So much of that is missing from adult working life. We get up, go to work, fit in some exercise, scrounge up dinner. But maybe, for that time we’re devoting to fitness, if we approach it like a form of adult summer camp, we can bring some of that exploration, socializing, and joy to our lives.

That was one of the guiding impulses behind the creation of Tampa and Los Angeles-based community fitness space CAMP, says CAMP co-founder and yoga teacher Jamie Lanza. She wanted to create a place where adults could connect with each other while exploring different forms of movement in an intentionally playful environment.

“My business partner and I both grew up in summer camps to varying degrees,” Lanza says. “It was like liberation. It was like freedom. It was like walking into a space where you’re like, I’m gonna be whatever I wanna be, and there’s all these activities for people like us who like to do all the things.”

“I’m gonna be whatever I wanna be, and there’s all these activities for people like us who like to do all the things.” CAMP co-founder Jamie Lanza

While the original location is in Tampa, Florida, I got to explore the newly expanded CAMP Los Angeles in Santa Monica. The space feels like more of a campus than a gym. There are five fitness studios that all face inward toward a large central courtyard and lounging space. Each studio serves a different modality, one each for yoga, a HIIT circuit, a cardio-strength stations class, sculpt, and Pilates.

“The campus itself is a big part of our ethos,” Lanza says. “There is this crossing paths and you’re getting to see a little bit of everything all the time and decide what else you want to be a part of in the campus space. A big part of it is we have outdoor lobbies, we have places to hang out and enjoy space together, rather than getting out as fast as possible.”

To make the space even more inviting, Lanza and team painted the buildings bright colors, with playful signage and paraphernalia like tire swings on the property. Driving down busy Lincoln Boulevard, CAMP stands out and definitely caught my eye and curiosity for months before I actually made it in.

Equally important to the environment is the variety. Getting to tap into what you’re feeling for the day and select what excites you—whether that’s a bootcamp or breath work—is all part of the summer camp spirit, says Lanza. A campus has allowed CAMP to bring the open-minded exploratory ethos of intuitive movement to the fitness studio. Incidentally, reigniting a sense of play and connecting with movement in the way you did when you were a child is one of the guiding ideas behind intuitive movement.

A community environment is what undergirds it all. CAMP hosts pop-up markets and food trucks in the courtyard, and classes encourage you to meet your fellow students, and include things like group sprints to build team spirit. It seems to be working—I ran into a friend who had only been going for about a month, and teachers and fellow students were greeting him right and left.

“There’s this feeling in LA that everybody kind of keeps to themselves or it’s a little bit cliquey or like you only speak when spoken to,” Lanza says. “Here we lean in, we lean in hard so that people feel like, come on, let’s go do this together. Let’s drop whatever title we walk in here with and let’s be human beings and get together like summer camp when we were kids.”

While not everyone has access to a studio like CAMP, reframing fitness as a way to physically go somewhere that’s inviting and fun, tap into how you want to move, explore your own interests, and make friends at the same time, might help bring a spark of joy to your routine. So try something new, reach out to a fellow camper, and consider pursuing a summer of movement like you did when you were a kid.

You’re not alone. Reddit is full of posts where users are asking how to cope with their regret when they don’t exercise. One pre-COVID study even found that 78 percent of participants felt less accomplished when they missed a workout.

One source to blame is fitness culture. You’ve probably seen it: the pressure in magazines, advertisements, and other media to take “no days off” and “crush your workouts.”

But those messages largely benefit companies wanting to make money, not you or your health. Even some personal trainers aren’t fans of this kind of rhetoric.

“Our fitness culture puts an enormous (and unnecessary) emphasis on following a specific program or maintaining a ‘streak,’” says Rachel Trotta, a NASM-certified personal trainer. “This puts pressure on people to have a high level of workout adherence, which can trigger anxiety if you struggle with perfectionism.”

She adds that the anxiety—and even shame—that may result can lead us to procrastinate future workouts, too. Exercise can become a big “to-do” in our minds, and instead of just putting on our shoes and heading out for a walk, we wait until we feel up for a high intensity interval session, but that starts to feel harder and harder to do. It’s an awful cycle of guilt, then skipping another workout, then more guilt, and so on.

Does this sound a bit too relatable? Check out the following tips that can help you handle the discomfort and get your stride back.

1. Identify distortions in your thought patterns

Self-talk makes a significant impact on our thoughts, mood, and actions. Evan Lawrence, LMHC, a therapist with Choosing Therapy, explains that emotional distress comes in when we take a fact—such as “I didn’t go to the gym today”—and tell ourselves something about that fact, such as “I am not a responsible person.”

When you notice this pattern, he recommends reminding yourself of evidence that disputes the idea. “For example, if you realize you are telling yourself ‘I am not a responsible person,’ you can remind yourself of other times or aspects where you are/were responsible,” he suggests.

2. Remind yourself of how important rest is

Even though rest may not feel productive or “healthy,” it is. More than that, it’s necessary. “The truth is that it is easier to meet fitness goals when we allow our bodies to rest,” says Kerry Heath, LPC-S, NCC, a counselor with Choosing Therapy. She encourages listening to your body. “Working out when we need to honor our bodies through rest or recovery actually keeps us farther from our health goals.” In fact, rest and recovery can boost performance, repair muscles, reduce injury risk, and more.

Additionally, Heath encourages reminding yourself that a few workouts aren’t a “make or break” situation that affects your overall progress toward your long-term goals—and this truth goes for everyone. “Even professional athletes miss workouts due to travel, illness, or holidays,” she says. “It’s a matter of overall consistency versus perfection.”

Trotta points out that cardiovascular endurance only starts to drop after about a week of no training, and for strength training, that time frame is more like two to three weeks. “A day or two of rest has no effect—or could possibly have a positive impact—on your performance,” she says.

3. Remember the reasons behind your decision

Lawrence talks about making an active choice. In other words, “take time to think about your decision, then choose what to do based on the data available,” he explains.

For example, as non-diet, Health at Every Size-aligned, certified personal trainer Barb Puzanovova discussed in an article for Well+Good on “half-assed wellness,” it’s important to consider other factors from the day that affect how you feel and what you need. “If…you’re tired, kind of hungry, drank mostly coffee, and [are] super stressed, then it’s time to half-ass,” she says. “And if you’re somewhere in between—stressed but slept okay—then experiment with what’s planned and give yourself permission to back off [or] change the game plan.”

What does that look like in practice, though? For one, maybe reminding yourself after a sleepless night and busy day that your body needs rest most, and reading a book in bed. Or maybe after a stressful day, you’re more in the mood for a yoga class than weightlifting. Or maybe you want the energy boost of a bootcamp workout. Any of these options are totally valid!

The reasoning behind your choices is what you have to fall back on. “When you feel the cloud of guilt overhead you, remind yourself why you chose to do this today,” Lawrence says. “You can still remind yourself of the reasons you were debating, but I have found that it is a lot stronger when we make purposeful decisions that we can mentally support.”

4. Let yourself simply move on

One of Trotta’s big tips for clients is to avoid “making up” missed workouts. “The pile-up that ensues can be even more depressing than missing one or two workouts,” she says. “An incredibly important part of habit formation is enjoying exercise, and we tend not to enjoy things that we feel we’re failing at.” Instead, she encourages clients to “simply move on to the next one when the time is right.”

Along these lines, aiming for perfection actually isn’t helpful, according to Trotta. “Perfectionism procrastinates, waiting for the ideal time to ‘do it right,’” she says. “Sometimes, workouts are consistently skipped because they are too ambitious for your schedule, lifestyle, or energy.” Habits that are genuinely healthy are flexible, she says, promoting consistency over intensity.

TL;DR: Try to not feel bad about hitting the couch instead of the gym when that’s what you’re feeling. After all, exercise is just one of many ways we take care of our minds and bodies.

Walker completed her first Ironman in 2007, and was instantly hooked. “I just, you know, enjoyed being out there all day,” she says. “What better way to spend a day than swimming, biking, and running?”

Which is why, over the past 16 years, she’s completed 68 of these extreme endurance triathlons. That math works out to more than four Ironmans per year. For comparison, the average athlete takes about five or six months to train for this kind of race, and then another two to four weeks to recover afterwards.

Walker doesn’t exactly do average, though. Earlier this year, she and her husband, Dougin, completed six Ironman races on six continents in six weeks as part of their quest to join “the club” of people who’ve done every Ironman in the world (a club of which there are currently only five members). Last year, they completed two Ironmans in one weekend—one in Kalmar, Sweden, on Saturday followed by another in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Sunday. The Tampa, Florida–based couple even got married on the bike course during the 2022 Ironman in Cozumel before finishing the rest of the race. Casual.

Walker’s number-one key to recovering well enough to compete so often

This begs the question: How in the world does someone keep their body not only healthy, but recovered enough to compete in major endurance events so close together? (And Walker is competitive—during her six-in-six-weeks challenge, Walker won her age group in the Philippines and took second in Brazil.)

“Sleep is my superpower,” admits Walker. “I get, on average, nine to 10 hours a night.” Even in foreign hotels, or on planes during travel days, she sleeps well, she says. “I can just lay down anywhere and go to sleep. Once my head hits the pillow, it’s like I go into a coma,” she jokes.

This ability to sleep helps explain how Walker can manage such high volume. As experts will tell you, sleep is the most powerful muscle recovery tool we have. “Non-REM sleep is associated with the highest levels of growth hormone release during a day, allowing muscles to heal and grow,” Ben Smarr, professor at University of California San Diego in bioengineering and data science, previously told Well+Good. That human growth hormone helps repair the microscopic muscle tears that happen during exercise, helping your body bounce back and grow stronger.

And for endurance athletes like Walker, the muscle repair process that happens during sleep also helps improve your body’s stamina, according to Jeff Monaco, Gold’s Gym director of education. “If an individual is engaged in endurance training, the body will respond by increasing the oxidative capacity of those muscle fibers through increases in mitochondrial density and size,” he previously told Well+Good, adding that sleep also helps to keep your endocrine, immune, and nervous systems functioning properly so that your body can operate at full strength. (FYI: mitochondria are your cell’s battery packs aka energy sources.)

The effects of all this physiology are something Walker has long relied on. “I know there are a lot of people that are like, ‘I can sleep six hours and be fine,’ ” she says. “I’m just not one of those people.”

Her other recovery tools

Sleep may be the primary recovery technique Walker uses to get her to start line after start line, but it’s not the only one. Here are a few of her other non-negotiables:

1. Chocolate milk

“We have chocolate milk after any kind of workout, any kind of race,” Walker says. Research has shown this tasty childhood treat has an optimal ratio of carbs to protein for post-workout recovery.

2. Consistent body work

Walker and Dougin go to a chiropractor and also get a 90-minute massage every week. “It’s not a relaxing massage,” Walker clarifies, with a laugh. “Our massage guy beats us up, but it’s what we need.”

3. Normatec boots

Hyperice’s Normatec 3 Legs use a rhythmic series of compression from your feet up to your hips to encourage blood flow for faster recovery. “They also get me to sit still,” Walker admits.

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4. Massage guns

Walker regularly uses portable massage guns, which have been proven to increase muscle strength and power, and to reduce muscle pain. In fact, having one is such a “must,” that when the couple forgot to bring their Theragun to a race, they ended up buying a Hypervolt while they were there. They also own the Theragun mini for easy packing. “It helps refresh, and make you feel better,” says Walker.

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“Mobility versus stability is an old trope. What you really should ask yourself is ‘Do I have access to my native, natural range of motion, and can I control my movement through those ranges?’” says Starrett, co-author (with Juliet) of Built To Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully.

Starrett explains that range of motion, or ROM, is how your joints and limbs move through their available  space, while mobility is being able to express those ranges with control to accomplish tasks. Starrett likens native ROM (the ROM we’re born with) to a wide, spacious hallway that begins to shrink in size if we don’t maintain it.

“Most of us in our 20s have a big movement hallway,” he says. “As we age, our hallway gets narrower and narrower due to things like injury and disease, until it gets to the point where some people can barely move around. If you keep access to your native ROM, your movement hallway tends to stay open.”

We use ROM in our daily lives for everything from squatting and sitting to lifting items and walking up stairs. But ROM and mobility are “use it or lose it,” and most of our lifestyles don’t require us to continually move like our ancestors did.

“What we often see is that if we don’t expose our tissues and joints to their ranges of motion, our brain takes away the ability to access that ROM,” he says. “Our bodies constantly adapt and may adapt in ways that are limiting until you can’t get off the couch or out of the car.”

When ROM is restricted, it affects mobility, stability, and ease of movement, which, in turn, can lead to pain and injury. Starrett cites the example of a runner whose restrictions mean they can no longer maintain proper form in their stride.

