Essentrics® is whole-body, dynamic workout!
To move well we need to be strong. Essentrics class helps to release tension so that we can move more freely and align our joints for optimal engagement through muscle chains. The goal is a strong, mobile, pain-free body!
Fun and fluid movements build:
- Range of Motion
- Strength
- Balance
- Mind/Body Awareness
Class goals:
- Improve mobility
- Relieve tension and stiffness
- Restore posture
- Access a greater range of motion
- Build strong muscles using your own body weight for resistance
- Rebalance your 650 skeletal muscles
- Improve circulation and energy
- Strengthen bones and connective tissue
- Support injury prevention
You may experience some of these benefits within one class. Others take time and practice.
Essentrics class is an opportunity to explore and enjoy movement, honoring your own mobility each time you come to class. We emphasize joint alignment as we flow through class with continuous, sometimes subtle, lengthening and strengthening sequences. Pace is slow to medium so that we can experience and build control through our range of motion. This helps to make us resilient and ready to face the challenges of daily life and sport.
I recently participated in an Anatomy Trains workshop lead by Tom Myers on the topic of fascia and pain. One of the issues we all experience as we age is a loss of pliability in our muscles and connective tissue. This contributes to stiffness, pain, insulin resistance, and loss of power, strength, muscle mass, balance and bone density. Scary stuff! What counteracts this natural process? I suspect you already know the answer: MOVEMENT! “You might want to do stretch with movement.” Tom Meyers. Essentrics is moving while stretching! Particularly, moving in all planes of motion and at different heights, which feels great and benefits our whole body.
About Essentrics.com
The Essentrics® technique was created by Miranda Esmonde-White. She co-founded the company with her daughter, Sahra in 1997. This intelligently-designed program embraces movement that nourishes our bodies.
Terms
Mobility: strength + flexibility. It is exhibited as control through our range of motion.
Range of Motion: degree of flexibility around a joint. This can be compromised by tightness around a joint.
Flexibility: elasticity of muscles and connective tissue (fascia).
Stability: control of motion at a joint
Muscle Chains, Fascial lines or Myofascial chains: This refers to the interconnectedness of fascia and the musculoskeletal system along established lines throughout the body. When a muscle is activated there is a reaction along the line. For example, moving the fingers and hands activates muscles into the chest, neck, and upper back. Fascial lines are “responsible for posture, stability and efficient, fluid motion.” Robert Schleip, Fascial Fitness. Dynamic, complex movement allows us to access many muscles along multiple lines targeting all 650 skeletal muscles to rebalance the body.
Fascia: a web of connective tissue that connects everything in the body to everything else in the body. Fascia has many forms and roles in the body including posture, movement, lubrication of muscles and joints, and transmitting sensory information.
Dynamic Stretching: moving while stretching.
Rebalancing: When we talk about rebalancing the body we are referring to activating all of our muscles and trying to restore them to their natural length. Muscles should be able to lengthen, shorten and return to center.
My definitions are to help explain the benefits and goals of a class, not meant to be a full explanation of the complexity of movement.
Class Information, click here.