can move better, be more balanced, and lose weight, without feeling like you’ve worked painfully hard,” Bradley says. So even if you’re sore from yesterday’s new eight-minute routine, you’re not too sore to move again today, flushing out your muscles and allowing you to work out again.

Transform your body without all the soreness! Try the Move Better, Feel Better, Look Better Home Workout Series. You’ll build strength, boost energy, and have better posture without beating up your body.

The post What Causes Muscle Soreness? And How Much Is Too Much? appeared first on Sonima.

One secret to building lean muscle mass is in the deep hip. “An increase in metabolic rate comes from hip-driven exercise,” says Brian Bradley, fitness director of Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts of Sonima. “Once you loosen up the hips and establish full range of motion, you tap into a completely different, deeper set of muscles.”

Related: The #1 Most Overlooked Muscle in Your Workout

The hips are the epicenter of the body. The strength and range of motion of all the load-bearing joints (shoulders, knees, ankles) depend on the alignment and functionality of the hips. Better range of motion allows your body to better activate your deepest muscle groups, which aids the creation of balanced, lean muscle mass.

Here’s an example: If the shoulder joint is functional and limber, movement in the shoulder will use all the muscles surrounding that joint. But if your shoulder has limited range of motion and is bound forward, you won’t be able to fully access and activate the posterior muscles around the joint. They will be effectively turned off and inactive. Full range of motion removes the muscular and structural limitations that keep us from accessing all our muscles.

Think about it this way: When you move, you should be moving with 100 percent of your body, your muscles functioning like one integrated, fluid system. Bad posture, imbalances, and muscular compensation disconnect the muscles in the body. This disconnect, Bradley says, is the crux of the problem: “If you only move the hip 50 percent of its natural range of motion, then you’re only getting 50 percent of the benefit as it relates to your metabolism. But if you’re moving it through its full natural range, then you’re getting full muscle engagement and full metabolic benefit.”

Related: The Most Effective At-Home Total-Body Workout Program

3 Movements to Activate the Deep Hip

These three dynamic movements are designed and sequenced specifically to access the hip flexors and activate the psoas—the core muscle that connects the lumbar vertebrae to the femur—and re-establish full range of motion in the hip joint.

The first exercise, Elev8d Figure 4, unloads your spine. We spend all day vertical, often with our back rounded and shoulders forward (especially if you sit at a computer all day). “Loading the spine horizontally puts you in mid-back/thoracic extension,” explains Bradley. “And as you cross the leg over and push that leg away, you’re teaching the leg bone how to rotate in the hip joint.” Even if you just did this static exercise, you’d spend the rest of the day with activated hip flexors.

Next, the Elev8d Bear Crawl Sideways focuses on lateral hip motion that you don’t often get in day-to-day life. “When you move left to right, it makes you load one hip at a time,” Bradley says. “And because most people favor one side versus the other—from repeatedly pressing a gas pedal, clicking a mouse, or carrying around a shoulder bag—we need to wake up these deep hip muscles to do the work while the spine is loaded in extension.” In this exercise, be sure to pull back with the hips, keeping as much of the work out of the shoulders and arms as you can. By loading the hips one at a time, you are ensuring that both sides are getting the same amount of work, effectively balancing this muscle group.

Finally, the Fake Jumps target the psoas and low back muscles. Think about this exercise as a plyometric jump that never gets off the ground. “You safely create that movement of jumping up onto a box,” Bradley says. “Swing your arms forward at high speed and then almost push off with your legs.” This exercise is a surprising amount of work. Not only do you drop down into a deep squat, but the sheer force of energy required to spring up will surprise you.

If you can fire up your foundational hip flexor group on a sustained, daily basis, your muscles will be conditioned to stay activated. And the more frequently you access and activate these deep muscles, the more lean muscle mass you will create, thus, raising your metabolic rate.

Craving more? Try the Elev8d Fitness Weight-Loss Workout Series. Each bodyweight workout lasts no longer than 24 minutes and is designed to recruit more muscles, boosting your metabolic rate.

