Yoga Rule #1: Focus on Your Breath

No need to be flexible or even warm-up before class! The purpose of yoga is not to do all those fancy, pretzel-like poses. The purpose is to breathe and find the edge – not to jump off of it.

Yoga Rule #2: Bring a Yoga Mat

A non-skid, yoga mat that is at least the length of your body and preferably a foot wider than your shoulder girdle.

Yoga Rule #3: Wear Comfortable clothing

Comfortable clothing you can move in. From sweats to shorts and t-shirts, make sure your clothes won’t get in the way and offer the most mobility. You’ll sweat for sure, so synthetics are generally the best bet.

Yoga Rule #4: Show Up to Class!

Sweaty classes at Black Swan Yoga are great to start with because the standard sequence will not only work and release your entire body but will allow you to benchmark your progress as well.

Yoga Rule #5: Embrace Bare Feet

Yes! Many beginning yogis come to their mats wearing socks. You’ll be less stable in the standing poses with socks — so take those suckers off!

Yoga Rule #6: Power Down Your Electronics

Nothing is more embarrassing than your phone going off during opening or closing meditation.

Yoga Rule #7: Non-comparison and Non-judgment

Don’t compare yourself to other yogis in the room and don’t judge yourself for not being able to do all the poses. Take things at your own pace. Really! This isn’t a competition.

Yoga Rule #8: Bring a Sense of Humor

You may over exert yourself or completely fall out of a pose. No worries! That’s part of the process and the fun of it. Laugh it off, kick back into Child’s Pose or give it another shot.

Yoga Rule #9: Arrive on Time and Stay Until the End

Yoga is a progression, so you don’t want to miss the warmup by arriving late or skip out early and miss the most important (and yummy) pose of them all: corpse pose.

Yoga Rule #10: Stay Relaxed

The awesome, euphoric, centered feeling you’ll experience at the end of class. Wanna know what brings people back to the mat time and time again? It’s the sense of lightness, presence and ease one feels after a good class. There ain’t nothin’ like it!

The post 10 Rules of Yoga for Beginners appeared first on Onnit Academy.

And yet, many of us still think of it as “stretching” when in fact yoga is far more than that, as evidenced by the fact that elite athletes from NFL stars to Ultramarathon runners have found it to be an invaluable addition to their training.

In fact, properly practiced, yoga can improve every part of your performance, from endurance to power to speed, while also promoting overall health and wellness. In this article, we’ll take a look at what yoga can give you, as well as the basics of a regular practice.

A Background and Foundation In Yoga For Athletic Performance

We all know that yoga, much like the martial arts, is part of an ancient and deep tradition. In their quest for greater self-knowledge, the yogis realized our physical state deeply influences both our mood and mental capacity.

They found that by practicing the physical postures of yoga, they could become more peaceful and in turn achieve greater focus.

They also found by returning the body to its natural state that they could dramatically improve physical capacity, part of why many of today’s top athletes consider it a staple in their training.

The Athletic Performance Benefits Of Yoga

Of course, if you’ve looked at a few yoga videos or articles, you might be skeptical about the benefits; obviously, even the most intense yoga routine doesn’t compare with something like interval training or deadlifts.

This is true and part of why, even as a teacher and practitioner, I still include things like sandbag training, hill sprints, and sledgehammer work in my routine.

The point is not that yoga can replace conventional (or unconventional) training, but rather how it can enhance it.

By improving not only flexibility but also posture, body mechanics, and awareness, yoga can make every form of training you do more effective and efficient. In my experience, a regular yoga practice can give you the following and more:

Increased Power

We all know power, strength, and speed are directly related to proper body mechanics: when our body is properly aligned, we can transmit force much more efficiently and perform better across the board.

Whatever your sport, by returning your body to its optimal alignment, yoga can help you reduce power leakage in your deads and cleans, improve running gait and efficiency, and help you punch, jump, or throw more explosively.

Better Endurance

By opening posture, yoga significantly increases respiratory capacity; in fact, many have overcome asthma and other respiratory conditions through regular practice. Obviously, this is invaluable to athletes.

Yoga has also been proven to dramatically enhance circulation, digestion, and efficiency of motion, which all further improve energy and endurance.

Better Balance/Proprioception

Along with opening the body, yoga builds greater body awareness, including balance, stability, and proprioception. As a result, not only is performance enhanced but our training becomes far more efficient.

Better Injury Prevention

Of course, we all know that the one thing that stalls progress even more than inadequate training is an injury.

By improving body mechanics and awareness, yoga dramatically reduces the risk of injury, both in training and competition, in turn increasing competitive longevity and allowing more consistent progress in our sport.

Enhanced Recovery

A little-appreciated but significant benefit for athletes is improved recovery. By enhancing circulation and lymphatic flow, yoga not only increases strength and endurance but also allows muscles to process metabolic byproducts more quickly, powerfully speeding healing time and re-growth.

Improved Focus

Finally (and perhaps most important of all), regular practice dramatically enhances our clarity and focus. Why does this matter?

As Ultraman world-champion, Rich Roll states, “When you look at the highest level of sport, all athletes are incredibly talented and train extremely hard.

So what distinguishes the Olympic champion from the ‘also-ran?’ The mind.” Practiced regularly, yoga can give you the awareness and mindfulness you need to take both your training and your performance to the next level.

Of course, the list goes on and on. In addition to the above, yoga’s been clinically proven to improve immune function, balance hormonal balance and improve stress management, all extremely beneficial to athletes.

Put together; you can see why so many professionals have come to consider yoga every bit as indispensable to their training as strength or conditioning.

“But I’m Too Stiff to Do Yoga….”

This is a point you may be thinking: “All this is great, but the fact is that I’m too stiff to do yoga.” As a teacher, I’ve heard this countless times, in fact, I used to think it myself. But the reality is the opposite: the tighter we are, the more we can benefit from yoga.

In fact, yoga teacher Richard Freeman calls it “the Blessing of Stiffness,” meaning that the tighter we are, the easier we can experience a stretch and the quicker we benefit from practice (even if it’s basic).

The key is to keep it simple: just like lifting, sometimes the variety of yoga can be overwhelming, especially if we assume “more advanced” means more results.

In our tradition, we believe the variety is there not to be “mastered,” it is there so we can find the poses that fit us.

