Balancing act
From fitness to diet and beyond, 2019 is all about taking a considered approach to your health that puts contentment at its core
if 2018 was
all about a growing awareness of our mental health, understanding our hormones and turmeric lattes, then 2019 is all about the art of balance. We’ve had enough of living by extremes and are now finding comfort in keeping our metaphorical seesaws horizontal. And it’s no wonder: a recent study from the Mental Health Foundation found that 47% of us feel stressed every day. ‘ There’s a much clearer perspective that wellness is not just about looking good,’ says Dr Josephine Perry, a sports psychologist at Performance in Mind. ‘ We’re more aware that to feel well we need to think about every aspect of our life.’ Here’s how…
Rest and Recover
After every squat, burpee and hallowed hell on the treadmill comes The Aftermath. And whether that’s stiffness or sore muscles, this is our year for scheduled recovery time. ‘Recovery is very different to rest,’ says Rhian Stephenson, CEO of boutique spin studio Psycle. ‘Rest is time not moving, while recovery is active and encompasses movements that help the body repair.’ Instead of training as hard as we can as often as we can, which causes strain in the body, including micro tears in muscles (which, given the time to recover, fix themselves), stress and tension in our joints and even fluctuating hormones, it’s about putting as much hard work into recovery to maximise our workouts and the results they deliver, as well as reducing stress and improving sleep.
Rhian recommends one active recovery session per every four workouts. Psycle’s new S.O.S class comprises trigger point release therapy (aka using touch to release tight or injured areas), mindfulness and body rolling. Nationwide, DW Fitness First now offers Recovery ‘ bolt ons’ (available to download on the DW Fitness Core App) that deliver 10-15 restorative poses, while yin yoga can significantly help release tension. The pros all have a trusty foam roller on hand to help deeply massage any area and many are now using the Theragun, £368 ( theragun.co.uk), a handheld tool that delivers high-frequency vibrations to help muscles recover.
All In A Row
For a workout that exercises your whole body, look no further than rowing. ‘It recruits a massive 86% of muscle mass, which no other form of cardio equipment can rival,’ advises Ben Scarles, head trainer at GROW Fitness, a cool new rowing studio in Central London, and notably it’s not just in your upper body that muscles are used, but legs and glutes too. At GROW they combine rowing with strength training (using equipment including dumbbells and resistance bands) on mats to target areas from every angle – but everything is deliberately low impact. ‘It’s also amazing for desk-bound workers, as the rowing movement opens up dormant muscles and helps strengthen posture,’ says Ben. Try GROW or the newly opened The Engine Room, housed in a Grade-ii listed church on the edge of Regent’s Park, which has state- ofthe-art rowing machines.
Escape Artist
Caught yourself daydreaming of sunnier climes? Join the club. Now you can escape the reality of those condensation-walled, sweaty exercise classes and the toil of city living during your daily workout; new immersive gyms are rethinking how our surroundings affect our workout, and to great effect. Take Firstlight, a spin studio in London’s Westfield, which uses magic mirror technology to transport you from, well, a shopping centre in White
City, to a beach in the Maldives. ‘ We use light to mark the journey from sunrise to sunset during a 45-minute spin class and transport you to different destinations around the world,’ says Mark Anthony, founder of Firstlight. The premise being that light – namely sunshine – is what makes us happy, so cycling to a great playlist with a beach scene backdrop at sunset boosts our endorphin production and help us to ride harder and faster (our grey city a mere relic of our memories.
Meanwhile, FLY LDN in the City of London is all about multi-sensory yoga: think cinematic backdrops of crashing waves or the Himalayan mountains, set to mind-transporting playlists, for a chill-inducing yoga class that really packs a punch.
Shake It Off
Giving totally new meaning to the term ‘loosen up’ comes Trauma Release Exercise ( TRE), a set of simple movements that are used to trigger the natural tremor mechanism or ‘shakes’ in the body. ‘Using a simple set of seven exercises, we teach people how to switch on their tremors, pay attention to the feelings generated by these tremors and, also, how to stop them,’ says Steve Haines, an expert in the therapy. These shakes are akin to a nervous system reboot because, due to daily stresses and traumas (and those that are more deep-seated), our brain defaults to old, habitual and protective patterns that make us tense, frozen and ready for fight-or-flight; TRE is a way to release tension and the emotions that cause it in the first place. ‘ There is a growing understanding of trauma,’ says Steve. ‘ Whether that’s someone who’s suffered from post-traumatic stress or the huge number of people who live in pain or anxiety. Shaking helps people to reconnect to themselves and the world around them.’ Sessions from £80 with Steve at The Whole Body London, or try Triyoga TRE classes, £17 for one class pass.