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Working muscles in isolation like this conditions the body into an imbalanced alignment. For example, the front of your body might be muscular and strong from focused lifting, but the back of your body might be weak and underdeveloped. This ultimately tweaks your alignment and throws your posture out of whack.

A Better Approach to Working Out

When it comes to optimal training, all you need to do is move in all the ways your body is naturally meant to move. When you reconnect and activate all your disparate parts, the whole body becomes infinitely more athletic and functional.

“Our body was designed to move in eight core ways: over, under, around, sideways, rotation, flexion, extension, and push/pull,” Bradley says. “These movements originally allowed us to hunt, gather, and survive. But in our modern lives, we don’t run our bodies through the very directions they were designed to move. Our bodies are missing natural, organic movements, ones that will wake up the joints and get the systems moving efficiently.”

Related: 3 Best Exercises for Total-Body Fitness

What Role Does Alignment Play?

This type of functional movement is all about alignment. Why? Aligning the load-bearing joints (shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles) effectively restores the body to a balanced, symmetric structure. And when the body is aligned, you can move the joints through their full range of motion without restriction.

If you think this all sounds lofty, consider the movements you try to do in real life that are restricted by “tightness” or “lack of flexibility”, such as grabbing a kid’s toy from under the table or ducking under a tree branch on a hike. Half an hour on the elliptical won’t help you do any of these better, but core Elev8d moves, like Elev8d Side Unders and Bear Crawls, will.

Simply put: You cannot be functionally fit without incorporating those 8 natural movements, but you can be functionally fit without ever doing another biceps curl or stepping on the elliptical again.

Will Natural Movements Really Get You in Shape?

The answer is a resounding yes. “Basic human movement patterns tend to be multi-joint, which means you’re recruiting more muscles than you would with a single-joint activity. And generally, you can skip the curls and other single-joint moves because you’re working these muscles to an extent by doing these activities,” says Jason Machowsky, RD, CSCS, sports performance specialist and exercise physiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery. When you’re using more muscles, you’re working harder in a shorter amount of time, burning more calories and building more strength.

Related: This New Fitness Program Promotes Faster Weight Loss

Think about it: Elev8d Side Unders (demo below) work your core, glutes, hip flexors, hamstrings, abductors, and adductors while moving you under and sideways. Finish Line Abs work your deep abdominal muscles, glutes, and hip flexors while mimicking sprinting. These functional movements are total-body, using the muscles as an integrated system.

“To be a functioning human, you need to be whole-body driven. But the way most of us work out is really only part-driven,” Bradley explains. “Being part-driven is why people regularly go to the gym and don’t see results. It’s also why people go to work and their neck is chronically tight.”

So stop doing the traditional exercises that only ask you to be part-driven. They’re simply not as effective for your overall fitness.

Transform your body and become functionally fit with Elev8d Fitness, the revolutionary new approach to fitness that helps you achieve better results by doing less. The innovative At-Home Total-Body Workout Series burns calories, boosts energy, and strengthens and tones from head to toe in as little as 8 minutes a day.

The post Why You Should Ditch Traditional Exercises for Good appeared first on Sonima.

Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts at Sonima, is designed and sequenced to position the body for complete engagement. The exercises are slow and deliberate with an emphasis on form. “Our focus is on putting the body in the right place to tax all systems at once,” explains Brian Bradley, Fitness Director of Elev8d Fitness. “When you go slower, it requires a huge amount of stability.”

This also reduces the risk of developing dysfunctional compensations and ensures your body is aligned so you establish proper posture and functionality. When the body is working in concert like this, it can fire all the muscles at once. And that, Bradley explains, is where real transformation happens. “We train the body to function properly to give you a better metabolic reaction from your muscular system all day, long after you’ve finished your workout.” Here’s how it works:

Related: The Most Effective At-Home Total-Body Workout Series

The Plank Problem

When you load up into a forearm plank position, the impulse is often to round the back and shoulders and tuck the tailbone. In this version, you clasp your hands together and wing your elbows out, creating a triangle base to hold up the rest of the body. “And there’s nothing stronger than a triangle,” Bradley says. “But what are you compromising?” In this position, the shoulders and upper back are taking the workload. Sure, you may be working your abs, but nothing is gluing it all together. The abdominal wall is trying to work in isolation and the shoulders are trying to work in isolation.