For example, a more experienced practitioner might use Bow or Wheel to open the torso while a beginner might find that Cobra is plenty. In other words, we don’t need “hard” poses to experience these benefits, particularly at the start.

Now that you know what yoga can do for you, even if you happen to be less flexible, let’s take a look at the basics.

Athletic Performance Benefits of Yoga: 7 Forms of Movement

Just like we can breakdown weight-training into key categories (e.g., lift, push, pull, etc.), in yoga we believe there are seven basic forms of movement that are vital to health and performance and that we try to include each session:

● Standing Poses – Build leg-strength as well as flexibility in the hips and
hamstrings.
● Balancing Poses – Increase body awareness, stabilization, and proprioception.
● Backward Bends – Improve posture, respiration, digestion, and elimination.
● Forward Bends – Promote health of posterior chain and help balance autonomic
nervous system.
● Inversions – Improve immune function and enhance circulation in legs.
● Arm Balances – Build core and upper-body strength and improve balance/body-
awareness.
● Twists – Improve posture, shoulder-mobility, respiration, digestion, elimination,
and health of spine and nervous system.

Much like the “food groups,” we use these forms of movement to build our program, making sure to include at least a pose or two from each group whenever we practice.

Just like you might find certain vegetables agree with you more than others, or that deadlifts fit you better than back squats, in yoga, one backbend might work better than another.

We feel that it’s good to find what works for you, gradually deepening over time.

Likewise, depending on where you hold tightness or feel your health and performance could be improved, you might increase the number of poses or length of time in a given area.

In short, as we deepen our practice, we gradually build a “toolbox” of poses that fit both our bodies and our goals.

Athletic Performance Benefits of Yoga: Key Principles

Along with the basic categories of movement, there are a few simple principles that can guide you in your routine. When in doubt, the following will assure you progress in a constructive way:

● Standing Poses – Build leg-strength as well as flexibility in the hips and hamstrings.

● Consistency Beats Volume – The first key is that practice doesn’t need to be long; 10-15 minutes daily is plenty and better than 90 minutes once a week. Daily is ideal, but 3-4 days a week is fine. Likewise, time in each pose can be brief: 20-30 seconds being sufficient, especially
at the start. An excellent approach is to hold each pose for five slow breaths: as you become more proficient, the breath will become deeper, and in turn, you’ll hold each pose a little longer.

● Mindfulness Beats Intensity – As athletes, it’s not uncommon to approach yoga with the idea “more/harder is better,” but in this case the opposite is true, our muscles respond far better to “gentle persuasion” than force. Also, remember the primary goal of yoga is building mind-body communication which we can’t do if we’re “forcing it.” In yoga, we often use the expression: “Effort but no strain,” very similar to Pavel Tsatsouline’s idea of training to a “comfortable stop.” Bottom line: like any exercise, we want to challenge ourselves enough to grow but not so much that we’re breaking down rather than building up.

● Active Respiratory Openness – Another guiding principle is “active openness.” In all our poses, even forward bending poses or twists, our torso can be more “closed” or “open.” Obviously, when we’re more open we can breathe more fully, so within each pose we try to engage
the core and “lengthen” the torso, again, a skill that directly translates to better energy and power during sports performance.

● Short-Term Quality, Long-Term Variety – Taking an analogy from nutrition, we all know that many foods are “highly-nutritious,” but we also know that we don’t have to eat every one of them every meal. In fact, we tend to digest better and get greater benefits if we spread them out. Yoga is the same; by focusing on “quality work” in a few poses each session and varying our selection over the course of the week, we can be sure our bodies are getting the movement they need in a form that’s “easily digestible” for us.

Athletic Performance Benefits of Yoga: Yoga Workouts

Given these principles, what does a basic practice look like? Obviously the details of the poses takes a bit more space than an article like this can cover, but below is an example of a routine, including poses for basic, intermediate, and more advanced practitioners.

To learn more, a class or private session is great or if you’ve got good body-awareness, you can learn what you need from a book, dvd, or website. Check the end of this article for some good resources.

Again, even “experienced” students might include the basic poses below and simply add more challenging poses in the areas where it fits them. Likewise, as we advance we often hold poses longer, particularly inversions and strength poses.

This is just a starting point; the classic texts of yoga state that there are literally thousands of poses and variations, but in our tradition we feel the above is a solid beginning from which to expand and grow.

Moving Beyond: Suggestions and Resources

Again, for building a practice, classes or private sessions are usually the easiest approach; the key is finding a style that fits you.

It can be helpful to know that some traditions are more athletic and intense while others are more meditative and relaxing; find what fits your body and compliments your training.

Likewise, be sure to shop for an instructor you like; if a teacher’s style doesn’t match yours, odds are that it’s going to limit your experience.

Take your time to check around, meet teachers, have them describe their style, and remember that if one doesn’t fit, there are many others out there.

Of course, if you happen to be more of a “self-starter,” books and websites really are also excellent option. Here are a few you might check out: www.YogaJournal.com, Light on Yoga by BKS Lyengar, Yoga the Lyengar Way by Silva Mehta, and The Sivananda Companion to Yoga.

Whatever approach you take, the main thing is take your time and trust your body as the “ultimate authority,” listen to it and you’ll do each pose the right way for you.

With consistent practice, you too can experience better performance, improved health, and greater peace of mind, whatever your sport and whatever your degree of flexibility. Give it a try (no spandex required)!

The post 6 Athletic Performance Benefits of Yoga & How to Achieve Them appeared first on Onnit Academy.

I didn’t come to yoga naturally – I wasn’t drawn to flowing pose sequences, mindfulness or even the very real benefit of improved flexibility.

And I stuck to my guns…until my body rebelled.

Severe, Lower Back Pain Led Me to Yoga

I had my first knock-you-to-your-knees-in-tears back spasm in 2007. I don’t think I’ve even been in such excruciating pain. I couldn’t sit up, stand up or walk without gasping and almost falling over from shooting pains.

Of course it was a Friday. I didn’t have a primary care physician and didn’t want to spend the money to go to a hospital or urgent care facility, so I stayed home from work, popped Tylenol and did the only thing I knew might help – stretch and foam roll.