“Imagine I’m missing the ability to move the leg behind the body [properly]. If I’m missing that shape, when the leg is behind, the foot externally rotates,” he says. “That position is me solving a movement restriction because I don’t have access to my native range of motion. Then the hip is not in a stable position. The body’s workaround strategy is to create a range of motion considered less effective and where the movement is not as stable.”

With age, our joints tend to become stiffer which can also lead to compensating with positions that have less stability and force. “That’s when you see people struggle to do simple tasks,” says Starrett. “The number-one reason people end up in nursing homes is because they can’t get up off the ground. That’s usually a knee or hip problem, not a strength problem.”

How to maintain your range of motion over time

Starrett’s book contains 10 tests to assess ROM, including the couch test and the sit-and-rise test: Stand up, cross one foot in front of the other, lower yourself to sit cross-legged on the ground, then stand up, without using your hands for assistance. A recent study found that participants who did best on the sit-and-rise test had a greater likelihood of survival six years later, while those who struggled most were more likely to have died.

To keep and restore ROM and mobility, you don’t need to go to a gym or class—although yoga and Pilates are beneficial—but instead to focus on targeted movements that train your joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, and brain to work together in harmony, so you move freely and effortlessly throughout life, says Starrett. His book contains 10 simple, at-home mobilization “physical practices”—there are also Mobility Workouts of the Day on his YouTube channel—and though you don’t need to go through the list daily, Starrett says it’s best to do some mobilization work every day.

For example, one of the most effective things you can do is sit on the ground for 30 minutes a day when watching TV. “You’re going to have to change position a lot to get comfortable. This creates an opportunity to spend time in ranges of motion you’re not used to,” says Starrett, who also recommends walking at least 8,000 steps a day.

While you may not be thinking about falling and not being able to get back up in your 20s or 30s, our bodies are our homes and working to maintain a spacious “movement hallway” throughout life is really about “playing the long game” to live well as we age, says Starrett.

“Your range of motion doesn’t need to change,” he says. “It’s one thing we can control at any age. If we think of body movement as a language, we are capable of Shakespeare, but most of us are using language like Dr. Seuss.”

These are just a few of the most common squatting cues I tried to keep in mind as a newbie lifter, and yet, despite following them all religiously, my barbell squat always felt a little… off. While I was able to leg press 450 pounds without breaking a sweat, I could barely squat the barbell on its own. My lower back would cramp up after a single rep, and my hips would ache on the ascent.

It wasn’t until I started working with a lifting coach and began filming my workouts that I discovered the root of my squat woes: I was keeping my chest up too much. That’s right—in my effort to have a “perfect” squat form, I was actually hyperextending my spine, causing what’s referred to in the lifting community as a “butt wink,” or a pelvic drop at the bottom of my squat.

As it turns out, proper form actually varies greatly from person to person, and according to USA Powerlifting competitor, powerlifting coach, and North Dallas Strength gym co-owner Joe Miller, cues like “keep your chest up” aren’t exactly golden rules to lift by. Here’s why.

Why the “keep your chest up” squatting cue isn’t right for every body

When we keep our chest up too much during the descent of a squat, we tend to arch our backs and create a “C” shape in our spines in order to compensate for the unnaturally upright posture. This places an immense amount of pressure on the lower back, shifting the weight load from our legs to our lumbar region.

@ericrobertsfitness Everything you were told was a lie.. #squats #legday #legworkout #legdayworkout ♬ Morning Sky – Tundra Beats

According to Miller, this overcorrection actually places the barbell behind our center of gravity and can lead to the aforementioned dreaded “butt wink” on the descent—and can eventually lead to a nasty lower back injury.

“I actually think more often than not, it’s counterproductive,” says Miller about the chest-up cue.“I think a lot of people just make the mistake of believing that there’s a one-size-fits-all squat form that involves a very upright torso. A lot of your problems could be solved by just thinking about it less and putting your body into a position that it’s naturally going to want to be in, in order to stay balanced.”

Just as our fitness goals are wholly unique to us, so are our anatomies. While some people are comfortable squatting with their feet pointing forward, some of us have to place our feet at an outward angle in order to “open” the hips, depending on how our femurs connect in our hip sockets.

“If your femur bones are oriented to the outside of your hips, that’s where your hip socket head is, and you’re not going to comfortably squat with your legs straight forward at a shoulder-width position—and there’s nothing wrong with that,” adds Miller. (Psst: If you need help finding out which foot placement is best for you, try this simple physical screening).

Instead of focusing on keeping your chest up during your squats, try these tips below.

4 squat rules to try instead of “keep your chest up”

1. Do a body squat to find your stance

Before loading up your barbell with weights, do a few body squats in front of a mirror, says Miller. Place your feet roughly shoulder-width apart, make your hands into fists and place them next to your shoulders as if you were performing a barbell squat. Adjust your stance as you perform the squats until you can comfortably reach a point where your thighs are at least parallel to the floor.

“Your body is more likely to end up in the right position than someone telling you what to do,” says Miller. “Practice bodyweight squats and see what feels good. If you can reach parallel without anything crazy happening during a bodyweight squat, that’s usually a good starting point.”

2. Keep your head up, not your chest up

Keeping your head up and directing your gaze directly in front of you will help you drive your movement upward during the ascent without compromising the weight distribution on your lower half. If you’re squatting in front of a mirror, avoid watching your body while performing the squat. Keep your eyes locked forward and engage your abs, back, and legs as you perform the squat.

Those with longer torsos and shorter femurs may end up in a mostly-upright squat position, but those with longer legs and shorter torsos may have to slightly tilt their torso forward in order to keep the bar in its vertical path.

“It’s a matter of your bone structure,” says Miller. “Different people have to squat differently.”

3. Imagine the barbell can only travel in a straight vertical path

Rather than contorting your posture to keep your torso straight-up-and-down, imagine that the barbell can only travel in a vertical path that’s perpendicular to the floor. Adjust your foot width, angle, and torso as necessary to stay balanced and to keep the barbell in this vertical path.

@deltabolic :x: STOP squatting with a diagonal/curved bar path! This can increase your risk of lower back injury and decrease your squat strength. :white_check_mark: Squat with a vertically straight path For a full training program with for tips and meal plan, visit the link in my bio! #squat #squats #squattips #squattutorial #squatform #workouttips ♬ Babel – Gustavo Bravetti

4. Push through the floor

Rather than focusing on your chest lifting up during your ascent, focus on pushing through your feet, as if you were trying to push the ground away from you. This will help you keep the tension focused on your quads, hamstrings, and glutes, rather than your chest and back.

If you still struggle with weight displacement during your squats, consider asking a professional trainer or lifting coach to watch you as your perform your squat. Remember: Proper form can vary from person to person, and if you’re feeling too much pressure on your lower back, you may need to adjust your stance to redirect the weight load back onto your legs.

Now that my favorite hobby is running, I’ll often see in race photos (especially during the later miles) that it looks like I’m leaving my butt half a foot behind the rest of my body—not the most efficient form, nor the most comfortable. My husband knows that if there’s anywhere I’m going to ask for a massage, it’s my low back. All that arching leaves it constantly aching.

Physical therapists, trainers, and coaches have all prescribed the same fix over and over: lower ab work to strengthen that section of my body so I can hold my spine in a better position. But no matter how many core strengthening exercises for lower back pain I add to my routine, I’ve never really been able to solve the problem.

When I told all this to movement coach and postural alignment specialist Emily DePauw, she wasn’t the least bit surprised.

“People think, okay, well if I strengthen my abs, then I can provide a structure of support that will reduce the instability in my spine. It makes a lot of sense because opposite your spine is your abs,” she says. “It’s not an entirely uninformed thought; it’s just an incomplete thought.”

That’s because, she says, core work itself won’t fix imbalances or asymmetries in your torso. For instance, when assessing my posture, she noticed that one of my hips is tilted further than the other, and that leg naturally rotates out further, twisting my spine off-balance, and causing me to arch my lower back to compensate. “When you resolve the rotation in the body, then you can recruit your obliques and your transverse abs [deep core stabilizers] much more symmetrically from right to left. And then you really are strengthening [to support] your spine better, but you wanna resolve these imbalances first,” she says.

She adds that even if lower ab weakness is the reason for your lower back pain, it’s worth doing some Sherlock Holmes work to figure out why they’re weak. “It’s not like these muscles just decided one day to be non-participatory and just be weak for an arbitrary reason,” says DePauw. “This is because they’re not in a position of leverage that they should be in to be used. Weakness in the core is because of a misalignment, and you wanna address the misalignment first.”

“Weakness in the core is because of a misalignment, and you wanna address the misalignment first.” —Emily DePauw

If you think a misalignment may be behind your own back pain, you’re likely right. “Pretty much everyone is dealing with some sort of imbalance just as a result of our lifestyles and our habits,” DePauw says. That could be anything from consistently sitting cross-legged, to a habit of leaning more into one hip than the other when you’re just standing around, or even a hobby like surfing or snowboarding that forces you to favor one side.

You can quickly tell if you may have an imbalance if, for instance, you find you always get injured on the same side of your body, if the bottoms of your shoes wear down unevenly between your left and right feet, or if you notice more strength or flexibility on one side of your body. Or you can do a simple test: Stand up, close your eyes, and see if it feels like you have more weight in one foot than the other. A postural alignment specialist like DePauw or even a physical therapist could also help point out asymmetries, and give you some ways to fix them.

It’s not that we need to be perfectly symmetrical. Just ask any pro tennis or golf player—they’ll probably never have equal strength on both sides, and that’s fine. “You just need to be functional,” DePauw says. That means balancing out any misalignments before working on things like core strength.

For my tilted pelvis and uneven leg rotation, DePauw gave me three short exercises I could do lying on the floor to retrain the alignment in my hips. After just a few days of regular practice, I noticed my lower back lying flatter against the ground.

“You’re gonna get so much more out of your core work because you actually have access to your abs in a better way,” she told me. “I definitely am not villainizing abdominal work because it’s super helpful, super important. You just wanna position yourself for success first. Do this first, and then you’re gonna get so much more juice from the squeeze.”

Previously, endorphins have been the star of the show for the connection between exercise and mood: A good sweat session will cause a release of endorphins, which are neurochemicals produced in the pituitary gland that react with opiate receptors, meaning they make you feel really good. Working out also stimulates the production of serotonin and norphenylephrine, which are other happiness, wellbeing, and pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters.

These mood-boosting stimulations would probably be enough to give you that post-yoga glow. But there’s something even more going on.

Researchers have come to understand that when our muscles contract, they produce substances that get dispersed throughout the body. Some of these are chains of amino acids called myokines, and they are able to cross the blood-brain barrier—which means they can act on your brain. And when they get there, they improve brain function.

“Several myokines—irisin, hydroxybutyrate, etc.—have been shown to stimulate neuronal function and facilitate synapses, which are the way neurons communicate with each other,” Mychael Vinicius Lourenco, PhD, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who co-authored a recent review of research around myokines and brain function, previously told Well+Good.

That includes potentially “mediating the beneficial actions of physical exercise in the brain,” Lourenco and his co-authors write in the review. As a potential example, assisting with neuron communication could mean that myokines are helping those feel-good messages being sent by endorphins, serotonin, and norphenylephrine be heard.

Beyond just helping your brain do its job better, researchers also think that myokines could actually be a bulwark against depression. This has led to the substances garnering the name “hope molecules.”

In 2016, physical therapy and psychiatry researchers writing in the journal Physical Therapy were reviewing research on the connection between exercise and depression. They referenced a 2014 study on mice in which mice with lower levels of a certain type of myokine exhibit less resilience under stress than those mice with higher levels of the myokine.

“After a significant amount of stress, the mice appeared to ‘lose hope,’ as evidenced by their decreased survival efforts during forced swimming (an indicator of depression),” the authors write. “Altogether, these results suggest that the release of ‘hope molecules’ from the skeletal muscles of rodents influence mood disorder symptoms.”

While we can’t necessarily extrapolate the findings from studies on mice to humans, both species share some underlying biology that might cause myokines to work in a similar way. Namely, these myokines could inhibit a neurotransmitter pathway that, when it’s overactive, is linked with depression.

This was compelling enough for Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal, the author of The Joy of Movement, to take notice of the study, and popularize the term. “Hope molecules,” McGonigal previously said on the Rich Roll podcast, could be like “an intravenous dose of hope.”

“It’s not just an endorphin rush,” McGonigal says on the podcast. “You go for a walk or a run or you lift weights and your muscles contract and they secrete these proteins into your bloodstream. They travel to your brain, they cross the blood-brain barrier. And in your brain, they can act as an antidepressant. Like irisin [a myokine] can make your brain more resilient to stress. They increase motivation. They help you learn from experience. And the only way you get these chemicals is by using your muscles.”

