The best wellness classes to try this month: Yoga, Meditation & Reformer Pilates for improved fitness, reduced stress and all those endorphins
We talk about wellness a lot at Fernwood and the need to incorporate a wellness workout into your routine – reformer Pilates, yoga, meditation etc. – as we believe a healthy and sustainable lifestyle is not just about how far you run, the weights you lift or what you eat. Of course these are all important factors in maintaining good health and fitness, but so too is how we nurture and nourish our minds and mental wellbeing.
When we say wellness, we’re referring to any practice or experience where you’re focusing on soothing your mind and body, whether that be yoga, Pilates, meditation, or Empower. If you hear these names dropped all the time, but don’t know a lot about them, then keep reading.
Reformer Pilates
Reformer Pilates is an invigorating, strengthening and core-building group class for women who want to turn up the heat in their wellness workouts. Release stress and improve your daily wellbeing with Fernwood Reformer Pilates group classes, which offer a wide variety of exercises to promote overall coordination, strength, flexibility and balance. Reformer is currently available in select clubs, with more locations being added regularly!
Yoga
The two main unifying practices in yoga are mind to body and body to breath. Yoga has so many wonderful benefits, such as improving your strength, flexibility and mental wellbeing, just to name a few. Anyone who has attended a hatha or ashtanga yoga class will attest that it’s not an easy form of exercise, and that the sweat can still certainly flow in these classes. It’s a practice of concentrated breathing, where poses demand both physical and mental effort. And then at the end of every practice, you get to bathe in the glow of Savasana.
Yin yoga
A slower type of yoga practice, yin yoga is considered a very mellow, chilled practice of physical yoga. The postures are modified versions of traditional practices, and rely heavily on the use of props including bolsters and blocks to support the body, and allow the participant to fully relax and surrender into the holds for 3-5 minutes each. The benefits are deep fascia stretching, relaxation, mental focus and meditation.
Meditation
These days, one of the main benefits of meditation is to put us into the complete opposite of that high stress state that we normally function in. You can experience benefits from one or two minutes of meditation if that serves your purpose. If your intention for the meditation is to feel calmer or take a mental break from something, then that might only need to be one to five minutes. If your purpose is to have some real introspection, it could be 10 or 20 minutes.
It’s often best to create a fairly quiet and relaxed environment to stop distraction and ideally, it’s a place where you feel comfortable and warm. For Fernwood members, meditation sessions are available for free via the Fernwood Pulse platform.
Empower
We’ve always seen the value in exercising our bodies for overall health and fitness, but now, more than ever, we’re seeing a positive conscious shift across the fitness industry towards wellness and in particular the body-mind-soul connection. That’s where Empower comes in.
The program, created in conjunction with Deakin University, focuses on stress management, the creation of values-based goals and desires, as well as learning self-acceptance and loving kindness. The program includes a series of wellbeing workshops, which includes meditation and yoga practices as a way to invite more mindfulness into your experience.
Want to find out more about signing up for these services in club? Scroll down and fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch with more info for you!