It took a week to recover from the acute spasm, and I spent the next several years dealing with regular, chronic pain. Sometimes it was better, sometimes it was worse, but I didn’t have another severe spasm until 2013, then again in 2015.

I followed self-care regimens. Saw a chiropractor, took OTC medicine when necessary, used muscle salves and tried just about every foam roller and massage ball on the market. I kept exercising, worked on core strength, paid attention to my diet and tried to tack on a few stretches to the end of my workouts. But the truth was, I was in constant pain.

A New Commitment

It was after my spasm in 2015 that I said, “This isn’t working. I need to try something new.” My sister swore her yoga class helped her lower back pain, so I made a commitment: I’d do a 20-minute yoga class every day for 30 days and see how I felt.

Yoga is for everyone because it’s functional. It improves movement patterns, corrects muscle imbalances and alignment. It requires you to move through a full range of motion as you enhance dynamic flexibility. 

It was nothing fancy – just a $15 yoga DVD I’d had sent to me some months previously, but for 30 days, I stuck to the plan. I’d walk my dogs in the morning, then start the DVD.

It became my savior. I noticed I wasn’t hurting as much or as often. I’d spend hours without thinking about lower back pain at all. I could pick things up off the ground without worrying whether my back might give out. I started running again – something I’d given up for some time.

And I began to recognize my own negative movement patterns and correct them by going through simple yoga sequences.

After several months of daily yoga, I stopped following the same routine, but continued incorporating my own sequences into workouts, adding 15 or 20 minutes after a HIIT or strength training session.

Unlike traditional, static stretching, flowing yoga sequences seemed to target more muscle groups simultaneously, working to improve posture and core strength while enhancing flexibility through the hips, glutes, hamstrings and low back – all of my lower back pain trouble zones.

It’s been more than a year since my last spasm, and while I can’t claim the pain is completely gone, I haven’t felt this good in years. I credit yoga for giving me back my… well, back.

Yoga’s Benefits Are For Everyone

My experience taught me that yoga is for everyone, and that my own negative views of the practice, “It’s too easy, it won’t benefit me enough, I want a ‘real’ workout” were ignorant, self-defeating and short-sighted.

Yoga’s not just for women, or just for people who like to meditate. It’s not just for the super bendy or for people who don’t like to work up a sweat. Though, if you love sweating, try out a hot yoga class.

Yoga is for everyone because it’s functional. It improves movement patterns, corrects muscle imbalances and alignment. It requires you to move through a full range of motion as you enhance dynamic flexibility. It encourages deep breathing which helps circulate oxygen and nutrients to your cells.

And yes, there’s a mindfulness component, but it doesn’t have to be in a “hippie dippie” sort of way. It can teach you to move thoughtfully, to connect your brain and your body so you develop better coordination and balance.

As if these benefits weren’t enough, science also indicates yoga:

· Decreases anxiety and offers promising results as a complementary treatment for depression
· Reduces pain and improves function in patients with arthritis
· Plays a complementary role in treating asthma to improve respiration
· Improves most risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes
· Enhances sleep quality, even in patients with insomnia

The Four-Pose Challenge

There are real, legitimate benefits to signing up for an in-person yoga class – namely, you have a trained instructor who walks you through each pose, offering corrections and teaching you how to breathe.

But I’ll be honest, I didn’t jump into in-person classes (at first) because I was worried I’d feel out of place. DVDs and streaming video services, like Black Swan Yoga TV, are great places to find quality instructors and a variety of class styles, lengths and focuses.

But if even that seems a bit out of your comfort zone, I’d encourage you to add these four very simple poses to your next routine.

I’m not going to claim they’re the “best” yoga poses, or the “most effective,” because those descriptors are different for every person and need, but they’re the four poses I turn to most frequently when I need lower back pain relief and a quick mental reset.

Relieve Your Lower Back Pain With These 4 Yoga Poses

Yoga Squat for Lower Back Pain

With your legs slightly wider than hip-distance apart, your weight in your heels, bring your hands to your chest in a prayer position. Press your hips back and bend your knees as you squat down as far as you can, until your glutes are just a few inches from the ground.

Press your elbows to the inside of your knees to keep them aligned with your toes. As you breathe slowly, sink your tailbone toward the floor and lift your chest to lengthen your spine.

Hold the squat for 15 to 20 seconds, stand, then repeat three or four times.

Cat-Cow for Lower Back Pain

On all fours – palms beneath shoulders, knees beneath hips – with your back flat, take a deep breath and look up, drawing your chest forward, hollowing out your low back and pressing your tailbone upward.

On your exhale, reverse the movement, lowering your head between your arms as you tuck your tailbone under and stretch your back up toward the ceiling like a cat.

Continue alternating between Cow and Cat Pose on each inhale and exhale for three to five cycles.

Downward Dog with Foot Pedal for Lower Back Pain

You can transition into Downward Dog from Cat-Cow. After taking a breath in and moving into Cow Pose (head and chest up, low back hollowed, tailbone reaching high), tuck your toes under.

On the exhale, press through your toes and lift your knees from the floor, pressing your hips high into the air as you extend your elbows and knees, dropping your head between your arms.

Your body should look like an inverted “V.” Press through your palms and the balls of your feet as you try to reach your heels toward the floor (they don’t have to touch). Allow your head to hang loose.

From this position, begin pedaling your knees, bending one knee as you straighten the other for a deeper calf stretch, then alternating legs. Continue pedaling your legs for three to five breaths.

Child’s Pose for Lower Back Pain

You can transition into Child’s Pose from Downward Dog by simply lowering your hips until your body reaches high plank position – body straight as you balance on your palms and the balls of your feet. From high plank, place your knees on the ground, spread wide, your feet touching.

Press your hips back until you are sitting on your heels, your arms on the ground in front of you. Reach your palms farther forward to lengthen your spine and feel a stretch through your shoulders as you allow your hips to become heavy, sinking further into your heels.

Breathe deeply and enjoy the pose. Stay here as long as you’d like.

The post Help Relieve Your Lower Back Pain With These 4 Yoga Poses appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Our mind has the ability to turn any heaven into a hell and any hell into a heaven. I’ve seen miserable men walk manicured gardens in the Hamptons and joyous souls plod barefoot in the poorest slums of Kenya.