Even if research is still developing for how exactly exercise boosts mood and mental health, the link between exercise and wellbeing has never been clearer. Two recent meta-analyses on the effects of exercise in adults and exercise in kids have found it to be an effective bulwark against depression.

What with our emerging understanding of myokines, and the undeniable benefits of exercise, there’s never been a more compelling reason to take your medicine: A dose of movement.

Sadly, politicians and anti-trans activists have turned stadiums and fields into battlegrounds over transgender athletes’ right to exist. As part of the nationwide backlash against transgender people, 22 states have passed laws banning trans students from competing in sports aligned with their gender identity.  In April, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill that bars trans women and girls from competing in the sport category that aligns with their chosen gender. Even sports regulatory bodies like World Athletics (which governs track and field competitions) have ruled to exclude transgender women from competing in women’s events.

Proponents of these bans claim they are protecting women and ensuring fairness in sport. But LGBTQ+ advocates say there are very few trans athletes even attempting to publicly compete in school sports. Instead, bans on transgender people’s rights primarily affect the safety and well-being of trans people themselves. According to The Trevor Project, 86 percent of transgender and nonbinary adolescents say that public debates around anti-trans bills have negatively impacted their mental health. Roughly 45 percent of trans youth report experiencing cyberbullying as a result of recent anti-LGBTQ+ policies, and nearly one in three reported “not feeling safe to go to the doctor or hospital when they were sick or injured.”

“Just thinking about the experiences that I’ve had, I think it’s really heartbreaking that anyone would be denied access to the sport that they love, or would feel like they have to drop out of sports because they can’t participate as who they are.” – Joanna Hoffman, Director of Communications, Athlete Ally

Avid runner and longtime nonprofit organizer Joanna Hoffman knows first-hand the magic that can surround sports, which is why she’s dedicated her career to fighting for LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports. “I’ve been running my whole life,” says Hoffman. “Just thinking about the experiences that I’ve had, I think it’s really heartbreaking that anyone would be denied access to the sport that they love, or would feel like they have to drop out of sports because they can’t participate as who they are.”

Five years ago, this passion for athletic inclusivity led Hoffman to become the director of communications for Athlete Ally, a nonprofit organization and advocacy group that aims to end homophobia and transphobia in sports. The organization, which was founded by University of Maryland collegiate wrestler and activist Hudson Taylor, joins a rising network of groups that push for policy changes in sports in order to create a safe, welcoming environment for athletes of all backgrounds and orientations.

According to Hoffman, the harm caused by excluding young trans athletes goes beyond the devastating feelings of being left out.

“It isolates them, it deprives them of all of the mental and physical benefits that sports brings, and we know from research that when kids are a part of sports, their grades go up, their overall health goes up, they’re more likely to be leaders later in life,” says Hoffman. “It changes the trajectory of a child’s life when they’re able to participate in sports. When they lose all of that access, they lose all of those benefits and those opportunities. And I think just more devastating is the message it sends them, which is ‘you don’t get to exist here.'”

How Athlete Ally champions LGBTQ+ athletes

One of the primary ways that Athlete Ally seeks to change the landscape of sports is through education, says Hoffman. “We find that often the people who most need to be educated about LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports are educated the least, so we try to meet that gap,” she says. In 2018, the nonprofit launched Champions of Inclusion, an online video module curriculum for athletic departments that educates coaches and athletic leaders about issues facing LGBTQ+ athletes, plus ways that they can foster a more inclusive environment for their teams.

Athlete Ally, which now has over 30 chapters of coaches and student-athletes across the United States, also hosts in-person training courses across the country at some of the nation’s top colleges, universities, and sports institutions (NBA and MLB, just to name a few). At these trainings, led by Hoffman, Taylor, policy and program director Anne Lieberman, and director of research Dr. Anna Baeth, attendees learn about sexuality and gender, obstacles that queer and trans athletes face, and how to enforce sustainable, inclusive policies and practices.

The nonprofit also launched a first-of-its-kind ranking system that judges collegiate athletic departments on their efforts to include LGBTQ+ athletes in their sports programs. Called the Athletic Equality Index, this system ranks institutions on several criteria, including if their athletic staff are required to take educational trainings and if they have nondiscrimination policies in place that protect queer and trans athletes.

Beyond education, Athlete Ally has collected numerous wins for inclusion in sports since its inception. The nonprofit launched the campaign Principle 6, which successfully pushed the International Olympic Committee to include sexual orientation in the Olympic Charter (protecting LGBTQIA+ athletes from discrimination). The organization also works with trans athletes like powerlifter JayCee Cooper in their individual fights against discrimination. Earlier this year, Cooper won a discrimination lawsuit against national powerlifting organization USAPL after a judge ruled it had violated Human Rights Act’s anti-discrimination statutes. Athlete Ally worked closely with Cooper’s legal team, Gender Justice, to craft a communications strategy surrounding her case.

Seeing high-profile coverage of trans athletes succeeding (on the playing field or in a courtroom) can instill hope in queer youth athletes, says Hoffman. “When they see a victory like this, it tells them that they can continue to play the sport that they love, that they don’t have to turn away from sports, they don’t have to make a horrible choice of either being who they are and having to leave sport, or having to be someone they are not just to be able to keep playing.”

Continuing the fight for inclusivity in sports

While there’s still plenty of work to be done in the fight for queer and trans rights, Athlete Ally is setting the stage for a new generation of informed, confident activists through youth outreach.  In mid-June, Athlete Ally hosted the Athlete Activism Summit in Seattle, Washington in partnership with Adidas and University of Washington Athletic Department. This week-long summit brought student athletes, coaches, and administrators together to celebrate Pride Month through team-building activities and educational seminars.

Texas State University women’s basketball forward and graduate student Lauryn Thompson, 23, says that the summit left her feeling energized to continue the fight for inclusivity in collegiate sports. Thompson, who founded TSU’s Black Student-Athlete Alliance organization, walked Seattle’s Pride parade for the first time—right alongside Athlete Ally ambassadors.

“I was so excited to get out to the summit so I could connect with other like-minded student athletes and professionals who are interested in inclusiveness in sports,” says Thompson, who hopes that the intersectionality of marginalized groups remains at the forefront of conversations about sports equity. “I’m very encouraged and pushed to tell people that when we speak on inclusiveness, that means from all races, and all avenues, and all perspectives.”

Looking ahead, Hoffman says that strong allyship can help propel us toward a more inclusive playing field in sports. Effective allyship, says Hoffman, is the tie that binds marginalized athletes to those who have the legislative power to protect their human rights. Through education and community outreach,  Hoffman hopes that finally, trans athletes can participate in the magic of sports, too–without having to stifle their identities.

“It shouldn’t just be on LGBTQ folks to be that voice every time–we need allies,” says Hoffman. “We need allies not just during Pride month, but all the time.”

But that doesn’t necessarily mean putting your body through grueling workout after grueling workout—in fact, it’s much simpler and less brutal than that.

How to exercise for healthy aging

When thinking holistically about exercise for longevity, there are some common themes to keep in mind.

Think about function first

Different workouts can address different facets of aging, like how high-impact workouts benefit bone strength, for instance. But nothing is quite as useful to healthy aging as functional fitness. This fitness buzzword essentially means training in a way that offers strength you can use in the movements you do in everyday life. And it doesn’t matter whether that’s cardio or lifting weights.

“If an exercise yields an adaptation that helps someone become better able to do what they need to do, then it’s functional,” explains Ryan Chow, DPT, founder of Reload, a physical therapy and fitness practice, where he frequently works with aging and elderly populations.

“Function is defined as ‘useful, ‘purposeful’—stuff like bending, twisting, lifting, loading, pushing, pulling, squatting, and hauling,” adds Ingrid Clay, CPT, a trainer on Centr, a personalized coaching app. Functional fitness often works on flexibility and balance, which are key components of healthy aging, as they help prevent falls and injuries, adds Clay. Functional exercises are designed to help you, say, get up out of a car, or safely walk down stairs—real-life movements we need to do to stay independent as we age.

Do it often enough

It’s not just about how you move, but how much time you spend moving. Dr. Chow recommends following the physical activity guidelines set by the World Health Organization or American Heart Association: 150 to 300 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise throughout the week and progressive resistance training (aka strength training) targeting all major muscle groups twice a week.

“The mounting evidence suggests that this can reduce all causes of mortality by 40 percent,” says Dr. Chow. “Maybe more importantly, reaching these guidelines is also giving you [greater] quality of life.”

Vary your workouts

For best results as you age, avoid doing the same type of exercise again and again. Instead, mix things up. Even if what you love most is walking, push yourself to try a yoga class or hop on a bicycle every so often. This ensures you’re moving your body in all planes of motion and maintaining a strong heart, lungs, and muscles. “Doing both resistance training and cardiovascular training can keep your metabolic and cardiovascular systems healthy, while maintaining the health and function of your muscles and joints so that you can be able-bodied as you get older,” says Dr. Chow.

Five strength exercises you can do at home for healthy aging

Whether you’re 25 or 75, these functional exercises recommended by Dr. Chow will help set you up for safe, comfortable movement for life. Add them to your weekly routine, along with regular bouts of aerobic exercise for a longevity-focused regimen.

Isometric split squat

“This exercise is related to balance, and getting up and down from the ground,” says Dr. Chow.

1. With one foot in front and the other behind you, bend both knees coming into a 90-degree bend with both legs.
2. Hold for as long as you can, with the goal of working up to two minutes.

Modification: If 90-degrees is too deep to bend and hold comfortability, hold the position a bit higher or use a sturdy object to touch lightly for support.

Supported deep squat

“This exercise trains both strength and mobility in the hips and knees,” says Dr. Chow. Clay adds that the lower body strength you build with squats “is important for maintaining balance and mobility as we age.”

1. Stand in front of a closed door that does not swing toward you. Feet should be slightly wider than hip-distance apart and toes slightly turned out.
2. Grab the door handle for leverage to pull against as you bend both knees to slowly come into a squat, taking five seconds to get there.
3. Pause at the bottom for one second.
4. Slowly push through soles of the feet to return to standing, taking five seconds to get there.

Form note: Keep tension on the door handle to engage the upper body, which helps maintain a straight back throughout the movement.

Wall sit with heel raise

“This exercise trains the soleus and the Achilles tendon to maintain the ability to be springy and absorb impact in the hips, knees, and ankles,” says Dr. Chow.

1. Stand with your back toward a wall. Press your head, upper back, and butt against the wall, as you walk your feet away from it and begin to slide into a sitting position, with knees and hips bent at 90 degrees.
2. Raise your heels up without moving anything else. Aim to hold for 60 seconds.

Progression: Once you’re able to hold the heel-elevated wall sit for a minute, try holding for as long as possible on one leg, then the next.

Bat wing

“This exercise trains the muscles of the upper back to maintain the ability to stay upright,” says Dr. Chow. “These are your antigravity muscles to limit the negative effects of slouching and slumping.”

1. Begin standing with hands behind your ears, palms facing forward, and elbows out wide.
2. Engage your lats (the large muscles on the sides and upper back) to pull your elbows down and in toward your sides, squeezing your shoulder blades together.
3. Squeeze and hold for five seconds.

Form tip: Don’t crunch inward when bringing elbows down to sides. Keep your chest lifted. Arms will mimic the letter W.

Beast crawl

“This move trains your shoulders, trunk, thighs, and most importantly, the toes,” says Dr. Chow. “It’s important to maintain the ability to land on the toes to allow for push-off during quick activities like running or walking fast, plus it controls stress to the big toe joint, which can prevent bunion development.”

1. Start in a tabletop position on hands and knees, with your toes tucked under.
2. Engage the core to lift knees off the ground in a hover.
3. From here, crawl slowly forward, back, and side to side with the goal of staying moving and knees elevated for 30 seconds.

Form tip: Try to keep your back flat and hips parallel to the ground.

This kind of goal is a target that’s not necessarily for your health or geared toward a major event like a race. Instead, it prioritizes fun movement styles that just feel good to you, and that you decide to do… just because. These goals give you something simple and satisfying to check off your to-do list on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Just ask Alison Mead, an ultramarathoner who’s on a four-year-long streak of running at least one continuous mile per day. She’s someone who loves writing weekly goals and habit-setting checklists to help her celebrate small wins. In addition to running daily, she adds in other small fitness pursuits, like 10 burpees, a 30-second plank, or walks with co-workers.

“Each month, I like to pick something where I can focus on variety,” she says. “[Goal-setting] gives me purpose for when I go to work out. I know what I want to accomplish, and I know when I’m done.” Plus, it gives her a sense of achievement at the end: “Looking back at everything I accomplished [is] very rewarding.”

