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Yoga and Heart Health

Posted by Abby Lentz

· February 14, 2020

Whenever you search “yoga for heart health,” over 300 million results pop up. Seems everyone agrees that yoga is good for your heart. Surgeons, medical doctors, and many cardiac hospitals all agree with people like me — simple yoga teachers who are not medically trained — that yoga improves your heart.

In fact, it seems everyone agrees that any yoga will be good for your heart. However, in reviewing the best of the health recommendations, what I’ve found is that yoga poses break down into three major categories: twists and folds, chest openers, and safe inversions. All of these are a part of why yoga is so effective — they help you break out of your stress cycle, which can be a major contributor to heart disease.

If you have time to do a complete yoga session, be sure to warm up and cool down. On my YouTube Channel I help you with that using my Efficient Warm Up Series. Finishing with Savasana (Corpse Pose) while you use a meditative mind. If you don’t have enough time to do a complete session, you can gently sprinkle yoga into your daily life at home or in your office. If you don’t even have time for that, then just pause and take a few deep breaths.

Opportunities to twist are all around you. Twists help to cleanse and stimulate all the organs and soft tissues housed in the torso not just the heart. The trick to make twists effective is to move slowly and hold them deeply keeping your belly relaxed and your breath small. They can be done easily whenever you are sitting by grounding both feet, cross left hand to your right leg, and rotate to the right. Holding your hand to your leg is your Counter Point, the place of stabilization that helps you go deeper into the twist. Twist both sides.

Like twists, forward folds involve squeezing. Folds consist of bending so you are pressing your belly and chest into your legs. If you’re sitting, be sure you lift up out of your hips and low back before you place your torso on your lap. Note that these forward folds are different from doing ones to stretch your hamstrings. For hamstring stretches to evolve that require a Belly Well — a space you create by separating your legs to make room for your belly to fold into. Any of the belly-down poses — Cobra, Boat, or Locust, for example — will also create this press of your belly and chest.

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Categories : Awareness, Breath Work, Heart Health, Poses, Uncategorized

Become a Food Anthropologist

Posted by Abby Lentz

· November 14, 2018

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A travel expert on PBS advised that to really know a culture, you must eat their food. And he went on to eat dried bugs and stewed goat intestines. All the while I was thinking, YUCK — I’d have to be pretty darn hungry.

But upon reflection I realize how true that was. How much we find out about each other by looking at what we eat. Just watching this simple slide show you’ll discover a lot about me. You can see that I come from the land of oysters and crab — very specific East Coast seafood because I grew up in Southern Maryland. You’ll see the people I love and hang out with.

I come from Daddy’s turkey sage dressing and holiday Jell-O salad we call Pink Stuff which I’ve been making long before my children were born and they’re both in their forties. And to be fair, I also come from my mother’s version of seafarer’s stew, which consists of 7 different cans opened, stirred together and heated in a single big pot. (FYI, cream of mushroom, cream of tomato, can of milk, pearl onions, potatoes, salmon and tuna.)

While we might like to think about food as fuel, it’s so much more than that. Food is so intrinsic to who we are and what we do and so necessary to our survival — but also part of celebrations — birthdays, anniversaries, promotions and just about anything we share with others, including losses.

So, this Thanksgiving while you’re thinking about what to eat — or not eat — think about where you’re from and what is essential to celebrating who you are. Become a food anthropologist that tells your story so you’ll know more about yourself and your attachment to the foods you eat. Only by knowing where we’ve been can we support where we’re going.

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Categories : Awareness, Featured, Heart Health, Off the Mat, Uncategorized, Yoga Off the Mat

FITNESS Mag

Posted by Abby Lentz

· March 30, 2017

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Abby Named to Fitness Mag’s Fit 50 List

Naming her “Yoga’s Biggest Buff”
Fitness Magazine ranks Abby’s HeavyWeight Yoga as
Number 5 on their Fit 50 List!

