Sitting for three or more hours a day can take years off of your life. When you're active, you won't lose years, but an occasional bump, bruise or sprain can keep you off your bike, out of your running shoes or off the slopes.
Trigger Point makes lots of sports therapy gear to help active people heal injuries faster and keep their muscles elastic, like the Grid, a hollow foam roller that rolls out lactic acid and other toxins in your muscles, and helps keep tendons and fascia, the sheath around the tendons, from getting hung up.
Trigger Point's latest sports therapy tool combines myofascial release with cold compression. The Cold Roller releases lactic acid and other toxins from your muscles, and helps restore tendons and fascia to health by icing them for recovery. The Roller simulates an ice bath without making you sit in a tub of freezing water or hold a dripping Ziplock of ice cubes on your sore spots.
As I wrote about in my last post, yoga can help kids develop flexibility, strength, agility, balance, and body awareness. When teaching little yogis, it’s important not to worry too much about proper poses or "doing it right.” It’s more about exposing them to basic forms and muscle memory, and having fun. They will gradually learn the nuances. Here are five great starter poses for building well-balanced kids. They can be done individually as you need them, or together as a sequence.
TREE POSE Summer brings a lot of unstructured time, which is great for free-flow play. But it can be challenging to get your kid to shift from hunting salamanders to, say, prepping for a swimming lesson. Tree pose can help teach the value of a smooth and strong transition. Invite the child to bring their foot above or below the knee and press it into the leg while they press their rooted foot into the ground. To begin, their hands can remain pressed against each other in front of their heart (if they’re toppling over, suggest they place one hand on a wall or actual tree for stability). As their balance improves, they can move their arms toward the sky like branches of a tree. Repeat pose, switching feet for symmetry and strength.
As a child of the '70s I was stuck between my older sister’s Jane Fonda leotard workouts and my mom’s obsession with the yoga revolution that was sweeping the country. I alternated between doing aerobics in front of her full-length mirror and sitting on the carpeted floor, legs folded, arms twisted like an elephant’s trunk, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Even at age four, I remember yoga making me feel strong, calm, and connected.
Three decades later, yoga for kids is booming, with classes for children as young as three. Proponents say it’s a way for little ones to deal with the pressures of childhood. It also helps give them focus and flexibility that can benefit them in sports and school. But as a parent of four active, soccer-playing, hiking, skiing, outdoor boys, I was on the fence: Do kids really need yoga? Or is it just another activity to add to their overly-scheduled lives?
