CONTACT:

Alex Iglecia
The Epic Workout
781-405-1248
alex at epicworkout.com
www.epicworkout.com

For information about Symetrie, contact Equinox, Palo Alto

Equinox Fitness features The Epic Workout as part of Symetrie

Palo Alto, CA, 10-8-2009 - The Epic Workout will be a featured class during Equinox Fitness’ six-week Symetrie beginning October 16th, 2010.

The Epic Workout features class a high standard of progressive exercise based on function and natural movements, mindfulness, breath, and conscious relaxation. Epic has been called Yogic Warrior Conditioning, is accessible by people all fitness levels, and offers profound results and experiences. Epic’s functional movements and mindful strength & conditioning makes a big impact in athletics and life skills.

The Epic Workout’s founder, Alex Iglecia, is dedicated to helping people enjoy life, inside and outside. His work spans martial arts, self defense, personal training and program design. Alex studied at Cornell University and later received a MA in Conscious Evolution, and created pioneering body-mind research focusing on how mental and emotional changes occur during physically-focused body practices.

Symetrie is created and led by Kirsten Johnson-Group Exercise Manager, Jayme Boyle-Teacher-Yogi Extraordinaire, and Clyde Wilson-Stanford PhD. This six-week program is nearly filled to capacity and offers two classes each week, expert nutrition coaching, motivational coaching, and more.

Symetrie Featuring The Epic Workout

“Not all who wanders are lost.”
- Gandalf, J.R.R. Tolkien

Wanderlust Festival is happnening in California, the grand state where The Epic Workout now is based. We’ll be exploring and adventuring through the yogic and musical extravaganza this weekend. Join us there!

Much of my work is in bridging yoga, or what yoga is at its core, with fitness and coaching clients. Ultimately, Yoga is about paying attention. Do you pay attention to what you’re doing when you dance? Then, how much do you notice? Do you notice the subtle differences from hip to hip, from twisting left to twisting right? Do you notice elation and frustration, sensation, pain, and lightness?

Yoga is not about the asana. To paraphrase David Nelson of Yoga Garden San Francisco: asana is one part of hatha yoga, which is but one part of a full and integral system of yoga. Do not try to categorize yoga.

And please, do not try to turn off your mind.

Turning off the mind, as an act, simply does not work all that well. Instead, consider your experience of those moments of awe and beauty when someone you love catches your eye. That’s yoga. Feeling. Connecting. Yoga on the mat is a small, small part of the bigger practice of paying attention and loving all of life. For many, it is the gateway into an experiential understanding of connectedness. A yogic practice, or process, can start by being service-oriented, people-oriented, or body-oriented as in a modern yoga class or a class based on Yogic Conditioning or Yogic Warrior Conditioning.  (see www.epicworkout.com).

Regarding your physical practice, consider this: I help people stop trying to fit their minds and bodies into classes and fitness routines, and rather, to take ownership of your body, your practice (and in many ways, your life) by starting with you, your intentions and attentions, and design your program from the inside out. What that depends on, depends on you.

Every athlete wants to be faster, stronger, more powerful, and more injury prone. This is especially true for triathletes who swim, bike and run great distances. You demand speed, require strength, and need to save time. Tools and methods that increase your foundation of strength and speed are extremely valuable, and every edge counts.

This article reviews the benefits of using kettlebells from the perspective of Yogic Warrior Conditioning and is designed to give the triathlete the possibility of greater outcomes in exchange for your valuable energy and time spent training.

On Kettlebells:
Buy the hype, just don’t believe it. (in other words, get your kettlebell but own your movement).

Kettlebells are simply stimulators and enhancers of multi-functional training of natural human movement.

You already have all the weight you need to create phenomenal strength and power for your purposes and your life. Kettlebells add a level of challenge, skill and learning that support many specific sports, yet the basics are the same. The basic skills of running, jumping, leaping, pushing and pulling are what take you across pavement and through water.

