Engaging exercise elongates
Signs up for his first class of not yoga, not pilates, not ballet and not tai chi.
Stephen Heard
There are plenty of oddball fitness regimes to sink your teeth into, and ironically, essentrics is not one of them. It’s a therapeutic and functional fitness programme that lengthens muscles to improve joint mobility, balance and relieve tension.
The basics
There are three types of muscle contractions possible with the human body: isotonic, concentric, and essentric. Created by dancer-turnedfitness maestro Miranda EsmondeWhite, essentrics focuses on the latter, engaging all 650 muscles in a gentle full-body workout. The technique uses the body’s natural movements to simultaneously lengthen and stretch muscles – rather than contract them to generate force. It draws, not wholly, on the fluid movements of tai chi, the core work of pilates, the rebalancing nature of yoga, the pressure-less stretching of physiotherapists, and the strengthening properties of ballet. Think of the motion when putting down a bag of groceries; now repeat several repetitions without the prop, using the same kind of muscle contraction. Voila.
The movements use natural body weight to work muscles ... It's fastmoving though spends enough time in each pose to entice a pleasant burning sensation in the muscles.
Giving it a bash
One of the basic essentrics postures is compared to flaunting a gold medal on your chest. The position was reiterated several times during the class by our instructor Jeanne Wright, New Zealand’s highest level instructor, as a helpful reminder to hold better posture. It was one of several relatable visions that popped up during the class. Other motions were compared to things like pushing walls away to the side, holding and pushing a lowhanging roof, and washing a window with one large swoop – all came with the objective of contracting the appropriate muscles.
The movements use natural body weight to work muscles, and class members are encouraged to use the amount of contraction they feel most comfortable with. It’s fast-moving though with enough time spent in