“When your form is out of whack, your body takes the path of least resistance,” Bradley explains. “That group of muscles is only firing because it’s trying to take over for what the other muscles aren’t doing.” The position of the body in the plank is so compromised that you’re actually exacerbating the compromise rather than strengthening from a position of correct posture.

How Do I Fix It?

If you pin the shoulder blades together and drop the chest cavity, you establish a functional curve in the lower back. This fires the core like crazy but also engages the rest of the body. You may not be able to hold this position as long but that is the point. When you are deliberate with form, your workout engages the whole body and becomes infinitely more efficient. “You are decreasing the time and increasing the work,” Bradley says. “And you’re working six hundred muscles, rather than about twenty.”

And this is what makes the Elev8d Fitness workouts so powerfully efficient. The increase in muscle and joint demand is where caloric burn comes from. An exercise with correct form fires not only the deep core muscles but also the smaller stabilizing muscles around the joints. And that is the key to kicking up your metabolism and efficiently toning the body.

Related: This Workout Boosts Strength in 8 Minutes

The 8-Minute Total Body Transformation

At first glance, this eight-minute workout may not seem particularly challenging. Unlike HIIT, Elev8d Fitness workouts are low-intensity. “Remember, we slow down the exercises to focus on the quality of movement,” Bradley says. By focusing on form, you are asking the body to work in concert. Proper alignment allows the deep core muscles to fire all at once. As these larger muscles fire and do the heavy lifting, you further refine the functionality of your eight load-bearing joints (shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles).

There’s also an inherent feeling of wellness that comes along with proper form and deep muscle work, Bradley says. After a true total-body workout, your metabolic rate will stay raised for hours. You may even find that you’re not craving sugar and you’re sleeping better. “These are the long-term effects of a functional, form-focused method like Elev8d Fitness,” Bradley says. “Your body is working in harmony.”

Love this workout? Try more from Elev8d Fitness powered by Sonima!

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Often the only constant in our busy lives is mornings. Schedules and responsibilities may vary wildly from day-to-day, but every day starts the same: You wake up. This consistent context is the best time and environment to create and maintain habits, whether it’s drinking coffee, meditating in bed, or writing in a journal. The point is to create a morning ritual that sets the tone for the rest of the day. If you have a calm, happy morning, you’re far more likely to have a calm, happy day.

Related: 10 Quick Home Workouts to Jumpstart Every Morning

But just as you align your thoughts with meditation or journaling, it is as important to align your body to prepare for the day.

The Benefits of Alignment

Ideally, the body should be a symmetrical unit. The load-bearing joints (shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles) should be even and balanced. But environmental influences (sitting, injuries, lack of diverse movement) causes our musculature and skeleton to shift into asymmetrical positions. Your spine settles into a hunched, C-shape from sitting at a desk all day, and your shoulder punches forward in your morning run to make up for your misaligned hip. All these compensations come at a cost. When the body is out of whack, overall wellness suffers.

However, when your body is in alignment, your various interconnected systems—digestive, nervous, and lymph—function more smoothly. Alignment can do wonders for energy too. When you remove postural limitations such as an out of whack shoulder or a creaky hip, oxygen can flow more freely through the body. Adjustments in posture have even been shown to improve headaches, sleep, and mood.

Related: A Meditation to Help You Prepare for Restful Sleep

Quick Start for a Better Day

Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts at Sonima, is an alignment-based method that focuses on form and quality of moment. The exercises are designed to re-establish your body’s symmetrical posture and natural range of motion.

The short alignment sequence below is the perfect way to wake up the body and activate the deep stabilizing muscles. Each exercise gently activates the hips and spine, expands the diaphragm, and eases the shoulders back into a straight and open posture.