All of us have experienced times when the external world yawned with perfection, but inner turmoil kept us locked in a prison of our own creation. The great mystics place mastery of the mind as the utmost priority on a path to happiness or enlightenment. It is also one of the hardest things to do.

Think of the mind as a wild stallion. You can’t just ask timidly, “Hey, Mr. Stallion, would you please do exactly what I want?”

To be the master, you must assert yourself as something greater than the mind – the essential self that resides in stillness and presence. I call this force, consciousness. As the steady and loving hand of consciousness, you can bend the mind to your ultimate will.

Here are nine helpful exercises to achieve the greatest of all feats: mindfulness. NO supplements, drugs, or medicine required.

Mindful Exercise #1: Yoga

A lot of people view yoga as stretching. While stretching is part of the practice, the magic of yoga is the utilization of breath to push through self-imposed limitations. As you practice, you start to hear your mind squealing, “that’s far enough. I can’t do that. What are we doing later?” Anything to take you out of the intensity of the present moment.

But you stay steady with your intent. You focus on your breath. You release stray thoughts with each exhale. You bring in life force with each inhale. You drown the fire of the mind with a generous ocean of respiration and perspiration.

Consistent tug and pull of breath. Resistance and release continues for about an hour, and finally at the end of the session, the mind is a quiet and humble servant. During Shivasana, the final, you rest full force in consciousness.

Mindful Exercise #2: Meditation

There are dozens of styles of meditation and all of them work. However, you will find that some of them work better for you. Here are a few that have worked best for me.

Open Focus – The preferred method of Joe Dispenza. It is a process of relaxing your focus to an empty space in your body. It starts with space behind your eyes and expands from there. An interesting and potent technique, try fixing your focus on nothing in space.

Transcendental (TM) – Popularized by The Beatles in the 60s, the advantage of TM meditation, according to popular opinion, is that an amateur can reach the same state as a master within weeks of starting the practice. Repeat a simple chant, distracting the mind long enough for consciousness to emerge.

Vipassana – This form of meditation asks you to focus on your breath as it passes the threshold of your nostrils. Gradually, you expand this awareness to permeate your whole body.

LVK Meditation – This meditation has been 100% proven to turn you into a Care Bear. Focus on all the love and kindness in your heart while loving the world so much that your mind can’t handle it anymore. This will result in your heart leading your mind.

Guided – Guided meditations are a great way to start and have merit for practitioners of all experience. A vocal guide, either live or via recording will take you to a deep, inner quiet with a series of cues.

Sacred Silence – One of the most comprehensive and effective techniques, this sequence starts with focusing on your breath, much like Vipassana. Gradually, it moves to flexing and releasing parts of your body,  followed by a sequence of visualizations. Lastly, it anchors the meditative state with a trigger breath that conditions your body to eventually be able to enter this state on command. I have my own guided version available for download here.

Biofeedback – One of the recent players in the meditation game is a biofeedback device called the Muse. It measures brainwave activity and plugs into an iPhone app. The more relaxed you get, the more peaceful a nature scene on your phone becomes. Spikes in beta activity or distractions kick up the wind and ruin your peaceful setting. Similar to real life!

“In meditation, we move not just from conscious mind to subconscious mind, but also from selfish to selfless…from being some place to being no place, from being in time to being in no time…Meditation takes us from survival to creation; from separation to connection; from imbalance to balance; and from the limiting emotions of fear, anger and sadness to the expansive emotions of joy, freedom and love.”
– Joe Dispenza

Mindful Exercise #3: Floatation (Sensory Deprivation)

Floatation tanks, also known as sensory deprivation tanks, operate by eliminating all of your sensory input, tricking the ever-perceiving mind into lapsing into a hypnotic coma.

It goes kind of like this: You enter an enclosed hot tub of sorts, filled with 900 lbs. of epsom salt. The water is only a foot or less deep, but because of all the salt, you float easily.

The temperature is the same temperature as the outside of your skin, so after time, it becomes hard to determine where you end and where the water starts. That’s the point! When the door to the chamber closes, there is no light, no sound, and no smell.

In everyday life, your watchdog mind is very pre-occupied with analyzing sensory data to keep you alive. When all that sensory data stops, it goes on a lunch break. Here is an excerpt on a post made the first time I went floating at Zero Gravity Institute:

Capital ‘M’ Mind fussed around for the first 10 minutes or so, but then he got sleepy. All of a sudden, my authentic self locked in like a Greyhound preying on a rabbit. As my body floated blissfully in what seemed like outer space, I was able to intentionally explore the key issues in my life.

A razor scythe of clarity cut through the chaff of emotional hurdles and preconceptions, and I arrived at peaceful resolutions. I could tune into the living memory of family who had passed away, and that has only possible for me in the deepest meditation.

Floating also has a host of ancillary health benefits. A 2001 study found that floating had the ability to reduce chronic pain, increase optimism, and decrease anxiety and depression. As a bonus, participants fell asleep easier following floatation tank treatment and experienced a higher quality of sleep. (source)

The key is to remain conscious inside the tank to maximize benefits. The sweet spot is that theta range of brain function at 6 to 8 Hz which is somewhere between waking and sleeping.

Mindful Exercise #4: Hyperoxygenation

Utilized by Kundalini yoga practitioners for thousands of years, a new school of hyperoxygenation practice was developed by Dr. Stan Grof in the 80s. Holotropic breathing – also called Shamanic breathing – creates a temporary surplus of oxygen in the blood.

This oxygen crosses the blood-brain barrier, suppressing normal thought patterns and allowing consciousness to emerge. These practices are best in a guided setting for maximum effect. One of the safest modalities available, hyperoxygenation has no known injuries, (this type of breath work).

The first time I tried Shamanic breathing, I was stunned. As a man who has explored the psychedelic pharmacopeia, I was expecting something really mild. This is not how it went down! After pushing through about 20 minutes of serious huffing, I saw a crystal clear vision of my eternal self staring back in my eyes. It was one of the most powerful moments in my life.

Mindful Exercise #5: Fasting

Many wisdom traditions from around the world demand that acolytes complete a fast before receiving any teaching. Depriving the mind of sugar and B-vitamins like nicotinic acid puts the watchdog brain in chill mode.

Fasting isn’t fun, but neither is being bullied by your mind. Once you get past the first day or two, it is much easier from there.

