Flexibility and strength build fitness

We all know that exercise is good for us. Maintaining a regular exercise routine helps your heart, lungs, muscles, even your social and mental health by being part of a fitness community in your neighborhood, at your local gym or senior center. While moving to get your blood flowing is important, slowing down and taking recovery time also matters. You can reap the benefits of recovery through red light therapy, percussive massage tools, or with restorative yoga.

Restorative yoga is a gentle style of yoga that encourages physical and mental relaxation with long holds, deep breathing, and a slower pace. This style of yoga literally restores the body's parasympathetic nervous system to induce a relaxation response. The benefits include better balance, mobility, and flexibility, pain management, improved mood, lower blood pressure, improved breathing, and better sleep.

Want to give restorative yoga a try? You can either take a class at your local gym* or try a few poses on your own such as fish pose, child's pose, or corpse pose, also known as savasana. Each pose should be held for 5 minutes to feel the benefits.

Fish pose helps release neck and shoulder tension, as well as open your chest. It begins seated with folded blankets behind your back. Lie back resting your shoulders and head on the blankets. Rest your arms at your sides, close your eyes, and breathe deeply.

Child's pose stretches your spine, hips, glutes, and shoulders. Kneel on the floor with your knees apart and big toes touching pushing your buttocks towards your heels. Extend your arms in front of you and place your head in between your arms. You can also rest your head on a pillow or make a pillow with your hands. Relax and take deep, slow breaths.

Corpse pose (savasana) is lying on your back with your arms and legs extended. You can be supported by blankets or bolsters to enhance your experience. Close your eyes and breathe deeply to help release tension.

Not a yogi? Percussive massage tools, such as Hypervolt or Theragun, offer a recovery method you can use anytime. The hand-held tools use rapid and repetitive pressure combined with vibration to ease sore muscles, increase blood flow, and promote healing. This combination can reduce stress on your body and give your well-being a boost in a short amount of time.

Finally, if you want to try the recovery method everyone is buzzing about these days, then you might consider red-light therapy. Regular use of red-light therapy has been shown to boost your immune system, improve sleep, reduce stress and inflammation, enhance brain function, promote collagen production, and help with muscle recovery. It works by exposing bare skin to particles of light which enter your tissues to prompt a change in your cells. The red light is said to affect cells' mitochondria generating energy to promote healing.

These are just a few of the many recovery options available today. No matter which recovery method you choose, slowing down and giving your muscles a break is an important part of any well-rounded fitness routine. While it's great to get your sweat on with a heart-pumping, muscle-building workout, you also need to listen to your body and treat it with care. It's the only one you've got, so take good care of it and in return, it will take good care of you!

Tracy Dumas, Director of Marketing & PR for The Alaska Club.

*The Alaska Club West offers a restorative yoga class on Wednesdays at noon. You can find other gentle yoga classes on the group fitness schedule as well including Gentle Yoga Stretch and Weekend Wind Down by visiting https://www.thealaskaclub.com/schedules/south-central-schedules.