CoreFit » yoga

Daily Mantra: Stay With Yourself

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 13:53:09 +0000

Monday morning can be difficult but it always presents a new opportunity to start fresh. You can change how you feel physically by taking a small step today towards a goal. Monday is a day to practice staying with yourself. Being present, being aware of yourself in your surroundings. Stop reflecting on the resistance that’s pushing in around you. Quiet the external thoughts that bombard you while you workout. Feel whatever your body wants you to feel. Allowing yourself to feel the momentary physical awareness will quiet your mind from the chatter going on around you and let you be open enough to progress forward. It’s a physical revelation. And when you start trusting your deepest feelings, whether or not you can explain them, you start trusting your body to do what it was designed to do. Before getting to this point, I wouldn’t let myself do something unless I knew I could explain it. Now the explanation can come later.

1. Relax into yourself. Trust your body not to lead you astray.

2. Stay with your experience; whatever you are feeling–tightness, pinching, opening–stay with that feeling and acknowledge it as temporary.

3. Feel the joy of your ability to experience. Many people in this world don’t have the ability to experience physically what you can.

4. Surround yourself with this joyful thing, this experience. Know that you are loved by this joyful thing, this gift of physical experience. Love it back, in the moment.

5. Relax into yourself, because you know you are this joyful thing. You are this physical gift.

Daily Mantra: Resistance

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 14:23:19 +0000

People start resisting when they are making themselves do something that they don

The Body You Want

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 16:08:08 +0000

Ever wonder why you can’t change certain parts of your body when you exercise? It may be a lack of body awareness. Research shows that lack of body awareness creates an inability to engage muscle, and this awareness is an important tool in progress changes in your body. If there’s a certain part of your body that is especially challenging and just won’t budge, it may be because you are not activating the muscles that encompass it properly.

Tips for improving body awareness:

1) Start With Pressure; Notice where your body contacts the earth. For example, in this bow pose, my foot is in contact and is supporting my entire (5’10!) frame. That’s a lot of strength in that little foots. It’s all because I am applying pressure evenly across the four corners of my foot, and I am able to do this because I am cognizant of the muscular contractions in my foot.

2) Change Your Posture; Until you feel the proper activation, keep moving your body to a different position. For example, on my body, my left abdominal wall is weaker than my right, so I need a different angle to properly engage all my obliques and anterior abs. If I change the angle I am working in while engaging my left side, I get the same work done as my right.

3) Engage Your Multifidus; Remember those tiny muscles that support your spine I spoke of so lovingly last week? Yep, they’re integral in allowing you to engage all your muscles eloquently. Instead of over using the major muscle groups and getting bigger and bulkier because you lack the foundational strength of the multifidus, try working on pelvic tiles and engagement FIRST before you do any other exercise. I start my day with my multifidus pelvic tilts and ab exercises, then move on to other exercises that engage the larger muscle groups.

Triangle Pose Break Down

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:52:07 +0000

Ever wonder how I get such great abs?

This break down of the Triangle Pose illustrates the usage of the inner thigh and the full abdominal wall. It’s one of my favorite poses to do for an overall toned appearance and it also stretches out my hamstrings really well. A great pose to counter the affects of the forward motion of running.

The Heart Loves Yoga

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:48:16 +0000

Yoga for Atrial Fibrillation

The first ever yoga study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found yoga to be a safe, effective and relatively cheap therapy for improving the lives of heart patients.

The study conducted by The University of Kansas Hospital found that,

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You are Beautiful

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:15:31 +0000

It doesn’t look like a chiseled Ryan Gosling or a Victoria Secret runway model. Still it’s beautiful, no?

This is the velella (Velella Velella), a small free floating hydrozoan. It’s currently the only known species in the genus.
They’re also known as sea-rafts or by-the-wind-sailors, for the obvious reason that it uses the the “sail” you can see in this image for locomotion. Because of this, they are often found washed up on beaches.

Democracy/Autonomy

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:04:53 +0000

Democracy means a lot of things in America; it means we are allowed to make and spend money the way we please. it means we are able to cross financial class barriers and be competitive with our success. and it also means that the majority dictates the larger picture. the larger meaning of what we want to represent to the world. Moving forward, it means keeping the faith.

In life, we also have choices. Personally, professionally, that you “take this obligation to yourself freely,” these carry us forward. Autonomy from the Greek words for “self” and “law” means “one who gives oneself their own law.”
Choose yourself. Choose to invest in yourself and your ideas. With every minor step forward, your subconscious will see the value in making good choices. And the larger democracy of our beliefs will move us forward with or without resistance. No matter what you believe, struggling is always the more difficult proposition. But it usually produces really great results.

Runners Yoga

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 09:53:43 +0000

LEyogaflow-runnersyoga

Yogi

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:41:39 +0000

Challenge #18: Stretch

Shayna Robinson, MSPT, PhD — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:32:50 +0000

Sunday is a perfect day for a stretch challenge. You’ve worked hard all week–now it’s time to reap the benefits of exercise with some STRETCH recovery.

Do your light workout today–whatever that may be. Then go through this yoga stretch routine and see if it helps you refocus your mind and body (to recovery), so it’s primed and ready for Monday.