If you are looking for a guided fast to follow, check out this reboot.

Mindful Exercise #6: Binaural Beats

Binaural beats are an auditory biohack that facilitates entrainment to optimal brainwave status. Just as neurons firing are measured with frequency so too, is sound. The technique to create binaural beats is to put one sound in stereo left at one frequency, and then the same sound at stereo right at another frequency. This means that there is an almost imperceptible difference in sound coming into your left and right ear.

Hence the term bi – meaning two and – aural, “of the ear.” This technique creates an auditory phenomenon called beating. The size of the gap in frequency between the left and right ear will be the frequency of the beating. This is the target frequency for your brainwave entrainment.

Often times white noise i.e. rain is used in conjunction with these tones to help relax the mind and put it in a more malleable state. The result is the ability to target a variety of different brainwave states to yield varied benefits.

One uncontrolled pilot study showed that after 60 days of delta wave (deeply relaxing) binaural beats, there was a decrease in trait anxiety (p = 0.004), an increase in quality of life (p = 0.03), and a decrease in insulin-like growth factor-1 (p = 0.01) and dopamine (p = 0.02) observed between pre- and post intervention measurements. (source)

Another study, this time with a control group, showed significant reduction in anxiety for preoperative patients listening to binaural beats prior to surgery. (source)

The technology is definitely on the forefront of biohacking, and I have found these beats to be particularly useful in mastering the beta wave clutter of the mind. So useful in fact, I got together with sound technician, Cory Allen, to create my own.

My favorite track is called “Earth Peace“, and combines live recordings of Texas rain with Tibetan singing bowls.

Mindful Exercise #7: Nature

Contemplation in nature is the original form of meditation. Have you ever hiked to the top of a majestic mountain? Sat at the foot of a deserted waterfall? In these places, it is far easier to quiet the mind. Beyond the sense of awe it might inspire, this may have something to do with the frequency of the Earth itself.

Meditative states are generally found in frequencies between 6 to 10 Hz (theta and alpha). The frequency of the Earth, called the Schumann resonance, sits at 7.83 Hz. Babies sync their heartbeats to their mother. If we can sync our brain to the frequency of our great Mother, we’ll be on the right track!

A specific tactic used by Native American trained tracker and author, Tom Brown, is to relax the focus of the eyes to allow for extreme peripheral vision. This not only reduces the focus on any one thing, but it also allows all visible input to filter into the mind at once, without the brain actively seeking to register it. I have found this a very interesting technique to experiment with.

Mindful Exercise #8: Dance

Dance is a universal cultural phenomenon. People dance to celebrate. People dance to connect with the opposite sex. People dance for ceremony. In ceremonial dance, like the Navajo sun dance, dancing is the vehicle to induce a deep trancelike state.

But in our culture, because of its prevalence as a form of social expression, dancing to create a meditative state is under-represented.

I was first introduced to the term “ecstatic dancing” in my 30s. Just to clear things up for all you ravers out there, ecstatic dancing is not the same as dancing on ecstasy! In an ecstatic dance, the dancers are sometimes blindfolded to ensure the performance aspect is removed from the mind.

Participants are encouraged to move completely and freely with their body, surrendering entirely to the music. Some movements may not even resemble anything we would normally consider dancing. The goal is to reach a state that some psychologists refer to as superfluidity – the ultimate form of flow state.

What is interesting is that once you release the mind from concerning itself with how you look, your body comes alive. Every cell seems to wake up and the mind takes a huge step back. For many people, this can be a very cathartic process as they release the somatic memories of shame and judgment that we place upon the movement of our body.

One particular study compared dancing to mindfulness meditation, and found that 97 percent of participants chose to receive a voucher for dance rather than meditation. The study found that both activities reduced depression, but only dance reduced stress levels.

Mindful Exercise #9: Choice

Ultimately, we are in control of our mind. As much as we would like to think otherwise, we are the boss. I remember this one time, I mentioned I had a song stuck in my head to my good friend Bode Miller and he just looked at me and told me to “get it out.” It was a stark reminder that we are indeed in control of our mind.

Recently I heard a speech from a man who quit his opiate addiction, and he offered a ‘helpful’ tip for those seeking to quit. He said, “Take all of your opiates and put them in plain sight. Then don’t take another pill.” That was a mic drop moment for me.

If you want to still the mind, choose to still the mind. It’s a move we always have available but seldom use to its full potential.

Nine to Nirvana: 9 Mindfulness Exercises for Mastering the Mind

The post Nine to Nirvana: 9 Exercises for Mastering the Mind appeared first on Onnit Academy.

But when it comes to workouts and workout modalities that fly under the radar, I’ve been obsessed lately with three different forms of workouts – workouts that some people might call “woo woo” but that really do get me a lot of bang for my fitness buck.

In no particular order of importance here they are…

Workout #1. Kundalini Yoga

At the risk of any yogi that is reading this article being forced to absolutely cringe, I would roughly define kundalini yoga as a form of yoga that involves intense breath work, plenty of quick muscular contracts, meditation with your eyes closed, and an intense, tantric-like focus on moving energy up and down your spine.

I’m now using it for everything from recharging my body at the beginning or at the end of the day, stepping into airport bathrooms and closing the door to do quick 5 to 10 minute routines, and doing full-blown 30-90 minute routines in a hot sauna.

I really dig this form of yoga because it opens up the lungs, earns a bunch of calories, gets a bunch of blood flowing, and frankly, makes you feel like a million bucks when you finish. Here’s a link to a podcast that I recorded that goes into the nitty-gritty details…

But ultimately, if you haven’t yet tried this form of yoga, you definitely need to add it to your repertoire (and grab an Onnit multi-mat to make your practice oh-so-comfortable).

Workout #2. Neuro-Sets

I recently finished reading a book called “Neuro-Mass”. The relatively simple routine outlined in the book has absolutely blown my mind and pushed my fitness to new levels.

The program basically goes something like this: you start with what is called an “grind”, which is a super slow, controlled set performed with either body weight or a kettle bell.

For example, if you are doing a Neuromass for your legs, you might do a super slow lunge with one leg forward and the back leg elevated on step, for 5-10 repetitions.

Next, you move into some kind of a power, explosive movement. For example, using the leg training analogy I just described, you would do scissor jumps (AKA lunge jumps) for 15-60 seconds.