The benefits of ‘just because’ fitness goals

SLT instructor Jess Paris, NASM-CPT, agrees that not every moment of your fitness regimen needs to have a capital “P” purpose. “I think there may be people who refrain from setting goals because the idea of a goal is too intense or scary for them. But a goal does not need to have a finish line or finite measure of anything. It instead could be translated as intentions, routines, or lifestyle changes,” she says.

For example, a just-for-fun fitness goal could be something like: I’m going to power walk in at least two parks in my neighborhood by the end of the week. Or, I’m going to go on a bike ride until I see at least three cute dogs.

While it won’t be a huge bummer if you miss this kind of goal, checking it off your to-dos will give you that wonderful “I did it!” feeling if you do make it happen. In the long run, sticking with these mini-wins can teach you how to stay consistent for when bigger opportunities (think: triathlons or incredible hikes) come knocking.

“They teach consistency and routine, which is a lot of what keeping a fitness regimen is about and how you’ll see and feel progress,” says Paris. “If you get used to setting time aside every day to do the dumb goal, then you’re more likely to keep that mindset when looking to create a fitness routine.”

This feeling of “I did it!” benefits you from a psychological standpoint, too, according to positive psychiatrist Samantha Boardman, MD. When you create a goal that adds something to your life—say, a little pickleball-induced serotonin—checking it off can highlight your strengths and make you feel good about yourself.

“We constantly focus on what’s wrong. For example, if somebody were to ask a person that question, it’s easy for them to come up with 20 things [they need to improve], and fixate on that,” said Dr. Boardman in a recent episode of The Well+Good Podcast. “But less available to us is, ‘What are our strengths?’ and ‘What are we good at?’ And from there, ‘How can we put our strengths to good use in order to navigate toward a goal?’”

Along the way of chasing seemingly inconsequential goals, you’ll learn just how much you can accomplish physically in a month. “I love fitness because it’s easily measurable,” Jade Morning, a yoga instructor with Alo Moves. She might have a new client who, at the beginning of the month, can’t do any push-ups, for instance. “But after setting a goal, creating a plan, and following it for a month or so, now my client can do five,” she explains. In other words, a silly fitness goal may amount to something that’s far from silly. And that’s why they’re worth doing.

“Goals spice up your fitness routine,” says Morning. “I currently have a goal to get the splits, not because it’s necessary for my training or coaching but because it’s a small thing I can work towards weekly. There’s so much power in the journey.” Along the way, you may even find that you have a “serious” fitness goal—like a deadlift PR or learning how to rock climb—in your future.

How to make the most of silly fitness goals

Silly goals are the fitness equivalent of a blank canvas—so you can’t really go wrong. Pledge to dance to your favorite song every day at exactly 1 p.m. Decide that you’re going to cover every under-five-mile hike in your city. Make up your mind to swim every weekend this summer.

Remember: These goals are additive. Meaning, you’re not subtracting anything from your life. Instead, you’re adding a joy-promoting behavior. “When we plan for joy, when we schedule joy, and when we think about it in advance, it allows us to make sure that those good things actually happen,” joy expert Ingrid Fetell Lee previously told Well+Good.

However, Paris does note that any target that relies on a daily commitment requires a mindful approach. Ask yourself: Am I taking care of myself? Am I resting enough? Am I enjoying my goals? “There’s the chance you get a little too obsessed with the goal, and you don’t rest when you should. Or, on the flip side, you stick to the mile a day without thinking of how to progress and improve your fitness beyond the mile,” she says.

Make sure you’re programming time into your monthly goal-setting to reflect on what you’re getting out of your movement. And what’s, well, no longer fun. The beauty of just-for-fun fitness goals is that if they’re lifting you up, that’s great; if they’re not, there’s no harm in letting them go.

How about committing to learning a new dance style each month? 

While we know that working out three to five times a week is ideal for maintaining health and achieving optimal physical benefits, we started to wonder just how long or how hard you have to work out in order to notably improve your mood. Knowing we aren’t alone in this query, we chatted with two sports psychologists to shed a little light on the intersection of fitness and mental health.

Why does working out boost your mood?

Research shows that exercise has an immense effect on mood, particularly because it directly correlates to a boost in dopamine (aka “the happy hormone”). According to a 2021 systematic review of studies on this effect published in Brain Sciences, researchers concluded that, like prescriptions, physical activity should be a recommended measure for improving mental health. That’s how strong of an effect it can have.

Exercise doesn’t only boost levels of dopamine, though. According to sport and performance psychologist Isaac Zur, PhD, CMPC, MHC, of Mental Performance Consulting of NY, working out also promotes increased levels of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin.

In addition to boosting some brain chemicals, Dr. Zur points out that some low-key forms of exercise can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as well. (Think: yoga, gentle hikes.) Though, it’s important to note that some research suggests that vigorous physical activity, in which a person uses more than 60 percent of their max heart rate, can temporarily boost cortisol levels, as it goes hand in hand with adrenaline, the chemical known for making us feel ready to take on any physical feat. This is why some therapists recommend patients with a history of anxiety approach high-intensity exercise cautiously.

Beyond the physiological effects of exercise, Dr. Zur says that physical activity increases blood flow to the brain, which in turn can boost cognitive function. It also simply improves self-esteem “due to the higher sense of self-accomplishment,” he says.

All of these things, together, make for a near-instant mood boost post-exercise.

How long do you have to exercise to improve your mood?

Since not everyone has the same physiological makeup, fitness level, or preferred workout type, Dr. Zur says that it’s difficult to give a universal prescription for how much exercise you need to get that mood enhancement. But you’ll likely want to get in half an hour or more to see a difference. “In general, a moderate-intensity workout that lasts for at least 30 minutes can effectively increase endorphins and improve your mood,” he says.

4 ways to get the maximum mood boost from your workout

Opt for workouts that prioritize bursts of energy

Remember: The key to a mood-boosting workout is to opt for moderate intensity, at least. That could mean jogging, a dance cardio class, or casual bike ride.

“Alternating high-intensity exercise with short rest time or lower intensity exercise (such as in a HIIT class) is also another great booster,” says sport psychology and performance consultant Brenley Shapiro, MSW, RSW, RP, who is the founder and president of Heads Up High Performance. “Hockey is another great example of this for a team sport—players have a strong boost of energy and intensity for their shift, lasting about 35 to 40 seconds, followed by rest time on the bench… until their next shift.”

According to Shapiro, when you alternate through exercise intensities, you’re able to adequately increase your heart rate while sustaining longer performance time, which in turn lets you experience all of the mood benefits.

If ice hockey isn’t your style, a bootcamp-style class like Barry’s will have you covered.

Work out with other people

“Exercising with friends or in a group setting is a great mood booster, whether it’s in a group exercise class, team sports, exercising with a friend, or even just going for a walk with someone,” Shapiro says. “We know that human/social connection is a basis for human motivation, so right there, that provides a great boost.”

As an added bonus, Shapiro points out that working out with friends also helps with accountability and social support, which can make crushing your health and wellness goals feel more attainable. If you don’t already have fitness-focused friends, join a local running club or book a group workout class like Orangetheory.

Pick a stellar playlist and turn up the volume

Music has a known mood-boosting benefit. “Creating a playlist of your favorite pump-up songs can be a great mood-booster,” Shapiro says. “We know that music on its own activates the pleasure centers of the brain (in fact, the same pleasure centers that sex activates)—so what a great boost to combine it with the existing [neurotransmitter boost] of exercise on its own.”

Make time for more mindful exercises

If you’re hoping to use your workout as a decompressing retreat away from your high-stress daily life, make time for more calming workouts. “Mindfulness-based exercises can help to maximize those feel-good chemicals and sustain them for longer periods of time,” Shapiro says, noting that examples include yoga, tai chi, and even meditation. “These types of exercises help to calm the body and clear the mind, thus reducing cortisol—the stress chemical—in the body. This helps to deepen relaxation and can help to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.”

Because imagine if what you were facing down wasn’t a fitness apparatus, but a series of literal hurdles getting jumped at unbelievable speed by world-class racers on every side.

That’s what Belgian shot-putter Jolien Boumkwo experienced Saturday at the European Team Championships track meet in Krakow, Poland. Boumkwo is a member of the Belgian track team who competes in strength events including the shot-put, hammer throw, and discus—not sprinting or hurdling.

But the Belgian team found itself without a hurdler to compete in the 100-meter hurdles due to injuries, which meant the team would lose out on the two points gained by competing in the event. In a track meet, every point counts toward the total, and Belgium hoped to do well enough in terms of total points to maintain its standing as a Division 1 team in the European Team Championships.

So facing event disqualification and a loss of points, Boumkwo raised her hand to step in. She would race the 100-meter hurdles, despite it being decidedly not her sport.

As seen in a video of the event, the hurdlers take off like race horses out of the gate. Hurdlers maintain their speed and do incredible mid-air split leaps to pass over the obstacles. And getting over those hurdles is no easy feat. They clock in at two feet nine inches, which makes them a challenge to clear at any speed.

Boumkwo also starts running at the starting gun, but when she gets to the first hurdle, she hops over it one bent leg at a time. She immediately falls behind but she keeps on going, hurdle after hurdle, until she crosses the finish line—and is greeted with high fives from fellow racers.

 

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Sadly, the two points Boumkwo got for competing weren’t enough for Team Belgium to maintain its division status. However, the story has nonetheless captured the world’s attention and gone viral. Seeing someone step up for the good of her team, doing something outside of her expertise and comfort zone, and not doing it perfectly but still finishing it—on a world stage, no less—might resonate with anyone who has volunteered to help cover for a coworker who’s out, taken on new task for the PTA, or filled in as outfielder in a kickball rec league.

For “hand raisers,” setting boundaries with your time and availability might be necessary to maintain mental health and wellbeing. But every once in a while, maybe we can indulge in the heart-warming spirit of teamwork and sportsmanship on display.

Your solo gym time might not be about contributing to the good of the team, but it is about feeling good and pushing yourself—while not worrying about what you look like to the outside world. Which is why Boumkwo might serve as such an apt role model for your fitness goals and gym inspiration. Trying something new in the gym, fitness studio, or on a walk or run around the block, isn’t about doing that thing perfectly. It’s about giving it your best effort.

So the next time you’re wondering if you can take on that new exercise, piece of equipment, or rep or weight goal, let Jolien Boumkwo be your gym inspiration. Think of her staring down those hurdles—and give it a shot.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I myself have been counting down to the release like a kid in the lead-up to Christmas. Now more than ever, I’m drunk on all things Barbie. My wardrobe is a sea of pink, and Aqua’s Barbie Girl has become the anthem of my summer. The only thing yet to be Barbie-fied is my workout routine.

So, what better time to dig into the archives and give the Barbie dance workout from the early ‘90s a try? Mattel released the Dance! Workout With Barbie in 1992, and even though I never did it as a kid, my newfound excitement for all-things-Barbie convinced me to give it a go.

The video opens with a grainy pink disclaimer: I’m about to partake in “a safe, enjoyable 25-minute routine of light dance aerobics intended for kids ages 5 and up.” This should be a walk in the park, right?

The camera pans to Barbie’s dressing room, where we find the doll perched in front of her mirror. Straight off the bat, I’m extremely jealous of her outfit: Hot pink leggings paired with a black and white polka dot two-piece and matching leg-warmers! In comparison, I feel a little underdressed in my oversized sleep shirt covered in coffee stains.

However, as Barbie turns to address me, I realize that something about her feels a little…off. Her head jolts back and forth like a disjointed ventriloquist dummy, and her frozen, blank features look like they’ve been molded out of Play-Doh. This rudimentary version of Barbie is a world away from the modern images we see today; the Barbie of yore is, well, slightly creepy.

Fortunately, this malfunctioning puppet Barbie hands over the reins to Kim, a real-life instructor. Kim is standing center-stage in a studio that looks exactly how I imagined the gym in Barbie’s Dreamhouse to look, surrounded by some much younger back-up dancers. I suddenly feel like Jennifer Garner in 13 Going On 30; I have a good 20 years on all the other participants on-screen.

Kim wastes no time and launches straight into the warmup with some high-leg marches on the spot. The moves at this stage are pretty basic—mostly stepping from side-to-side, with some cheerleader-inspired arm movements sprinkled in. I look embarrassingly similar to how I do dancing in the club when the margaritas haven’t quite kicked in yet: Playing it safe with an awkward, predictable two-step. However, as warmups go, it’s a pretty entertaining one. My heart rate is rising and I’m loosening up with some full-body stretching, all the while being spurred on by classic ‘90s electro-pop.

This feels like a piece of cake…but I’m abruptly jolted out of my comfort zone when the actual workout begins. Kim starts by walking us through the first official move in this dance routine: The Barbie Basic. The camera cuts to Barbie, who explains that we’ll be leaning a lot on this move because “it lets you catch your breath.” Now, maybe it’s just me and my lack of dance skills, but I found The Barbie Basic to be anything but. I became a blur of flailing limbs in the process of trying to figure it out.