In just a few minutes, your blood will be pumping, releasing endorphins, the feel-good hormone. The Squat exercise will activate the hips to establish a healthy S-shape in the spine, a crucial reset if you plan to be sitting in a chair for most of the day.  And you’ll love Shadow Boxing. It’s nearly impossible to pop around on your toes and box an imaginary opponent without a smile on your face!

Even better, research shows that it’s the initiation of an exercise activity that solidifies the habit, not the execution. In other words, once you stand up and decide to exercise, the rest is more or less an automated follow-through. So start every day with an 8-, 16-, or 24-minute Elev8d Fitness workout, and you may soon find yourself looking forward to waking up and working out. It not only boosts energy and puts you in a great mindset for the day, it’s also fun!

Active Cows Face | 5x Per Side

1. Place your feet fist-width apart and point them straight ahead; you may even pigeon-toe them slightly.
2. Move your right arm toward your head and reach to the center of the back while you, simultaneously, bring your left arm up from the hip to the center of the back, getting the fingers as close to touching as possible.
3. Return arms to their original position then repeat process with opposite arms, bringing the left to the center of the back from above, the right from beneath.

Active Squat | 5x

1. Spread your feet just wider than your hips and point your toes straight ahead.
2. Extend your arms directly in front of you, palms down.
3. Drop your hips into the squat but keep your pelvis rolled forward so that there’s a small arch in your back—this arch is crucial!
4. Slowly return to standing.

Shadow Boxing | 30 Seconds

1. Stagger your legs with one foot forward, one foot back.
2. Shuffle the feet and switch foot position consistently.
3. Simultaneously throw punches with alternating fists, keeping your hands up near the head.

Transform your body and start every day off right in a little as 8 minutes a day! Try the innovative Elev8d Fitness program that boosts energy to keep your body and your mind sharp all day long.

The post The 3 Dynamic Exercises You Should Do Every Morning appeared first on Sonima.

If you’re new to Tabata, it’s a specific type of high intensity interval training, or HITT, in which you alternate between 20-second bouts of all-out effort and 10 seconds of rest. A complete workout is eight rounds long, or four minutes total. The name comes from Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata, who in 1996 authored a study that showed athletes who trained on an ergometer (an exercise bike) for a total of 20 minutes per week experienced similar aerobic benefits to a group that performed more moderate exercise each week for five hours.

HIIT training techniques, like Tabata, appear to have an outsize impact on fat loss. A 1994 study from Quebec found that while exercisers who used HIIT burned fewer calories during the actual workout than those using longer endurance training, they lost nine times more fat. In 2008, Australian researchers, who compared the fat loss effects of HIIT and steady state cardio in young women, found that HIIT caused a significantly greater decrease in total body fat. Researchers aren’t sure why HIIT techniques are so adept at annihilating adipose. A 2011 review of 64 studies published in the Journal of Obesity chalked it up to several potential factors, including the hormonal response it causes (HIIT stimulates the release of fat-burning catecholamines) and a possible appetite-suppression effect.

For all of these reasons, Tabata has recently captured the imagination of trainers and other fit-minded individuals, who have applied the :20/:10 pattern to seemingly everything, even planks. And that’s where things have started to get wonky, and leads us to the part that everyone screws up.

Related: The Case for Exercising Less to Get the Results You Want

The crucial element of Tabata, according to Craig Marker, Ph.D., associate professor at Mercer University and Research Director at Strongfirst.com, is intensity. “The concept of Tabata training is to go at max effort,” Marker says. “One of the reasons that the original research was done on an ergometer was so that there would not be easy place to rest.”

That means any exercise in which there’s a natural place to pause—the top of a push-up, the bottom of a burpee, or the moment after you’ve landed from a jump squat, for example—isn’t really congruent with the technique. “Some athletes might be able to do a push-up in an all-out manner. The difficulty is that one could rest at the top or bottom of the movement,” Marker says, adding, “I am not sure many people have that much upper body endurance to do a push-up in a sprint-like manner.”