Then you would finish with an isometric hold that builds up a ton of lactic acid and “finishes off” the muscle group.

For this, you could use something like an isometric lunge hold. You complete 3-5 rounds with minimal rest between rounds before moving on to another body section, such as hamstrings, back, shoulders, etc.

You can do these type of workouts with the mighty Onnit kettlebells, dumbbells, body weight, you name it and I’m now – because of how much I’m traveling – doing these routines about three times a week in a hotel room or park.

The workouts are somewhat unconventional, but I highly recommend if you want a breakthrough in functional fitness.

Workout #3. Hypoxic Swimming

Okay, let’s start with a disclaimer: anytime you’re holding your breath near water, swimming underwater, exerting yourself in water, or doing anything else that involves exercise and water, you need to be careful.

There is indeed such a thing as shallow water blackout and I talk about it in great detail here.

That being said, if you’re an extremely experienced swimmer and/or have a good swim buddy to swim with, there are some really cool things you can do without necessarily having to just swim laps back and forth in a pool while staring at the black line at the bottom of the water.

For example, one workout that I will do, popularized by surfer Laird Hamilton, is to get into a squat position at the bottom of the pool and then do an explosive jump squat up and out the surface of the pool as high as I can go while clapping my hands above my head.

I’ll do 10 to 15 repetitions of this (if the pool is deep enough, you can do this with light dumbbells), and then move into “eggbeater style” kicking in which I’m keeping my hands above my head and exhausting my legs.

You can also do this type of egg-beater kicking or hand “crawling” back and forth across the pool, holding a weight to your chest or between your legs.

Once catching your breath, you can take a heavy set of dumbbells down to the pool and simply walk back and forth until you are out of breath. Just try three to five rounds of this and you’ll be absolutely blown away by the cardiovascular training result.

If you really find yourself sucking wind, try a bit of chlorella, which can assist with oxygen transport in your bloodstream.

Are each of these workouts a bit unconventional? A bit woo-woo? Fly a bit under the radar? Absolutely.

But if you’re looking for a way to shock your body into a metabolic stimulus or new muscle growth or fat loss response, pulling out some of the lesser-known, less popular workouts can be just the thing to get this done. So woo-woo away, baby.

The post 3 Workouts You’re Not Doing That You Should Be appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The post FIVE WAYS YOGA CAN IMPROVE YOUR SEX LIFE appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love going to the gym and getting my pump on, but I also practice mobility training in the form of Yoga. Yoga tones and strengthens your body uniformly, unlike strength training regimens that can lead to over development of particular muscle groups.

Yoga exercises, meditation, and postures also improve your balance, strength, and overall flexibility, making you more capable of pursuing a balanced fitness regimen. Here are 5 benefits of including yoga into your strength training.

Yoga Benefit #1: Decompression

With all that weight on the bar, your joints and tissue are under a lot of pressure. Soft tissues serve as a buffer, so your harder tissues like bones can stay rigid and support without crunching against each other. After the malleable soft tissues are under this pressure, they will not fully return to their supple, neutral state unless an equally decompressive movement pulls the tension out.

In order to keep your connective and supportive tissues healthy, decompression is essential. Tension in these areas restricts crucial blood flow, reducing the rate of healing and nutrient delivery. We want our soft tissues to remain just that, soft. The pressure of strength training introduces retained forces in some part within your soft tissues. An equal but opposing force will release that tension.

One of my favorite decompressive stretches is the Forward Fold. In this stretch, your entire spine releases towards the ground, allowing the tissue in between each vertebra to relax and release the tensions introduced with strength training. Try to let the muscles of your upper body relax, and let gravity do its work on your spine!

Yoga Benefit #2: Change of Scenery

The repetitive nature of strength training can lead to some boredom with the practice. Yoga is normally practiced in a group-training environment that is completely different from your normal lifting routine. This change in setting can keep your routine fresh!

Normally, an instructor will lead a class through a planned routine, so no need to think ahead as to what you’ll be doing with this hour of fitness. Your instructor will have a sequence of postures designed to access and release the natural tensions that develop in all human bodies. Yoga teachers will be mindful of all levels in the practice, offering variations for beginners and advanced practitioners alongside one another in the same class.

Yoga Benefit #3: Alignment Practice

There are no barbells lifted in a Yoga class. All you need is your body. Sometimes we can get so involved in our heavy weights that any bodyweight movements seem like a waste of time and energy. However, the postures visited in a typical yoga class all work on fundamental alignment and engagement that is essential to strength training.

The engagements practiced without any weight lead to more awareness of your structure and efficiency and can easily be translated directly to your weighted exercises. Postures like Downward Dog teach spinal extension in a hinging hip movement pattern, directly transferrable to strength training movements such as deadlifts.

An hour of Yoga is an intense conversation between your brain and body. Like any good relationship, communication is key if things are going to work out. After this dedicated exploration of your movement capabilities, you will be able to create the shape and movements with your body with enhanced accuracy, resulting in better lifting form and results.

Yoga Benefit #4: Brain Day

We’ve got a separate day for all the parts of the body when it comes to strength training. Seemingly absent from that list is brain day. We don’t get the term meatheads from having buff brains. Instead, it is our lack of focus on mental and emotional development that makes folks think we’re just a big hunk of meat with two eyes. We’ve all got a soft side, whether you want to admit it or not!

One focus of Yoga is self-love and acceptance for this human body that you get to parade around planet earth in for an entire lifespan. This probably is not a normal part of your routine, but the benefits of expressing gratitude and love for your amazing human body surpasses any #GAINZ in your bicep dimensions.

Yoga can rewire your thinking patterns to see the good in this world just a little bit more. Next time you’re staring down a bar loaded up on a squat rack for your last set, you’ll feel a bit more love than anger, and I’ll let you guess which of those emotions is more powerful.

Yoga Benefit #5: Cleansing

When done right, strength training has some residual damage in your muscular system that repairs over the passing days after the session. Removing the resulting damaged tissue takes time, but this process is sped up with a faster flow of fluids through your body.

Think of yourself as a river. Water goes in through your mouth, and exits from urination and sweating. The more water you drink, then pee or sweat out, the faster your flow. A rushing river will carry the debris left from a strength training session much quicker than a stagnant pool of water.