This rocky start sets the tone for the next 10 minutes or so, which, to be honest, I spend in a state of utter chaos and confusion. Kim is a fiery ball of energy who puts even the most motivated of SoulCycle instructors to shame. She whizzes through each move at the speed of light with limited explanation.

As each new sequence is introduced, I become disoriented, begin sweating bullets and repeatedly smash into every piece of furniture within a five-meter radius. There’s no two ways about it: This routine is far more technically complex than I could’ve imagined.

This routine is far more technically complex than I could’ve imagined.

I’m beginning to suspect that the little girls behind Kim are professionally-trained dancers who have been practicing this Broadway-standard choreography for months. (I discover later on that one of them is actually none other than the Jennifer Love Hewitt!) They’re all doing a fantastic job of showing me up, that’s for sure.

I can distinctly picture my 10-year-old self sobbing in frustration while attempting to master the intricate footwork behind The Attitude or The Bunny Flop. It’s easy to see how this workout could quickly descend into tears and tantrums for the average pre-teen—even I’m struggling to keep my cool.

However, after a few faltering fumbles as each new sequence is introduced, I gradually get the hang of it. Once I’ve accepted that I need to rewind the tape a few times to learn a new move, I’m Hot Stepping and Street Tapping along with the rest of them in no time.

At the halfway point, I’ve finally found my groove. I’ve thrown any trace of perfectionism out the window, and now I’m dancing along with reckless abandon. I’m giving my all, performing my favorite sequence so far: The running man (or rather, “The Jammin’ Jogger”). A wave of pure serotonin washes over me, as I begin to chant “Fashion Statement!” along with the music.

As someone who typically dreads cardio, I found this workout to be a refreshing change to the usual. You break a decent sweat without even noticing because you’re too busy perfecting your moves and keeping up with Kim. The high energy and nostalgic vibes are so palpable that they practically emanate from the screen.

You break a decent sweat without even noticing because you’re too busy perfecting your moves and keeping up.

The workout closes with a freestyle section, at which point the girls on screen break out of formation with a series of pirouettes, jumps, and kicks. If the workout had opened with this, I would’ve switched off my TV then and there. But now, having left all inhibitions behind, I have no issue matching Kim’s feral energy. I’m dancing like nobody’s watching, and it’s gloriously liberating.

I have to admit, the Dance! Workout with Barbie turned out to be quite the emotional rollercoaster. It was far more physically (and mentally) taxing than I expected, especially for a routine intended for those “ages five and up.” But I suppose it teaches kids—and fully grown adults like me—an important lesson: It’s okay to trip up and make mistakes, as long as you can give it your all and laugh at yourself along the way.

But what do they do, and are they actually effective? A new systematic review of the research on massage guns may hold some answers.

How massage guns work

“These ‘massage guns’ are a form of what’s called percussive treatment, which delivers mechanical vibration—in this case the head of the massage gun delivering repeated contacts—to muscles or tendons,” says physical therapist Andy Barr, DPT

If you’ve ever had a massage where the masseuse uses a cupped hand technique with quick, repeated contacts (this is called “tapotement massage”), it’s the same principle. You may be surprised to learn that percussive treatment delivered through an instrument was first invented in the 1950s!

Dr. Barr, who works with elite athletes and has been in the professional sports health and performance space for over 25 years, has recently seen a stark increase in the use of massage guns.

“Whether it’s for player recovery or if it’s for performance—to complement a warm-up prior to the game or keep players ‘warm’ while they’re resting—many teams and players use these massage guns constantly. The continued development and portability of the tool have made it even easier to use.”

The latter point has made the use of massage guns viable for large swaths of the population as well: The yearly revenue on massage guns is reportedly over 550 million dollars and growing.

Should you use one? It depends on your goals

The research on the effectiveness of massage guns up to this point had been relatively mixed, but that tends to be the case with any new device. However, there was a new high-quality systematic review released that reviewed multiple studies looking at the impact of massage guns on pain and athletic performance.

The results were quite interesting across multiple domains. The systematic review—which looked at 13 different papers—found that use of a massage gun resulted in improving multiple aspects of athletic performance along with recovery as well.

Specifically, a single use of a massage gun resulted in increasing muscle strength (particularly in the upper body) and increasing explosive muscle strength (think fast, powerful movements like sprinting). With multiple and consistent uses of a massage gun, the study found that muscular pain can be reduced as well, especially for decreasing delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) 48 hours after challenging workouts.

Interestingly, the study further found that the use of a massage gun had no overt change on flexibility. But the majority of studies that found a decrease in pain also found an improvement in flexibility, so there may be some nebulous connection there!

Based on this new, promising evidence, how should you be using a massage gun to optimize your recovery and athletic performance? For recovery and reducing pain, use the massage gun consistently after exercise and/or athletic competitions, up to 72 hours post activity. For athletic performance, use the massage gun immediately prior to the activity, whether it’s strength training or athletic activities.

Bear in mind: If flexibility is your main objective, a massage gun isn’t the best use of your time. The best research-driven method there continues to be dynamic stretching and eccentric strength training.

Clad in thick-soled Prada work boots and his signature short shorts, trainer Isaac Boots prefers to kick off his super challenging Torch’d classes with one power move—informed by his background as a dancer and choreographer—that he says does it all.

“Never underestimate the power of a good plié,” Boots says. “It’s low impact and yet the most impactful.”

Boots’ Torch’d classes contain a series of full-body toning moves worthy of the Torch’d name, since they absolutely set your body on fire. I got to experience just how challenging and energizing Boots’ classes are during a recent Torch’d retreat at Gurney’s Montauk Resort in the Hamptons. From the moment Boots begins class, the energy is revved up, and you’re constantly moving.

So a good warm-up is essential. Boots needs the body to get limber so his students can raise, lower, pulse, and circle their arms and legs nonstop for 20 to 40 minutes. His go-to warmup comes directly from his training as a dancer; Boots performed on Broadway for 10 years in his 20s, and spent the next decade choreographing for the likes of superstars like Ariana Grande.

Which is why the first thing you’ll do when a diva ballad starts playing during a Torch’d class is separate your feet, turn out your toes (and the rest of your leg), raise your arms out to the side, and start lowering and raising your booty in a plié series.

The benefits of pliés

Boots opts for this warm-up because it helps his students connect to the breath, find alignment in the spine, and activate the lower body, upper body, and core—all at once.

“You’re working your entire body in a comprehensive way,” Boots says. “It’s about your alignment, how to really get into that low position while engaging your core in a really visceral way, while maintaining the alignment of your spine, while lengthening your arms and spreading your fingers wide, activating every fiber, while waking up your glutes and your entire lower body, spreading your toes wide, and pressing evenly, so that it’s fully active.”

Boots is clear that the plié is not a squat. You want to keep your head upright with a neutral spine, as opposed to leaning forward like you would in a squat. You don’t want to arch your back or tuck your pelvis, either.

“Never a tuck,” Boots says. “It’s finding your natural alignment, the natural curve of your spine.”

To make that happen, you want to focus on your lower belly, and think about pulling it up and in. Doing so will help you find that neutral alignment, according to Boots. Additionally, make sure your toes and knees are both pointing out at an angle, with your thighs opening wide.

Boots also adds in arms to his plié series, with hands extended to the sides, up above his head, or out in front of him. He also alternates sides going up and down. If you intentionally move your arms, and don’t just throw them around, this will help you activate through your arm and back muscles.

The final component is cardio. Depending on the tempo, the constant movement of a plié series will get your heart pumping, with blood and oxygen flowing to your muscles, making sure they’re ready for what’s ahead.

Craft your own dance-based warmup with this leg workout: 

First, know that a lot of the leading factors that tend to lead to fatigue and exhaustion likely aren’t serving your health. For instance, take stress, which “is extremely draining and can lead to fatigue,” Shelby Harris, PsyD, sleep-health expert and author of The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia, previously told Well+Good. There are a number of other psychological and physiological factors contributing to why you may feel TATT (tired all the time), too, including when you consume caffeine.

Regardless of the reason, though, there are two common answers to the question of how to get more energy when you’re tired: through quality zzzs and physical activity. For the purpose of recharging your internal battery, when it comes to determining whether to sleep or exercise for more energy, it’s less a question of either/or and more a matter of both, according to Todd McGrath, MD, sports medicine specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery. But sleep should be your first priority.

Sleep is more important than exercise for helping you get more energy

Simply put: “The body doesn’t function without sleep,” Dr. McGrath says. So if you aren’t getting the recommended hours of shut-eye for whatever phase of life you’re in, no amount of exercise is going to compensate for it. “The benefits of exercise are significantly limited if your body isn’t rested enough to recover from the exercise,” he adds.

“The benefits of exercise are significantly limited if your body isn’t rested enough to recover from the exercise.” —Todd McGrath, MD, sports medicine specialist

So your first step toward upping your energy levels should be taking stock of how much you’re hitting the hay and the quality of sleep you’re getting. There are lots of health wearables and apps that can help you track your sleep. But if you prefer not to take technology to bed with you, there are ways to tell if you’re getting a good night’s sleep that you can use to gauge for yourself.

And if you’re positive that your sleep is on point, but you’re still feeling tired throughout the day, then exercise might be your best answer to the question of how to get more energy, Dr. McGrath adds

But exercise can boost your energy instantly and overall

The endorphins release from physical activity helps you feel a little bit more awake right away, according to Dr. McGrath. In fact, research shows that quick HIIT workouts can give you the same buzz as a cup of coffee. This is something to keep in mind if you find your energy waning in the afternoon and aren’t trying to consume caffeine—especially if a power nap isn’t possible.

“In the long-term, regular exercise, particularly aerobic exercise—though resistance exercise is also important—increases cellular metabolism, which helps you process and formulate energy a little better on a molecular system scale, so you feel a little bit more energized throughout the day,” Dr. McGrath says.

An easy way to choose between sleep or exercise for more energy

The best way to tell if sleep or exercise is the more likely antidote to your low energy levels is to determine if you’re getting enough quality zzzs every night—at least seven hours. If not, it’s better to prioritize snoozing over a morning workout, for example.

If your sleep game is strong, then upping your physical activity (with an emphasis on aerobic exercise) can lead to both immediate and ongoing improvements to your overall energy.

When feeling fatigued or overly tired is more of an “in the moment” issue like an afternoon slump, as opposed to a chronic problem, opting for a four-minute, quick burst of high-intensity exercise can wake you up the same way as a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, power naps of about 20 minutes can leave you feeling more alert, focused, and productive, so they’re nothing to sleep on, either.

If you’re ever sought out either of these two extremes, you know that the aura and volume of a group fitness class can indeed affect how you feel during and after the workout. “I think about volume as a sensory experience from an evolutionary standpoint,” says Willow McGinty, LMHC, a therapist with Thriveworks in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who specializes in anxiety, coping skills, stress, and ADHD. She’s also a weekly group fitness class devotee and former college athlete. “Loud sounds in nature tend to come from things we must pay attention to because if not, there can be perilous consequences.” So loud workouts are great when you need motivation, a boost of energy, or to focus on something other than your own thoughts.

Not sure if your body needs that or something more chill? Below, experts share what you can expect to get out of each option.

The case for the quieter workout

1. They offer stress relief

Yoga classes and hot girl walks are full of pros, especially after a stressful day. “We can choose a quieter workout experience for a sense of peace, stress relief, and to manage reactions to hectic periods in life,” McGinty says. (Fun fact: Some yoga poses can even help your body release stress and anxiety.) In fact, according to a study in the International Journal of Yoga, yoga can reduce stress, depression, and chronic pain, and enhance your overall well-being.

2. They can stand in for meditation

Calmer options can sometimes function as a more active form of meditation. “Quiet workouts offer some people meditative benefits that allow them to calm their mind and reduce their heart rate through breathwork, calming music, etc.,” says Rishi Mandal, CEO of the fitness app Future. “Just like we block off time for ourselves to get in an energizing workout, it is just as necessary to allow ourselves the time to take things slow and relax.” Although meditation can be a hugely effective tool for managing our mental health, many people find it hard to just sit still, so an alternative that brings similar benefits through movement may feel more doable.

3. They bring greater body awareness

Quieter workouts may be preferable for people who have sensory issues, are new to working out, are trying to recover from disordered eating or body dysmorphia, or are in the luteal and menstrual phases of their cycle when anxiety is more likely to be high, McGinty continues.

That’s because quieter workouts can help us become more aware of our bodily cues and pain, both internal and external. “People who have a sense of feeling lost in life, have trouble identifying emotions, and people experiencing major life transitions may benefit most,” she says. “Quieter workouts can help us to be mindful of movements that trigger or release painful/poignant feelings.”

