• Stand erect, eyes focus on a single point.
• Shift your weight to one leg. Raise your other leg and place the sole of your food on your standing thigh.  If you leg slips, hold your ankle with one hand.
• Once balanced. hold your arms either above your head, straight out to the side, or with hands clasped in prayer position at the center of your chest.
• Slowly breath in and out 5 breathes.

Benefits:

• Improves the posture and elongates the spine
• Strengthens the knees and ankles
• Opens the groin
• Helps with balance and centering

(if keeping your balance is difficult, try tree pose lying down)

• Stand with feet under hips, arms held straight ahead.
• Exhale and slowly lower your body into a squat position as though sitting on a chair.
• Keep feet flat  on the floor, hip-width apart, knees over ankles.
• Gaze beyond your arms.  Hold for a slow count of 10.

Benfits:

• Energizes the entire body
• stetches the back of the legs and calves
• Strengthens  the Anchilles tendons, ankles and thigh muscles

in action

Originally uploaded by O2 MAX

Saturday morning the gym was busy. Step-Up women’s network brought their girls to O2 MAX for a workout. We started off with a couple laps around the building to warm up, a little stretching-then the workout.

When the girls first arrived we start out with an introduction, each of the girls and volunteers introduced them self-their favorite thing to do and then they asked a question they have always had in a gym.

We did circuit training at various station set up throughout the gym. Then learned a bit about cardio intervals. The girls on the spin bikes got a real workout. One of the questions that came up was-”whats up with the spin class?”, The girls got to feel what what a spin class feels like. When they got off the bike they were tired and had worked up quite a sweat. After the workout the girls got to explore the gym-some did a little more working out, others played on the computer and a little Wii action.

How to:

Fig 1: Bend right Knee, forming a right angle with your calf and thigh; right thigh parallel to the floor.  Turn head and gaze over your right hand.

Fig 2: Bend at the waist and bring the fingertips of your right hand to the floor, outside your right foot.  Extend your left arm above your head, creating a straight line between left hand and left foot.  Hold for several breaths. 

Release your hands, straighten your upper body, then your right leg.  Repeat on the left side.

Benefits:

• Improves flexibility of the torso
• Strengthens the feet, ankles, knees and legs
• Elongates the spine
• Opens the hip area
• Increases endurance and stamina

Triangle: How to:

fig 1:

• Stand with feet about three feet apart.
• Turn right food out 90degrees, turn left foot in about 30 degrees
• Inhale, stretch arms out from shoulders. Hips forward. Bend right

fig 2:

• Rest right arm on shin and extend your other arm toward the ceiling.  Look up at your thumb if you can do so without straining.
• Hold for several breathes.
• Release, rest reverse pose.

Benefits:

• Improves flexibility of the torso
• Strengthens the feet, ankles, and legs
• Elongates the spine
• Opens the hip area
• Increases endurance and stamina

Good luck with Triangle Pose-I’ll be posting daily yoga poses, so keep checking back for more.

-Shirley

Originally uploaded by chilib

O2 MAX has amerian apparel clothes for sale:

Tshirts: orange or asphault -$15
Tanks: black, white or olive green-$12

swing by the studio and check it out.

Originally uploaded by O2 MAX

Yesterday Lucas brough in Kostas-for yet another day! They started out with some weight lifting, then discoverd the fun of BOSU. If you thought you could only squat and crunch on a BOSU we have news for you. Look at the air Kostas caught. Pretty awesome!

In yoga or other mediation you often her people chanting, but what are they saying? ohmmmm, Ohmmm. Here is behind what they are really saying:

Om has several meanings. It is

• The Sound of All Sounds
• The Sound of the Universe
• The sound of Creation
• The Beginning of Life

Om contains 4 separate parts:

ah/oh/mmm/silence

• Sit comfortably with your back straight. Inhale. On the exhalation begin chanting om. Remember the 4 distinct pats.
• Pause. Inhale and exhale. Chant twice more.

Benefits:

• Releaes tension and dispels negative energy
• Promotes a feeling of total peace
• Releases powerful spiritual vibrations
• Fills the entires self with luminous energy

I was driving back from a meeting this morning and was listening to a news segment on Michael Phelps and was fascinated. He eats between 8,000-10,000 calories a day and weighs less than 200 pounds. Granted he spends about 5 hours a day training but still-that is a LOT of calories!!! His “typical” day consists of eat, train, sleep. Not a bad lifestyle I say.

I got back to my computer and did some research of my own to see what the typical athlete consumes.

Very few it seems are actually obsessed with counting calories or the food they consume. They see food as fuel and eat it to optimize and enhance their performance. I came across this quick Q & A that was done to find out what Dara Torres (whose picture hangs on my fridge currently for inspiration everytime I open the fridge,) Mary Lou Retton, Apolo Anton Ohno & Erik Vendt.

I always tell my clients (myself included) to try to view food as fuel and to surround workouts with proper food and hydration. It not only helps you recover faster from workouts but it also helps you have a healthier approach to food. Here is some more insight into what some high school athletes eat.

In the United States, the odds of making the Olympic team or winning a medal in the Games themselves is pretty astonishing.  To qualify for the marathon you must qualify to run in the Olympic Trials, held a few months before the actual Olympic Marathon. Hundreds of thousands of marathoners in the US try out and less than 300 runners, male and female, actually meet the qualifying standard.

The 300 runners run in the Olympic Trials Marathon and the top 3 finishers make up the US team. You have to be one of the three best on that specific day. 

Then consider what it takes to win a gold medal or even a silver or bronze. You have to be the best in the entire world ON that day. You must beat the best athlete from every other country.

When we look at the numbers, it gives us a more realistic understanding of what it actually takes to earn an Olympic spot. And, these athletes have only one chance every four years!!