Typically, Yoga classes are in a heated environment that encourages profuse sweating. The heated environment helps with mobilizing soft tissues, allowing you to get deeper into the poses. It also makes you sweat buckets! Seriously, you’ll be left in a pool of sweat from just an hour of Yoga, so be sure to bring a towel!

The post 5 Benefits of Yoga for Your Strength Training Regimen appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Yoga Myth #1: You Have to be Able to Touch Your Toes to Practice Yoga

As a teacher, this is the #1 excuse I hear from people who don’t practice yoga. Flexibility is in no way a pre-requisite!

Yoga is a journey, and if your journey begins with bending your knees in a standing forward fold, then that is perfectly fine. Keep practicing, keep breathing, and one day your hamstrings will surprise you!

Yoga Myth #2: Yoga is Just for Hippies

False! While you may have the occasional kava drinking, deodorant-less, free spirit next to you in class, yoga is for anyone and everyone. Whether you are an athlete looking to decompress your tense muscles, or a mother of 3 craving some stillness, yoga does not discriminate.

Yoga Myth #3: People are Good at Yoga

This is a tricky one. A person isn’t necessarily “good” at yoga. A person can, however, be strong, balanced, flexible, etc. Yoga isn’t just poses, it is a mixture of breath, focus, intention, movement, quality of the mind, and many other factors. So being “good at yoga” is not something physical that you can see, but rather a way in which someone carries their yoga with them on and off of their mat.’

Yoga Myth #4: No LuLu, No Yoga

Your yoga pants cost HOW much?! Wear what makes you feel best, whether that be brand new yoga attire, or your favorite t-shirt from high school.

Yoga Myth #5: Yogis Have to Go Vegan

Vegetarian, paleo, macrobiotic, fruitarian (yes, that’s a real thing), etc. Eat whatever makes you feel good after your yoga class. Your body is your home and you should maintain it in whatever way will keep you safe, healthy, and happy.

Yoga Myth #6: Yoga Class Has to be a Workout

It doesn’t! There are many different types of yoga. Some styles such as vinyasa or ashtanga will give you some killer triceps. However, there are also styles that include little to no movement, making it more of a workout for your mind rather than your body.

Yoga Myth #7: Your Yoga Teacher Can Do Every Pose in the Book

Sure, yoga teachers sometimes are more “advanced” practitioners, but that is the direct result of getting on their mats #everydamnday. The title of “Yoga Instructor” has somehow been widely recognized as a pretzel lady who can walk around with her leg behind her head, and that is (unfortunately) just not true. If that is what you are looking for, maybe check out Cirque du Soleil instead.

Yoga Myth #8: Yoga Improves Your Health

This is true! Yoga not only creates strength and flexibility in the physical body, but it also creates a sense of total awareness, promotes mental clarity, and aides in relaxation!

The post The Top 8 Myths About Yoga Debunked appeared first on Onnit Academy.

“The goal of this acquisition is not to change Black Swan Yoga. The goal is to support it with what we do best at Onnit, and bring it to a bigger stage,”  said Onnit founder, Aubrey Marcus. Black Swan will continue to provide high quality, donation based yoga classes at their three Austin based studios and also a new location soon to open in Houston.

Onnit is an industry leader in unconventional fitness tools and methodologies, incorporating kettlebells, sandbags, maces, steel clubs, and more at their Onnit Academy Gym facility and Onnit Academy online resources. The Academy Gym, which is also set to open this month, will now offer Black Swan Yoga classes alongside unconventional classes and personal training.

Marcus, a student of the original studio, went on to add “Five years ago I remember waiting outside Black Swan Yoga downtown for 20-30 minutes before class just to ensure that I would get a spot.  From the music to the meditation, it was much more than just yoga, and that tradition continues today.  I want the rest of the world to have a chance to experience this incredible modality being practiced at the height of its potential.”

Onnit founder, Aubrey Marcus and Black Swan Yoga Founder, Mike Grey

Black Swan Yoga has consistently been ranked among the top yoga studios in Austin since its inception and is a staple in the Austin fitness community. The combination of donation based classes, teachers with experience and creativity, great locations, and a welcoming atmosphere make it accessible to beginners but still a haven for experienced yogis.

Commenting on the acquisition, Michael Grey, founder of Black Swan Yoga remarked, “Black Swan Yoga is overjoyed at working with the Onnit family. We believe that there is more to life than just yoga and if anything yoga only helps make everything in life that much better. The team at Onnit have built an amazing foundation for the teachers at Black Swan to succeed and share this practice with the people of this amazing planet. We look forward to not only growing as a studio, but also online where students can take classes directly from the teachers online channel. With Black Swan Yoga TV, our classes are filmed all over the world, from a green field in New Zealand to the edge of the Grand Canyon.  We strive to keep things interesting, moving forward, and evolving towards our combined goals of “Total Human Optimization.” I believe we have the same passion for bringing the very best to the people we serve.”

Black Swan locations will soon integrate Onnit nutritional supplements, healthy foods and fitness apparel at all their locations. Black Swan studios will also offer Onnit Fit classes taught by Onnit Academy certified instructors, fortifying all that Black Swan already offers to its patrons.

According to Marcus, “Black Swan Yoga exemplifies many of the same core principles as Onnit.  We both strive to be that disruptive force to the status quo that unapologetically combines the best of ancient and modern wisdom.  I believe that Black Swan Yoga is the category killer for today’s yoga, just as we strive to be the brand people turn to for unconventional training and earth grown nutrient supplementation.”

When asked to describe the nature of his unique yoga brand, Michael Grey responded, “Black Swan Yoga is a place for people of all demographics to come together and enjoy this form of healing, empowering and strengthening wisdom. We believe that yoga should not only be accessible for students, but also fun and exciting. We play music in all of our classes that the instructors themselves would enjoy listening to on a sunny day with the top down. This keeps the classes friendly and engaging.”

“We teach both vinyasa based yoga classes we call “Flow” as well as “Power” classes. Not only are you there to stretch and strengthen your body, but also to break a good sweat.  All Black Swan Yoga classes are taught in a heated room at 85-90 degrees. This helps students go a little deeper than they could in a non-heated atmosphere while also helping to detox your skin as you sweat. Afterwards you leave class feeling amazing and ready to take on and breath through whatever life brings you. Our staff is extremely knowledgeable and approachable at the same time. Because we believe in the fun in yoga, we love to smile and our students do too.”