A quiet workout can also trigger greater focus and a gentler approach, which can help us “better attend to any injuries we may be nursing,” says McGinty.

4. They can help keep us consistent

Calmer classes also allow for flexibility when you want to move your body but aren’t up for much. In that sense, they help you maintain a regular exercise routine, if that’s a personal goal. “Remember, the best fitness regimen is the one you’ll stick to, so even just stretching and putting in the time in a ‘quiet’ mode will be hugely impactful,” Mandal says.

Best quiet workout options

McGinty recommends walking in the park and listening to natural sounds, doing traditional South Asian yoga practices, and swimming. Mandal mentions tai chi, qigong, and yoga as indoor options, as well as gardening, hiking, and fishing in the warmer months.

Soothe yourself by getting your “om” on:

The case for the louder workout

1. They can make it easier to work out harder

When you’re looking to get in a gut-busting, sweat-filled workout, it’s time to really pump up the jams. “Some individuals feel that loud music and a high-energy environment enhance their performance, causing them to lift heavier weights, run faster, or work harder when surrounded by noise and music,” Mandal notes.

But music isn’t the only source of noise—coaches and instructors are, too. “Members tell us that they get a burst of energy when they hear audio motivation and tips from their coach during a workout,” Mandal says.

2. You can get lost in the noise

Another pro of loud workouts: They’re a good distraction. “Louder workouts could make sense for people in need of some escape,” McGinty says. “Loud, high-intensity workouts are popular among my clients who are working out as a part of their effort to cease self-harm practices and, as a result, loud workouts are seen as a harm reduction technique for some.”

3. They can energize you

Further, loud workouts can energize you and help you feel more positive, according to McGinty. She prefers to do them in the morning for that reason. Which makes sense, since, as Mandal points out, they typically raise your heart rate, pump you up, and help you get “in the zone.”

But be sure to get loud safely

McGinty does warn about the safety and health risks of loud workouts. “As an example, loud music while running/walking outside can diminish our situational awareness and leave us more vulnerable to nefarious characters or other environmental hazards,” she says. “We can also damage our hearing if the decibel levels are too high for too long.”

When attending group fitness classes where the music is too loud for comfort, McGinty uses ear plugs. She also encourages people working on their assertiveness and self-advocacy skills to ask the instructor to turn the volume down if it’s painful.

Best loud workout options

McGinty’s favorite upbeat class is hosted by Orangetheory Fitness, though she notes HIIT classes, and indoor cycling classes with fun lighting are other popular, energy-infused options. Mandal points out that more experience-based ways of getting movement in are on the rise, too, such as rage rooms, ax-throwing, paintball, and laser tag.

“A best-fit workout [routine] for you may include some intense audio support and some quieter, more meditative sounds,” Mandal says. “Finding that personal mix is what it’s all about.”

Turn up that playlist and get sweating with this HIIT workout: 

And when the hips are hurting, we really feel the consequences. But it doesn’t take a big injury to cause pain in the hips—sometimes, the most subtle little habits, like repeatedly leaning into one hip whenever we’re standing around, can lead to imbalances, putting excessive stress in one area and hurting our hips over time.

“Overall there is nothing wrong with placing our hips into various positions,” says Adefemi Betiku, DPT, CSCS, instructor for Club Pilates. “Our hips are powerful enough to handle them. The issues arise when we are consistently placing our hips into the same positions for prolonged periods of time, or trying a new activity that’s too aggressive and puts a strain on the hip joint.”

Simple habits, when done over and over again, can harm even this super mighty part of the body. They may be subtle, but they can be sneaky causes of pain in hips. Luckily, a few small adjustments to our daily routines and tendencies can help us keep our hips strong, limber, and healthy.

The big three causes of pain in hips: Sitting, sleeping, and overdoing it

1. Sitting too much or unevenly

No surprise here: Sitting stationary is a big offender when it comes to long-term hip pain. “Sitting for prolonged periods of time could increase one’s possibility of hip joint issues,” Dr. Betiku says. According to Get America Standing, the average American sits still for 10 hours a day. That’s a lot of time on our rumps.

Extended sitting can cause muscle degeneration and pain not only in our hips, but also in our backs and necks. You can combat this by making conscious efforts to stand throughout the day, which will reactivate the muscles and get the blood flowing: Take those cues from your Apple Watch to get up, walk around, and do a few stretches. Some studies suggest standing 15 minutes for every hour you sit at your desk. If you cannot stand, move whatever muscles you have access to in order to get your blood flowing.

Also, watch how you’re sitting. Crossing your legs, or always sitting with a wallet in one pocket, can stress the joint and cause imbalances that lead to tendinitis.

2. Consistently sleeping on the same side

Dr. Betiku says sleeping repeatedly on one side is also a bad habit to kick. Always curling up in the same direction can cause certain hip pathologies such as bursitis, or inflammation in your hip joints, he says.

If you’re a dedicated fetal pose sleeper, don’t panic yet. Sleeping on your side is said to be one of the healthier ways to sleep, according to the Sleep Foundation. That’s because it potentially allows for proper alignment of your spine. The pain can come, however, when that position isn’t happening. The solution: Try sleeping with a body pillow to help with alignment and ease those morning aches and pains. And whenever you can, switch up which side you’re lying on.

3. Going too hard too soon at the gym

With any exercise, diving in full steam ahead without stretching enough or balancing out the muscles can lead to injury and pain, particularly in your hips and lower back. “Performing moderate- to high-impact exercise without performing other stretches and exercises that help ameliorate these forces could cause a host of hip issues,” Dr. Betiku says. To strengthen and soothe achy hips, Dr. Betiku leans on Pilates for its well-rounded benefits.

“As a doctor of physical therapy, strength and conditioning coach, as well as a certified Pilates teacher, I have had the opportunity to fully understand the benefits of performing exercise routines that promote optimal hip health,” he says. “Pilates has the ability to promote hip bone growth, hip joint mobility, hip joint flexibility, as well as hip joint strengthening.”

He says that doing simple Pilates mat exercises at home can be a simple and effective solution to help with this.

Ready to get started? Take 15 to focus on pelvic mobility and hip flexor stretches in this refreshing, hip-focused flow:

In particular: Soreness and tightness in our forearms can crop up if we spend a lot of time typing. But because the forearm muscles are small and not as heavily involved in everyday activities as most of the postural muscles in the upper back and neck, they all too often get overlooked.

Why does typing on a laptop make our forearms feel tight?

Dave Candy, DPT, a board-certified specialist in orthopedic physical therapy and owner of More 4 Life PT explains that the typing position is not particularly ergonomic, yet it is highly repetitive, which can be exhausting for the small muscles in our forearms, wrists, hands, and fingers.

“Typing uses a sustained, low-level isometric contraction of your wrist extensor muscles to hold your wrist in slight extension while typing,” says Dr. Candy. “Additionally, you use repetitive, low-level contractions from the finger flexors and the finger extensors to strike the keys and then lift your fingers back up off of the keys.”

Without getting too far into the weeds of the physiology of muscle contraction, using your muscles requires energy, and this energy is produced by converting glucose (sugar) in the blood into ATP, which is the energy “currency” for muscles. Oxygen is required to produce this energy. Although there are metabolic pathways that do not rely on oxygen, you are more apt to experience muscle soreness if you are indeed producing ATP without sufficient oxygen (anaerobic metabolism).

“During sustained or repetitive muscle contractions, the pressure from the muscle contraction exceeds the blood pressure of the small blood vessels (capillaries) that supply the little forearm muscles,” says Dr. Candy, who explains that this forces the muscles to use anaerobic metabolism. “Anaerobic glycolysis produces a byproduct that can make your muscles feel sore and stiff. Additionally, anaerobic glycolysis is much less efficient than aerobic metabolism, so your muscles still don’t meet their energy demands.”

Dr. Candy further explains that when there is insufficient energy for the muscles, the muscle fibers actually stay in a partially contracted state because it requires energy to relax the muscle filaments (the contractile proteins in a muscle fiber). This can lead to tension in your muscles and a feeling of tightness.

And it’s not just typing that does this. Dr. Candy says that any low-level, sustained activity that uses the hands can elicit a similar effect in our forearm muscles: writing, playing piano, or gripping a heavy object that we have to carry for a long period of time (like a suitcase) can have the same effect.

Why we should stretch those muscles out

Dr. Candy says that if we don’t take the time to stretch our forearm muscles, we run the risk of developing injuries like tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome.

“Tennis elbow occurs due to overuse of the wrist and finger extensor tendons that attach on the outside of the elbow,” says Dr. Candy.

He explains that carpal tunnel syndrome has more to do with compression of the nerves that run through the carpal tunnel of the wrist than stiffness in the forearm muscles themselves.

“However, the finger flexor tendons also run through the carpal tunnel. Therefore, if the carpal tunnel is already narrowed, repetitive use of the fingers when typing can exacerbate carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms,” says Dr. Candy.

The best forearm stretches to find relief

Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to counteract this. Dr. Candy says that there are a few very simple stretches that can help relieve tightness in our forearm muscles. He walked us through three of them:

1. Wrist extensor stretch

Since the wrist is in a position of slight extension when you type, this means that the wrist extensor muscles can become contracted and tightened, so gently bending your wrist in the opposite direction can help relieve stiffness.

• Sit or stand with your arm out in front of you, elbow straight, and palm facing down.
• Pull your fingers and palm down toward your forearm (the underside where there’s no natural arm hair) using your other hand.
• Twist the forearm so that the fingers point slightly outward (wrist pronation).
• Hold for 30 seconds, relax, then repeat on the other side.

2. Wrist flexor stretch

Stretching the wrist flexors can optimize wrist mobility and prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.

• Sit or stand with your arm out in front of you, elbow straight, and palm facing up.
• Pull your hand down toward the floor using your other hand.
• Hold for 30 seconds, relax, then repeat on the other side.

3. Wrist flexor stretch with your hand on a desk

This is a great stretch for the muscles in the forearm and it will improve wrist and hand mobility if you are feeling stiffness in your wrist from typing.

• Stand with your hand palm down on a desk or firm chair.
• Put your other hand on top of it, over the wrist.
• Rock your body back and forth over your hand in order to stretch your wrist flexors.
• Keep rocking for one minute, relax, the repeat on the other side.

“If you’re typing regularly, perform one set every two hours throughout the workday,” suggests Dr. Candy. “For someone who does a lot of desk work, just doing these couple of stretches several times per day rather than four-plus stretches one to two times per day is probably more beneficial.”

It also helps to pay attention to the ergonomics of your work station. Make sure that your chair is just high enough so that your forearms are as parallel to the floor as possible.

And if you are concerned that your forearm discomfort from typing is getting worse, work with a physical therapist to develop a more robust treatment and prevention plan.

Let’s break it down from the ground up.

What muscles get used when you’re walking?

First of all, “you are definitely working your leg muscles—your quads, hamstrings, calves, and glutes,” walking coach and ACE-certified trainer Michele Stanten previously told Well+Good. Your hip flexors also help you swing your leg forward, and another lesser known muscle, the anterior tibialis (the muscle that runs along the shin bone), is also a part of the action.

“This muscle is responsible for pulling your toes up,” Stanten says. “So when you swing your leg forward and you land on your heel, your toes are up, and that shin muscle is working. The faster you walk the more steps you’re taking, and the harder it’s working,”

So from the waist down, the fronts, backs, and sides of your legs are all working hard to keep you moving forward. But the waist is not where the effort stops. Your core, including the abdominal muscles, obliques, and spinal stabilizers, are keeping you upright, and preventing you from rocking side to side.

“What those are doing is really supporting your body,” Stanten says. “As you pick up the pace with walking, you start to get some of the hip swivel. So there is a little bit of rotation with walking. So the abdominal muscles are also working in that capacity.”

The lower and middle back muscles that are part of the core also keep you supported. And the upper back in particular activates when you swing your arm muscles, helping with walking momentum.

“If you’re bending your arms, swinging your arms, and driving those elbows back, you really start to work those muscles,” Stanten says. “That nice powerful arm swing can help to power your walk.”

How to build a strong, supported gait

So we know muscle strength is important to power your walks. However, walking alone actually does not necessarily build additional muscle strength, though it does build muscular endurance.

Is there anything you can do, other than walking, to strengthen your gait? Building strength in your body through bodyweight or weighted workouts can help. You could also consider throwing in some strength training to walks themselves by bringing along some hand, wrist, or ankle weights.

“Walking already works your core and entire lower body, but adding in some weights can take things up a notch and work your upper body, as well as spike your heart rate,” Onyx trainer Juliet Root previously told Well+Good.