You already know how to build your endurance and train your psyche to succeed for the race. The advantage you are missing is the buildup of your fundamental baselines. This is the level where kettlebells add a concrete and immediate benefit: build your baselines of strength, power and mindfulness and your race time will decrease as you enjoy it even more!

The three skills that most directly transfer to your triathlaon success.

1. 1 and 2-Arm Swings
2. Swing/Hi-pull/Gunsling
3. Snatch or Rack & Push-Press

Thus, DO

• Improve your baseline foundations through appropriate intensity.
• your training needs by balancing the lowest volume required and greatest intensity possible.
• just less (than you think you can), and you’ll progress faster.

And DON’T

• Ignore your breath. It’s your greatest coach, so follow it and heed its lessons.
• Focus on learning too many skills. Push intensity and mastery in core skills and build your baselines.
• Do endless sets and reps. With functional work, build capacity through intensity. Then go practice your race skills.

This article in a sentence:

Follow your breath and maintain awareness as you practice your maximum intensity and effort.

@ The Sports Club/LA San Francisco

The Sports Club/LA San Francisco, the city’s premier club, is offing three specialty classes in April. All are open to SCLA members and non-members. Take one, two, or all three!
747 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94043 (google map)

Tune In/Tune Up: Set yourself up for the most success.

Discover and use an effective process for preparing your joints and musculature to reap the most benefit from your exercise and yoga practice. We’ll use familiar techniques in new and fascinating ways to get more out of exercise. This class includes an active and mindful workout for all yogis and fitness enthusiasts.

Monday, April 13
5:30-6:30pm
Studio 2

Genius in Action: Place yourself at the center of your transformation.

Harness the energy of the group plus your own internal focus and learning to get more out of your training, practice, and life. We’ll use familiar techniques in new and fascinating ways to get more out of exercise. This class includes an active and mindful workout for all yogis and fitness enthusiasts.

Monday, April 20
5:30-6:30pm
Studio 2

Edge into Action: Create effortlessness and efficiency in challenging exercise.

Learn to ride the balance between effort and ease to recover more fully while you make faster progress in strength, flexibility and cardiovascular endurance. We’ll use familiar techniques in new and fascinating ways to get more out of exercise. This class includes an active and mindful workout for all yogis and fitness enthusiasts.

Monday, April 27
5:30-6:30pm
Studio 2

Yogic Warrior Conditioning: Expanding the Heart of Yogic Movement

with Alex Iglecia

Sunday, April 19, 2009
2:00 - 3:30pm

Yogic Warrior Conditioning® is a comprehensive health and fitness system that combines Yoga, Functional Training, Conditioning and Restorative Techniques to create strength, effortless movement, and deeper awareness of body, mind and spirit.

Mindful, natural movement and creativity transform our tissues and nervous system for better health and fitness, reduced stress, and enhanced coordination and clarity.

Yogic Warrior Conditioning® makes exercise more than exercise, and helps launch one’s yoga practice off the mat.

Yoga Garden San Francisco
286 Divisadero St, SF, CA 94117  (google maps)
(415) 552-9644

Sign up online today

A Few Words on Fitness

With Epic and Yogic Warrior Conditioning, you take exercise vertical with depth and meaning, inquiry and transformation. Yet the fitness world is also changing horizontally, meaning that the techniques, methods and processes are being rearranged, improved, and evolved. Despite the idea that there new rules, I suggest instead that we are returning to the essence of our lives with new distinctions. Where are we going? What needs to be included in today’s fitness program, exercise plan, or yoga practice?

Mobility and Movement Preparation: There are techniques and methods that dramatically surpass ’stretching’ to optimally prepare your body for the movement you choose to train. Flip your mind and Tune In / Tune Up before your training, yoga asana and even meditation.

Corrective Exercise: Injuries of all shapes and size come as a consequence of our lifestyles and training patterns. More of the same is rarely the path out of pain, while noticing your experience often is. You can make the body resilient through intentional, purposeful movement that has the power to improve the way your body works at a deeper level.