Your best bet is any exercise that has constant forward movement, or no easy place for rest. (Both of which are reasons why planks are definitely not Tabata-able.) “The key is to think about accelerating throughout the movement,” Marker says. “It will likely be impossible to keep accelerating for 20 seconds, but the idea is to push as hard as you can.”

You can effectively apply the Tabata protocol to the six exercises below, be in-line with the original study, and presumably be better able to capture similar cardiovascular benefits. But before you do, beginners should take a longer warm-up before diving in to the workout, and may want to scale back the intensity at first.

Keep in mind another often-overlooked fact about Tabata: During the original study, researchers would cut a subject’s workout off at seven intervals if the person was falling off pace. You should do the same—and may even want to wrap it up sooner if you feel like you’re dying a few rounds in, which given the intensity, you might. “I would strongly suggest that people stop at seven sets if their performance is slowing,” Marker says. “I stop most of my athletes at seven sets as it is difficult to maintain that pace for the full eight. Tabata’s team was working with elite athletes. For the everyday athlete, I might even suggest fewer sets, like three to five.” As you get used to the exertion, you can add intervals over time.

Here are six ways to tap into Tabata’s power—and test your own personal mettle.

TABATA WORKOUT #1: Sprints (run, bike, swim)

By land or sea, nothing exudes constant forward motion like a sprint. Mercer says the bike is probably a better bet for beginners. He also recommends against using a treadmill, which can take time to speed up and slow down.

TABATA WORKOUT #2: Jump Rope

Jumping rope in a Tabata format can be tricky if you tend to hit your feet with the rope a few times in a set. But if you can consistently get up and over the line, it’s a great Tabata option. Keep count of how many times you clear it during your first set, then try to hit or beat that number in your successive ones.

TABATA WORKOUT #3: Mountain Climbers

This move poses a dual challenge in that your upper body has to support you while you’re lower body stays in constant motion. Performing mountain climbers with your feet on a slideboard or on a set of Valslides (like this) will make it even more potent.

TABATA WORKOUT #4: Battle Rope Waves

You’ll probably have to head to a gym to get the right gear for this one (pictured above), although the heavy ropes are coming down in price. Remember to keep moving for the entire work interval (see sample moves here). This is another exercise where you can keep track of your reps on your first set (count every time your right arm moves as one), and try to meet or exceed that number on every set that follows.

TABATA WORKOUT #5: Prowler Sled or Plate Pushes

If your gym has a prowler or weighted sled, try pushing that as far as you can during every work interval. No prowler? No problem. Put one of the larger weight plates (a 25-, 35- or 45-pounder) on the floor and push that. Just be sure that you’re doing it on a surface that glides (astroturf is best) and that won’t get damaged by the plate.

TABATA WORKOUT #6: Kettlebell Swings

This is a skill movement—one that’s more technical and involved than you think. It’s definitely not supposed to be a bent-over half-squat with a shoulder raise at the end, which you will see some people do. Read up on how to swing properly before you dive in.

The post 6 Tabata Workouts That Torch Fat appeared first on Sonima.

As your little one continues to grow, it’s important for you to stay active and healthy in preparation for childbirth. “The pelvis has to open up and extend itself so that the baby can turn head down and get into the birthing canal,” says alignment expert Pete Egoscue, the founder of the Egoscue Method and world leader in non-medical pain relief. “Change in the structure of the body is necessary to give the baby room to grow and get themselves in position for birth.”

Fitness during pregnancy has many additional perks, including improving mood and energy levels, preventing excess weight gain, and decreasing the risk gestational diabetes, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Working out regularly may help you sleep better, too, reports a 2013 study published in The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association. Added bonus: A new animal study published in The FASEB Journal in March suggests that babies born to fit mommies may be more inclined to be physically active as adults compared to those who have sedentary parents.

Follow this simple 30-minute exercise program designed by Egoscue to reap these benefits while getting ready for the special delivery that’s well on its way.

Related: How to Approach Yoga During Your Pregnancy

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