If you want to set yourself up for all-around walking success, however, strength is not the only component to consider. You also need to mobilize your joints—which involves helping them move through their full range of motion. Strong, mobilized hips in particular “means you’ll be able to walk better on your feet, [and] walk for longer as well,” says Pilates instructor and founder of Go Chlo Pilates, Chloe De Winter.

You also want to stretch all those muscles that you use while walking so that they’re not tight and foreshortened. That’s especially true for the calves, which can bear a lot of the effort of walking, despite being a somewhat ignored muscle.

“[It’s] really important to both strengthen and stretch your calf muscles if you spend a lot of time walking or running,” De Winter says. “Calf muscles get really tight and if they’re too weak, then it can lead to injuries in your feet like plantar fasciitis or shin splints, things like that, which are not fun. So make sure you stretch and strengthen.”

“Calf muscles get really tight and if they’re too weak, then it can lead to injuries in your feet like plantar fasciitis or shin splints.” —Chloe De Winter

De Winter is aware of the full body mechanics necessary for walking, which is why she’s designed a 15-minute Pilates for lower body and core routine for Well+Good’s “Trainer of the Month Club” that’s specifically meant to support your walking practice.

“When you’re out on your feet, you use lots of the muscles in your lower body and also need lots of strength for your core and for your back,” De Winter says. “That’s what we’re going to do today.”

Pilates is a great complement to walking because it can help build slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are the muscles that need to activate when you walk.

Check out the video of De Winter’s Pilates for lower body and core routine above, or you can follow along with a step-by-step guide here.

Pilates for lower body and core routine to support a walking practice

Format: Six lower body strength exercises, done once on each side, followed by three core exercises.
Equipment: No equipment is needed.
Who is this for?: Anybody who wants to support a walking practice by strengthening, stretching, and mobilizing their lower body, core, and back.

Donkey kicks (1 minute)

1. Come onto your hands and knees.
2. Distribute your weight evenly through your shoulders and your left leg.
3. Keeping your right leg bent at the knee, lift it up behind you so that the thigh becomes parallel to the floor.
4. Lower back down and repeat.

Fire hydrants (1 minute)

1. From hands and knees position, lift the right leg out to the side, keeping the knee bent.
2. Lower back down and repeat.

Leg circles (30 seconds)

1. From hands and knees, do the first part of a fire hydrant, lifting your right leg out to the side.
2. Instead of lowering it back down from the side, rotate the thigh in a circle, so that your foot sweeps up behind you, and then the knee lowers back down.

Lunge pulses (1 minute)

1. Stand up into a pyramid pose, with your right foot forward, and your left foot behind with the heel raised off the floor, feet hips-width apart.
2. Hinge forward at the hips, moving your chest and shoulders slightly forward.
3. Bend both knees as you pulse down and up.

Leg tap backs (50 seconds)

1. Bring your left foot up to meet your right foot, maintaining a slight behind in both knees.
2. Shift all the weight to your right foot, and place your hands on your hips.
3. Straighten the left leg behind you and tap the left foot on the ground.
4. Bring it back in, keeping the weight on the right foot.
5. Bring in the arms: Bend your elbows at your sides, with your palms facing inward. As your left leg moves back, your left arm moves forward and your right arm moves back, pumping just like they would if you were power walking.

Lifted leg hold (10 seconds)

1. From the tapped back position of the leg tap backs, return your hands to your hips.
2. Lift your left leg off the ground and hold.

Repeat each of the above moves on the other side

Downward dog to plank (30 seconds)

1. Come into a downward dog position: Fold forward from standing. Place your hands on the ground. Walk your feet back until you create a triangle with your body, with your hips at the top of the triangle.
2. Come into plank: Shift your weight forward, un-hinging your hips and bringing your body into a straight line.
3. Move back and forth between the two positions

Downward dog knee drives (40 seconds)

1. Continuing to alternate between downward dog and plank, the next time you shift into a plank, lift one leg off the floor and bend that knee in towards the chest.
2. Alternate legs and repeat.

Calf stretch (40 seconds)

1. From downward dog, lower one heel down towards the floor as you bend the knee of the opposite leg.
2. Hold for 20 seconds.
3. Switch sides.

And when he’s not dancing or seeing patients, Dr. Sheere shares an unexpected, highly entertaining mix of dance clips, salutes to his Indian-American heritage, and actionable tips for improving cardiovascular health with his 120K TikTok followers.

Want to get in on the heart-health happy dance? Here are Dr. Shere’s top four reasons why dancing should play a starring role in your regular heart health routine.

1. Dancing is (often) aerobic exercise

“Many structured dance [fitness] classes are exactly the type of exercise the American Heart Association recommends: sustained, moderate aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes at a time,” says Dr. Shere. Go to class five times a week, and you’ll be passing those AHA guidelines with flying colors.

Here, moderate exercise means continuous movement that requires a medium amount of effort. “Aerobic exercise is any form of exercise that increases your heart rate, so that eventually you’ll improve your cardiovascular fitness,” explains Dr. Shere.

Not sure if you’re dancing at a moderate intensity? Your breathing and heart rate will be faster than when you’re at rest, but you’ll still be able to carry on a conversation without excessive effort.

2. Dancing can improve your lipid profile

Let’s talk about cholesterol. As Dr. Shere says, “Regular exercise, like dancing, has been shown to positively impact your lipid profile,” which is a test cardiologists use to measure different types of fat in your blood.

According to Dr. Shere, “Habitual aerobic dancing can increase your high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (aka HDL, or ‘good,’ cholesterol) and manage or lower your low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (aka LDL, or ‘bad,’ cholesterol).” LDL cholesterol is the kind that contributes to plaque buildup in your arteries, which often leads to heart disease. So anything that decreases it is a surefire heart-healthy choice.

3. Dancing relieves stress

“Negative mental-health symptoms like stress definitely have an impact on your heart,” says Dr. Shere. “There are actually forms of heart failure that can happen from long-term exposure to emotional stress that weakens the heart muscle.”

Periodically taking time to dance it out could help shield your ticker from long-term effects of stress. For maximum benefit, pick a dance style and musical genre that make you feel happy and relaxed.

4. Dancing is for everyone

“Dance not only helps your heart and your overall health,” says Dr. Shere, “It’s also really fun.” No matter your interests, time/financial constraints, ability, or current level of physical fitness, there are dance offerings out there that would be a perfect fit for you.

“When I talk about exercise with my patients, I always tell them that the ‘best’ exercise is something that you enjoy and can stay consistent with,” Dr. Shere adds. “If you’re not going to enjoy it, you’re not going to do it. Dancing is nothing to be scared of, and it’s not a chore. Celebrate the joy of expressing yourself through movement, and enjoy the heart-health benefits that come with it.”

Ready to get your groove on? Try this 10-minute cardio dance routine: 

Despite common misconceptions to the contrary, the disability community makes up a significant portion of the adult population. In the United states, around 61 million adults have a mobility, vision, auditory, cognitive, or self-care disability. This is more than a quarter (27 percent) of the population.

Yet few gyms or fitness studios are accessible to wheelchairs, smart canes, and other assistive devices, and few fitness professionals are prepared to build out training programs or offer appropriate modifications for exercisers with physical disabilities. This might be partially due to the fact that so many fitness spaces are founded by trainers without disabilities, and accessibility issues don’t cross their radar because those with disabilities don’t feel welcomed, so their paths never cross.

Fortunately, in just the past couple of years, there have been some legit strides made toward greater inclusivity. Proof: In 2021, the CrossFit Games finally offered a division for adaptive athletes—meaning, people with physical or neurological conditions—to compete in the sport. That same year, Peloton brought on an adaptive training consultant and released an adaptive training collection. Both Nike and Tonal now offer classes for adaptive athletes.

There are also more machines that can be used by people with disabilities than ever before. For instance, a new deadlift accessory allows individuals with one arm to deadlift. There are bikes that allow people who use wheelchairs to pedal. And we now have rowers made with visual impairments in mind.

And today, a handful of fitness studios around the country—like Split Second Fitness in New Orleans, Unified Health and Performance in Massachusetts, Iron Adaptive in Missouri, and Deaf Planet Soul in Chicago—cater specifically to the disability community.

No doubt, these examples remain the exception to the rule. “Typical gym spaces are still not functional for many people with disabilities,” says Mark Raymond Jr., founder of the non-profit Split Second Foundation and a C-5 quadriplegic. Generally speaking, the average commercial gym is not prepared to host or train people who cannot walk or cannot see, for instance.

And this oversight is doing a major disservice to those with disabilities. As adaptive CrossFit Games athlete Logan Aldridge, a Peloton instructor who teaches strength, tread, and adaptive training classes, points out, “Exercising gives people with disabilities a variety of new abilities and skills, such as being able to pick up boxes, access new ranges of motion, walk without assistance, and more.”

What’s more, the mental health benefit of exercise may be especially beneficial, says Barbara Chancey, founder of Barbara Chancey Design Group the design firm behind Texas-based CYCED, the first indoor cycling studio featuring customized bikes for “Adaptive Riders.” Indeed, research has found that people living with physical disabilities are three times more likely to experience depression. “Isolation is a growing concern [for] those with disabilities, as they are far more likely to withdraw socially,” says Chancey. “Exercise presents an opportunity to engage in group activities and the surrounding environment.”

The fact is, only when all fitness facilities are designed for wheelchair access and equipped with machines designed for people with physical disabilities, and trainer certifications require knowledge of working with clientele with disabilities, will the fitness world be truly accessible.

And as Jamal Hill, a paralympic swim medalist with Team USA points out, it’s a move that simply makes smart financial sense. “Promoting inclusivity in the fitness industry is just the right thing to do, but also it’s good for business,” he says. “By catering to the needs of a diverse range of clients, gyms and fitness centers can tap into a previously untapped market and improve their bottom line.”

So, what can fitness studios do to be more accessible?

If you’re a fitness pro and want to advocate for or make a change at your own gym, here are some expert tips:

1. Make your marketing material inclusive

The images you use in your gym marketing (including social media posts and website design) show the kind of bodies you believe belong. Ditto goes for the art you hang in your space. Make sure your photos include athletes of all abilities, says Aldridge, as well as gender presentations, sizes, and races. Better yet, hire adaptive athletes to model in your campaigns!

These images, however, should not mislead potential members. Don’t hang photographs of athletes in wheelchairs, for example, if your space is not wheelchair-accessible.

2. Put your money where your marketing is

Representation is just the start. “To be truly accessible, fitness studios must also proactively create spaces and programming that are accessible,” says Hill. This includes investing in adaptive equipment. “For example, a gym could purchase machines with adjustable seats or supports, or resistance bands that can be used from a seated position,” he says. That also includes offering classes specifically for the adaptive community, or being sure that all of your workouts can be modified to people with all different abilities, Hill says.

Ask: Who can get into the facility? Is there a ramp or are there only stairs? Similarly, who can move through the facility with ease? “It’s just coming from an empathetic perspective of, if I were in a wheelchair or couldn’t see, how would I operate in this facility?” says Aldridge. “Something as little as little lips in gym floors and little elevation changes can be pretty significant for altering the ability to navigate for a wheelchair athlete,” he explains. Accessible gyms know this and work to minimize it.

And don’t forget your restrooms, says Raymond. “The restroom facilities including lockers and shower areas need to be accessible, too,” he says. “Fixed benches in these small spaces are the worst,” he says.

To be clear, there are some accommodations that aren’t always going to be immediately obvious. Disability consultants and coordinators are experts at eying a space and outlining what needs to be updated.

3. Take stock of who you’re hiring

“Another important aspect of creating an accessible, inclusive fitness space is hiring trainers and instructors with different body types and abilities,” says Hill. This not only provides opportunities for athletes with disabilities to work in the industry, but also helps to break down stereotypes about what a “fit” body should look like, he says. The same holds true for gym staff members.

4. Offer staff accessibility trainings

“Gyms should ensure that their staff are trained in how to work with people with disabilities,” says Hill. ACE Fitness, for instance, offers a certification called Adaptive Fitness for Clients with Special Needs, while CrossFit offers an online course called Adaptive Training Academy. These courses include information like how to modify exercises, use equipment, and provide appropriate support, says Hill. Fitness studios can also provide disability inclusion training for their staff.

Remember: True accessibility includes the language we use. A coach calling themselves “OCD” when they want the room set up just so or an instructor saying it’s “lame” to modify an exercise show ableist language (and thought patterns) at work. More likely than not, it’s probably unintentional. But it’s phrases like these that can end up leaving people out.

It’s an advanced-level class, so, as Spencer says, “Get ready to move fast and feel a good burn.”