Speed, power and elasticity: Remember that power has to do with time, and is not the same is strength. Consider power and strength with speed. Power is lost faster than strength, as easily demonstrated by a long-time yogi returning to a high-impact kickboxing class. Yet for all populations, there is the need for the ability to move and react quickly, and power is critical for getting through life effortlessly.

Core Training: Ab crunches are definitely out, and functional core work is in as we focus on training a body to respond and be active in the world. Whether the lessons come from athletics, martial arts, somatics or yoga, the truth about core is the same.

Resistance Training: A foundational aspect of every practice, we need to focus on function, linked system strength and real world strength. Isolated strength is an illusion, and the key is to practice with appropriate frequency. Strength is about full body connection and coordination towards a purpose. Strength comes from within, and should be trained with the end in mind.

Metabolic Training: Evolutionary cardio - Intensity vs volume is the name of the game, so the the ability to do higher levels of work and maintain output over time will take you where you want to go. Riding the edge of effort and ease will get you there faster.

Recovery & Regeneration: No matter your training modality or the features of your practice, recovery and nourishment - physical and emotional - is a must. This can be done at the gym, on the mat, or at home, and should not be ignored.

Thanks to Alwyn Cosgrove, who framed these concepts, then adapted by Epic Workout for a yogic perspective on exercise and transformation.

The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) conference recently debuted in San Francisco, where I now reside, and revealed countless new fitness innovations to fitness professionals from all over the world. As the fitness and exercise world evolves, it is increasingly popular and critical to include expanded conceptions of wellness, holistic thinking, and mind-body programs. While this is needed and necessary for all types of teachers and trainers, I want to suggest that for the most part, this evolution is happening horizontally.

By horizontal, I refer to the span and variation of techniques and modalities. Vertical, in contrast, means depth or meaning. Every technique is expressed at some level of depth, and every vertical idea has to be expressed through some form. The changes happening in the fitness industry seem to be more horizontal (sell more technological solutions to basic health challenges) than vertical (make exercise more meaningful). Exercise programming is entirely horizontal and considers muscles, bones, neurons and energy systems. Your trainer shuffles around different techniques to change your body, for example. Mind-body programming is actually vertical and considers meaning, psychology, self and love. Your teacher uses poses or movement to get you to go inside you.

To make this more specific, fitness clubs and trainers are embracing yoga and other mind-body programs, but mostly just the surface features. Do this pose, take this breath, focus on this body area. While taking up conscious movement is a welcome change, it seems sometimes that these methods are used for their appeal rather than the results they deliver. This is viewed as a problem, for some. I argue it is ultimately not a problem. Though the depth work comes from the level of engagement and inquiry and awareness needed for transformation, some does slip in at other times. My own research suggests in a new way that yoga (and all body-mind) works, and that the real body-mind ‘connection’ can affect change. In other words, even if a mind-body or conscious practice is engaged in for entirely superficial reason (watch the judgment!), deep change can occur.

In the final analysis as a teacher, trainer, mover and shaker, I say this: do what calls to you and what fills you up. Do it with all your heart, all your passion, and all your commitment. Now go move, learn, heal, and transform!

The Sports Club/LA San Francisco has a magnificent new rack of kettlebells ranging from 10lbs to 80lbs. Kettlebells are without a doubt one of the single most versatile tools we can use use both for the diversity of techniques you can practice as well as the variety of qualities it can be used to develop. Another dimension is offered when you practice like a yogi. I offer you three tips for creating kettelbell-focused movements that are mindful and meaningful.

1. Set and know your intention each pre-kettelbell moment by asking a question - what is going to get me through this round? Then commit and take action.
2. Find your steady rhythm and find your breath. Increase speed until your breath starts to run away from you. Then play the edge.
3. Focus on the transition at the moment your round or exercise is complete. Hardly anyone pays attention to  the transition out of an exercise and into recovery, yet this is the very moment not to be missed. This moment offers you the opportunity to uncover the meaning behind the drill.