Slide and Glide
While their name suggests an easy-breezy sensibility, don’t be fooled. Gliders are sliding circular discs of workout torture, but they work a treat. And there’s a growing number of fitness studios, nationwide gyms and prominent personal trainers who are touting them for adding a little extra something to each workout. ‘ They’re super-versatile and you can get as creative as you want,’ says Loui Fazakerley, a personal trainer at Third Space gym. ‘I use them a lot at the end of a workout as finishers for the core, or you can do multidirectional lunges using one glider on one leg.’ Get started by hitting a class: DEFINE London’s brand-new Glide class combines them with traditional barre exercises to help work deeper into the muscles. Psycle’s GBR class, meanwhile, uses them with resistance bands to help sculpt the core. Up the ante with celebrity personal trainer Dalton Wong’s own gliders (and workouts to accompany them) to be used at home.
Intuitive eating
In refreshing news, dieting as A Thing is becoming less and less fashionable – just look at Weight Watchers’ rebrand to WW, standing for ‘ Wellness that Works’ for proof. Diets as we know them are out, and being conscious of our bodies and what we’re putting in them, is in. ‘Our bodies are smart mechanisms that have an amazing ability to self-regulate and heal,’ says Jenya Emets, founder of wellness club Cloud Twelve. ‘All we need to do is give it the right nutrients (through food) to be easily absorbed and metabolised. It’s simple.’ It’s about being mindful when we’re hungry about why we’re hungry – is it because we’re actually hungry or, more likely, are we feeling lonely, tired or bored? Being conscious of what our body actually needs is key; for example, when ‘hunger’ strikes, ask yourself: ‘ Would I eat an apple over this piece of chocolate?’ and if the answer is no, often you’ll be eating to quench an emotion.
BOTTOMS up
We’re all suckers for a nicely branded water (Fiji, anyone?) but the new wave of wellness drinks encompass great branding and body or brain-boosting nutrients. Take No1 Rosemary Water, pure rosemary water that has been dubbed a ‘turbo charger to the brain’ by Dr Mark Moss of Northumbria University. Studies have shown that this unexpectedly tasty drink can boost cognitive and memory performance by up to 15%, making choosing it a no-brainer (ahem).
Then there’s birch water, like Tapped’s Pure Organic, £2, which essentially gets ‘tapped’ out of a birch tree and contains natural manganese that combats the oxidative stress our cells suffer as a result of things like stress and pollution. There are water add-ons, too; Cellnutrition Complete Hypertonic Mineral Supplement, £36, is a daily vial that contains 78 minerals and trace elements that, in the old days, we would have ingested through nutrient-rich soil. All you need to do is add it to your morning glass of water and in return expect better immunity, improved energy levels and a healthier mind and body.
the Slow lane
How often do you slow down? For the majority of us, the answer is probably not often; but low-intensity interval training (or LIIT) will see to it that you do. While we’ve long loved high-intensity interval training (or HIIT) for its unrivalled ability to burn fat, the fact that it’s high impact and fast-paced can actually cause the body and mind stress, such is its ability to trigger cortisol – the stress hormone – production. ‘People can get obsessed with HIIT classes but your body can crash and burn,’ says Loui Fazakerley. ‘LIIT is easier on the joints and a nice way to switch up the intensity. You can choose any exercise you like – squats, lunges or push ups, for example – but it must be performed under control and not be plyometric [eg, jumping, hopping, skipping].’ Third Space’s Pulse class uses isometric movements and pulsing to isolate muscles and build them long and lean, without being high intensity; at SPN. Fit in Tunbridge Wells, the barre class also uses ballet-informed moves to strengthen the legs and glutes, while FLY LDN’S lowimpact class uses TRX suspension training to improve strength and mobility.
Make Yourself at Home
A full-blown exercise regime can now be easily completed from the comfort of your own living room, thanks to a new raft of dynamic online portals that make never entering another hellish gym a really promising reality, while offering up much more than the workout DVD, thanks to tech that allows them to be updated daily. ‘ Time is so limited now that people like the on-demand appeal of classes to do in their own free time,’ says Louis, who calls the idea a kind of ‘Netflix of fitness’. Followers of Joe ‘ The Body Coach’ Wicks will have seen him advocating the Peloton bike, a machine you buy for your home complete with a screen to stream one of 14 daily live studio bike workouts – but with all that tech it’s not the cheapest, starting at £1,990 (with payment plans available). Then there’s P.volve, a portal set up by New York trainer Stephen Pasterino, which houses countless different workouts that use a workout ball to tone the thighs, bum and abs. Movement for Modern Life makes yoga an at-home breeze, plus you can light candles, and then there are apps like Nike Training Club, which offers an array of step-by-step workouts, with different options for differing abilities.