For more information and class schedules visit www.blackswanyoga.com and www.onnit.com

For franchise opportunities contact hello@blackswanyoga.com

Media inquires contact jennifer@onnit.com

The post Onnit Acquires Black Swan Yoga, Increasing Total Human Optimization Platform appeared first on Onnit Academy.

This way you improve the flexibility in your hamstrings, hip flexors, adductors, back, and shoulders. It doesn’t matter what range of motion you have to start with because there are variations of both exercises that you can do at any level. So many people don’t train these because of the assumption that they are “advanced skills.” It’s the same thing as learning to walk before you run; there are progressions for everything.

When I do splits with my clients, I always do over splits, meaning that we elevate one of the legs. This isn’t because all of my clients can do the full splits and we need to make it harder, quite the opposite is true. The reason for elevating a foot is to target specific muscle groups. Even though you will always be stretching all of the muscles involved, it helps to target different muscle groups to change the focus. For all stretches, you never want to hold them for a particular amount of time. I always get my clients to stay in a stretch based on their breathing.

The breathing is the most difficult part of stretching and it’s also the most important. By counting your breaths while you’re in a sensory rich position it gives you something other than the pain to focus on, and it will also make sure that you can relax more into the stretch, which will make sure that you’re stretching it in a safe manner.

When you’re about to work on your flexibility, you’re going to need to do a warm up first. If your body isn’t warm at all, make sure you do a little bit of cardio or simple strength exercise to get the blood flowing to the muscles. After that, you want to start with some joint lubricating stretches. This means that you want to do things like arm circles or hip circles; anything that’s going to move the joints and get a little more sinovial fluid to the joint.

As you start to stretch the muscles, the best technique is to work head to toe. As you’re working through your passive stretches, make sure that if you come across an area that is tighter than others, spend a little more time in that position. Take 5 breaths instead of 3 for example. Once you’re warmed up, you can move on to the stretches that are going to push your range of motion to the max. This is where you would do proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching, partner stretching, and ballistic stretches for the more advanced.

Here’s the splits sequence that I give to my clients and I also do for myself:

Split Round 1: The Warm Up Round

Start with the left foot in front and elevated. Front leg straight, back leg bent. If it’s difficult, grab some yoga blocks or an equivalent object to be able to keep your front leg straight. Now, turn into your middle splits still with your left foot elevated. If it’s too difficult with both legs straight, you can bend the one on the floor. Just make sure you keep the line from your foot to your knee. Next, turn one more time so that you have the right foot forward, but you still have the left foot elevated. Back up so that your shin is supported by whatever you’re using to elevate your foot. If you need to modify this one, bend the front leg and put your hands on your knee and make sure you’re still pushing your left hip towards the floor. Finish round 1 by repeating on the other side.

Split Round 2: Focus on Square Hips

Starting with the left foot in front and elevated, put both hands beside your foot. If this is comfortable, you can progress by putting both hands on the side of your baby toe. Turn to your middle splits, this time both legs straight! Turn once more so that your rear foot is elevated. The right leg should be in front, so place your right hand on your back leg. If you need to use a yoga block to keep your shoulders square feel free. If this is comfortable, you can place your left hand on your right leg. Again, repeat other side.

Split Round 3: PNF

This is where the magic happens! Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation is a form of stretching that will help you go further and gain range of motion. It is done by contracting the muscles eccentrically in a stretch and then relaxing into the stretch. There are many ways to apply this method.

The way I do it is a contraction of 5-10 seconds followed by a relaxation of 5-10 seconds. Repeat 3 times and finish with a deep breath and try and relax the maximum amount that you can as you do your final exhalation. Round 3, left leg in front and elevated,no hands for advanced. Contract your muscles as though you’re trying to stand up out of your splits, then relax all your muscles and sink into your splits. Again contract, and then relax. Last time contract as hard as you possibly can, and then relax, take a deep breath, and once again relax as deep as you can into the stretch.

Turn to your middle splits, hands on the floor, flex your feet and repeat the PNF sequence. Once you do the final turn, you want to have your foot on the elevated surface instead of your shin like we did in the last two rounds.

For this one, when you contract your muscles you want to also straighten your back leg. When you relax try to keep the back leg straight, but focus on relaxing. Next we’re going to get into doing bridges targeting each part of the back. If you can do a bridge on the floor, then do it on the floor. If you can’t do a bridge on the floor, whether by lack of strength or lack of flexibility, you can still do all of the exercises with a wall bridge.

Bridge Round 1: Upper Back

The first bridge you’re going to do is targeting the upper back. Go into your bridge, and looking at your hands (as you ALWAYS do in your bridge you will try to straighten your legs and get your shoulders above your hands. When you reach your limit you hold it there for 3 deep breaths and then come down. Repeat 3 times. Make sure that you always stretch your back in the opposite direction between every back bending exercise. Repeat on the other side, and your splits are done.

Bridge Round 2: Lower Back

The second bridge is for your lower back. Push up into your bridge, look at your hands, and move your hands as close as you can to your feet. Even if that means moving 2mm closer, if that’s as far as YOU can, then you are doing the exercise correct. Again, at your max, take 3 deep breaths and come down and rock back and forth on your back or do a forward bend to release the strain of training the flexibility of your back. Repeat 3 times.

Bridge Round 3:  Mid Back

The final bridge is the most confusing.To understand it, stand with your hands above your head and sit down on a chair. That’s all you’re doing, but when you’re bent backwards it becomes a little more confusing. This bridge is more for your mid back. You want to make sure that your knees and your shoulders don’t move, and you’re just going to bend at the knees and the hips as though you’re about to sit in a chair. For this one, the movement will start out quite small, but as you get more comfortable it will start to get bigger and bigger. Do one bridge and sit in a chair 5 times. That’s the end of your bridge workout! Again, I can’t stress this enough, if you don’t know what you’re doing, please see a professional to help you with your technique. Just like any other activity, if you have good technique you will have way less injuries, and you will progress much faster!

The post Master These 6 Yoga Moves for Maximum Flexibility appeared first on Onnit Academy.