Download PDF

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Categories : Media Coverage, Uncategorized

Magic Numbers Off the Court and On

As most of you already know, I love basketball and am passionate about my San Antonio Spurs. Even though he’s now retired, I love having us all stretch Tim Duncan Tall. Just as on and off the yoga mat, there’s lots of life to be learned on and off the basketball court.

A spectacular slamdunk and an ordinary tip-in both score the same 2 points. Sportsmanship counts, reflected not only in final scores, but also in humility during and after the game. A Hall of Fame player often never wears a Finals ring.

As playoff time nears there’s a lot of talk about a team’s Magic Number. This is a combination of wins and losses that determines a team’s ranking in the playoffs. You can advance by winning, but you can also advance by someone else winning over your close competition.

It all sounds more mathematical than it really is, but it got me to thinking — what if in life we all had a Magic Number? So many good deeds, so many acts of kindness and we’d go to the championship round. Do something not so good — and we all do — no worries, our friends will help us out and push us ahead.

I like thinking our Life Magic Number is infinite in scope. That in our lifetime we all will have enough opportunity to do good to make us champions, even if there’s no ring at the end of the season.

GO SPURS GO!

Layovers to yoga over!

Posted by Abby Lentz

· June 29, 2016

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If you’re flying to your vacation destination you can appreciate that some airports now have yoga studios available. According to Rodale’s Organic Life here’s the best of the airport yoga studios.

More than likely however, like me you’re not going to intersect with any of these half dozen airports. No worries however, it’s easy to integrate yoga into your layovers without standing out as much as you might think.

Feel a low backache from the entire sitting? Do wall or sink support downward dog. Grab the sink or place your hands on a wall or door about hip high, step back until your hips are level with your hands (soft bend in the knees) and then press the hips away to lengthen you back and stretch your hamstrings.

Feel like you’ve been curled up all flight? While sitting reach back with both hands and hold onto your seat, ground both feet and press your heart center forward squeezing the shoulder blades together as you stretch out across the front body shoulder to shoulder.

While you may not want or be able to stand on your head like the woman in the picture, you might find enough courage to get your legs up a wall or up on a chair. Here I am outside the Louvre in Paris giving my feet a thorough rest.

If being upsidedown in public isn’t your style simply slip off your shoes and do the Point (toes pointing away to stretch the top of the foot); the Demi-Point (press through the ball of the foot while pulling the toes up and apart); and the Flex (press the heel away to stretch the Achilles and calf). In girly-girl shoe talk, that’s a ballet toe shoe, sexy high heel and an earth shoe negative heel.

Check out my many travel stretches on YouTube on the HeavyWeightYoga channel. You’ll find complete tips not just for flying but driving as well. My favorite prop to pack is my 10-foot strap. Put it somewhere you’ll often see it to remind you when you’re at your vacation spot to sprinkle a little yoga once you get there.

Most important travel with ease!

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Categories : Featured, Off the Mat, Poses, Travel, Uncategorized, Yoga Off the Mat

When lacing up isn’t an answer

I got some blog advice today from a health newsletter that suggests when you get feeling anxious, instead of eating, you should “lace up your sneakers” and walk it off. While adding aerobic activity is often a good idea, what if taking a walk just isn’t possible at the moment anxiety strikes?

Lacing up your sneakers may not be an option because you’re bed-bound or can’t reach your feet. But supposing you’re stuck in traffic, knowing you’ll be late for an appointment; or in the office reading an email that says layoffs are coming; or at home cooking dinner to discover you don’t have a essential ingredient to complete the main dish.

The list can go on and on — including you can’t take a walk because of something as simple as it’s raining.

The one thing I know we all do, every day, all the time is breathe. Yep, in and out, inhale, exhale — I know it’s happening right now as you read these words. That makes it all the easier to reduce anxiety with one simple solution — Deep Belly Breathing.

When possible I enjoy doing a few sighing breaths first. Just like it sounds, sighing breaths are made by breathing in through the nose and out the mouth, making the sounds to release tension while vibrating across the face and jaw. I like to really get noisy, but when I can’t be making a racket, I start with my Deep Belly Breathing. Read More →