Spencer has you start on the mat—no additional equipment is needed. Once you take a seat with bent knees, you’ll rotate your hips side to side, windshield-wiping your knees to your left and right. Next, Spencer has you balance on your hands and feet with your hips up, stomach facing the ceiling—similar to crab-walking you may have done in gym class growing up—to fire up that gluteus maximus.

Clamshells follow to hit the gluteus medius muscles on either side of your buns. “She’s cute, but she hurts,” jokes Spencer. Soon he adds in an upper body rotation for a full-body (and brain) challenge.

From there, you’ll move into the heart of the workout, which involves engaging your core muscles and committing to proper form in positions that, admittedly, might feel uncomfortable. Eventually, Spencer has you push yourself up into a half-side plank and reach your arm to the sky, bring it back down and repeat.

If this sounds intense, don’t worry. Spencer uses transitional stretches like downward dog, lunges, and cat-and-cow to move between different exercises that engage your core and glutes. This offers a much-needed break in between each segment of the workout.

With these stretch breaks, you might not notice how challenging the workout is until you’re almost done. Still, you can rest assured that you’re in good, enthusiastic hands—Spencer leads you through the workout every step of the way. Ready for a good sweat? Hit that mat and press play.

What is exercise intolerance?

Hallie Zwibel, DO, director of the Center for Sports Medicine at the New York Institute of Technology, explains that exercise intolerance is the inability to engage in physical activity that would be typical for an individual’s age.

“Individuals with exercise intolerance cannot build the necessary stamina with exercise,” explains Dr. Zwibel. “In fact, exercising can cause more discomfort.”

Make no mistake: Exercise intolerance is different from just being out of shape or unmotivated to work out. This is an actual condition that can affect your physiology. When someone has exercise intolerance, their body doesn’t respond to working out by growing stronger—instead, physical activity can make someone feel worse. Dr. Zwibel says this happens because there’s less oxygen-rich blood being circulated throughout the body.

“A person can be motivated to work out, but their body cannot meet the moment,” he says.

What are the symptoms?

The reason that some people confuse this condition with a lack of fitness is because the symptoms can mimic those of someone who is “out of shape.” Namely, people will feel winded and fatigued when they’re starting exercise. Many also experience muscle cramping and aches. These responses make it difficult for them to sustain exercise in a comfortable or manageable way.

What are the most common causes?

There are various underlying causes of this condition. Dr. Zwibel says that two common ones are heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It can also be a symptom associated with chronic fatigue syndrome or POTS. Yet some of the causes may not even be identified or fully understood at this point

“There has been research linking long COVID-19 to exercise intolerance as well—even after symptoms resolve from acute COVID-19,” shares Dr. Zwibel. “The mechanism for this remains unclear but may be related to lung or cardiac issues.”

In addition to the lingering consequences of COVID, Dr. Zwibel says that a host of other respiratory conditions, like asthma and COPD can also cause it.

“Oxygen-rich blood is needed throughout the body to maintain all bodily functions. Respiratory conditions can negatively impact the blood being oxygenated,” he says. Meanwhile, certain cardiac conditions can mean that the oxygenated blood does not reach the tissues where it is needed.

The good news: Fortunately, not everyone with these types of conditions will necessarily suffer from exercise intolerance. Whether you’re affected often depends on the type and severity of your health problem, your fitness level prior to becoming sick, and how well your condition is being managed.

Can you still work out with exercise intolerance?

It may sound like people who have exercise intolerance should avoid working out at all costs, but Dr. Zwibel says this is an unnecessary precaution—and also counterproductive in most cases.

“You can and should exercise, with one big caveat: Exercise programs need to be tailored to the reason a person has exercise intolerance,” he says. “There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. That’s why it is critical to seek advice from a qualified healthcare professional.”

A provider should closely monitor how your body responds to activity, and offer targeted levels of physical exertion for you to follow, says Dr. Zwibel. “This has been shown to improve exercise intolerance—and help to improve quality of life.”

“Our lifestyles put strain on the low back, hips, neck, and shoulders,” Jeff Brannigan, program director at Stretch*d, previously told Well+Good. “These are the muscles that are likely to be tight or that can lead to injury because they are so tight.”

Tightness isn’t the only factor. There’s also muscle strain. Although we typically think of intense exercise when we imagine putting strain on a muscle, Brannigan explains that not changing positions for extended periods of time has a similar effect.

“You can have chronic inflammation from simply sitting at a desk all day,” Brannigan says. “Oftentimes, we may not experience the feeling of soreness, yet the muscles can be tight and inflamed. Repetitive stress of any kind can lead to inflammation, and this includes inactivity. People tend to associate high levels of activity with soreness and inflammation but being still all day, every day, is one of the worst things you can do for your body.”

What you can do to ease neck and shoulder tension

So what to do about this crunched-up feeling and chronic inflammation? Taking breaks and changing positions is your first line of defense. But you can also include intentional movement in your day designed to relieve the parts of you that need some extra TLC.

Of course, knowing how to target and reach those parts can be easier said than done. When we talk about tight neck and shoulder muscles, we’re also talking about the trapezius and chest muscles. Shortened chest muscles from slouching can cause you to further round your shoulders forward, creating a vicious cycle. So creating space and strength in your trapezius muscles, which run from the top of your neck down to the middle of your back, can help counteract this.

What’s more, tension or stress might cause you to shrug your shoulders up, which, thanks to those traps, can have effects throughout the upper body.

“There are a lot of connected muscles in that region that can be affected,” Ashley Taylor, DPT, a physical therapist at Coast Physical Therapy in La Jolla, California, previously told Well+Good.

A quick routine you can try before you even stand up

A new six-minute stretch sequence that trainer Nicole Uribarri created for Well+Good will help you target all these affected areas. The best part: You can actually do this series at your desk, sitting in your chair.

This could possibly help establish this stretch as a regular part of your day. Consider using the habit stacking technique, which involves attaching something that you want to make into a daily habit to something you already do. So, if there’s a way you always end your day—maybe you check your email one final time, or maybe the final act of work is closing your laptop—you can tell your mind that every time you do that task, you follow it up with this seated stretch series.

“This way, the current habit becomes a cue to engage in the new action,” clinical psychologist Melissa Ming Foynes, PhD, previously told Well+Good.

This could also help serve as a reset, where you create some separation between your work day and your evening at home.

“There’s this saying that ‘companies shouldn’t have the right to get their employees fresh during the day and send them home tired at night,’ but until the [working] world comes around to that reality, it’s really up to us to do these mini resets for ourselves,” wellness and meditation expert Susan Chen, founder of Susan Chen Vedic Meditation, recently told Well+Good. Movement is one great way to establish this bookend.

So before you hop up to leave your work day behind, stay seated, but turn away from your work setup. Then, you’ll want to get into an intentional and proper seated position.

“Bring your hips down towards the front edge of your chair,” Uribarri instructs. “Actively root down through your feet. So make sure that you can easily press your feet into the floor, stack shoulders over hips, sit up tall.”

Got that starting posture down? Great. You can watch the video above to go through this short series that will feel like the loving transition your body needs, or follow the instructions below.

Good Stretch: After work stretches for your neck, shoulders, and traps

Format: Six stretches done in a seated position
Equipment: One chair
Who is this for?: Anyone who wants to relieve neck and shoulder tension at the end of a long day.

Shoulder shrugs (3 reps)

1. Inhale and pull the shoulders up towards the ears.
2. Exhale and release.

Shoulder blade extensions and pull-aways (4 reps)

1. Bring arms out in front of you.
2. Interlace the fingers and round the spine, tucking your chin down and creative concavity in your stomach and chest.
3. Sit up straight as you flip the wrists to face outward and bring the arms with interlaced fingers up and over your head.
4. Flip your wrists back to the starting position as you bring the arms back down in front of you with a rounded spine.

Chest and pec openers (5 reps)

1. Bring interlaced fingers behind your head with bent elbows.
2. Open the elbows wide and lean back slightly to create space along the front of the chest.
3. Keeping your interlaced fingers on the back of your head, sweep your elbows in front of your face.
4. Tuck your chin into your chest and round down, feeling a release through the back of the neck.
5. Open back up and return to the starting position.

Self-hugs (2 reps—one each side)

1. Extend the arms out to the sides and reach out with fingertips, with palms facing forward.
2. Let your shoulder blades slide down your back.
3. Give yourself a hug, crossing your arms over the front of your body, with your right arm on top.
   (Option: Take eagle arms. Keeping your upper arms and elbows in place, reach up with your forearms so they are wrapped around each other, wrapping your left wrist around your right wrist.)
4. Move the elbows to the left as you look over the right shoulder.
5. Return to center.
6. Move the elbows to the right as you look over the left shoulder.
7. Release and open the arms.
8. Repeat with the left arm on top.

Shoulder and neck back interlaced fingers stretch (2 reps—one each side)

1. Interlace your fingers behind your low back.
2. Keeping your hands interlaced, bend your elbows slightly and bring the hands over towards the left side.
3. Pull elbows back, sit up tall, and let your left ear fall towards your shoulder, creating length on the right side of your neck. Hold for one deep breath.
4. Keeping your hands where they are, return head to upright position. Then let your right ear fall towards your right shoulder, creating length on the left side of your neck. Hold for one deep breath.
5. Return to neutral: Bring head upright and re-straighten arms with interlaced fingers straight back behind you.
6. Repeat with hands on the other (right) side.

Handcuff stretch (2 reps—one each side)

1. Take the arms back behind you.
2. Grab your right wrist with your left hand, pulling both arms down straight behind you.
3. Let the left ear fall to the left side.
4. Bring head upright, then let the right ear fall to the right side.
5. Release hands.
6. Repeat on the opposite side.

Still looking for more neck and shoulder relief? Try this routine with a massage ball: 

In fact, the certified corporate wellness specialist known as “The Stressbender” primarily helps her clients relieve stress by focusing on their physical tension. “When we talk about relieving stress, a lot of people focus on addressing the mental side,” Chock says. “It’s really important to remember, though, that it’s not stress until there’s a buildup of tension in your physical body.”

Whether you’re stressing over an upcoming deadline or an argument with your partner, that mental tension leads to physical reactions that we think of as stress: increased heart rate, high blood pressure, chronic muscular contractions, brain fog, among other responses.

“When you’re stressed out, your brain just doesn’t work as well,” says Chock, who’s a master teacher of both Tai Chi and Qigong. She uses both of those techniques to help clients manage their stress. “Internal martial arts like Tai Chi and Qigong are wonderful techniques for relieving stress because you really have to come into the body to find out where the tension is.”

So how can you relieve stress within your body yourself? This four-step sequence (curated for Well+Good by Chock, using elements from both Tai Chi and Qigong) will help set you up for less-stressed success.

As Chock says, “If you can put your body in an optimal state where you’re in good alignment with good posture and good breathing, you’ll be better able to handle those stresses that are part of everyone’s lives.”

Step 1: Come into your body

Take stock of how your body is feeling physically. “Quiet that analytical part of your brain that wants to overthink everything,” Chock advises. “We can’t relax what we don’t feel is tense.” Listen to your body so you can notice and relax any points of tension.

Not sure where to begin? For many of us, the shoulders hold a lot of physical stress. “Imagine you’re a clothes hanger, hanging in a closet from the crown of your head,” Chock suggests. “Picture gravity as a fluid weight that flows down through your head, neck, shoulders, arms, and fingers. Allow your arms to feel heavy as they hang down by your sides.”

 

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A post shared by Shirley Chock (@aipingtaichi)

Step 2: Relax your face, then your body

According to Chock, practitioners of Chinese medicine and internal-arts practices often say, “If you can relax your tongue, you can relax your whole face. If you can relax your face, you can relax your whole body.”

Start by gently touching the tongue to the roof of your mouth, right behind your top teeth. Keeping your lips closed, let the tongue spread gently across the roof of your mouth and form a tiny “Buddha smile” with your lips. As you take a moment to get comfortable with this softening of the jaw, you may also notice a corresponding release of tension around your eyes. (Keep up this practice, and you could eventually feel some relief from chronic tension headaches.)

Check in with your overall posture, and repeat Step 1 as needed.

@aipingtaichi Replying to @rudeman81 Stressbending Hack, when your mind is flooded with stress, here’s a relaxation hack that releases face and body tension so your mind can also release the tension #stress #stressrelief #stressreliever #tip #hack #relax #relaxation #relaxationtips #relaxface #taichi #qigong #stressbending #stressbender ♬ Quiet meditation music – Jun Naotsuka

Step 3: Slow down your breathing

“A lot of the tension that we feel can be alleviated by improving, i.e. lengthening, our breathing,” Chock explains. “However, trying effortfully to deepen our breath will add unnatural tension.” To avoid this pitfall, begin by simply noticing where your inhale stops or feels trapped.

Oftentimes, Chock sees clients’ breath stop like this in the upper chest area. If that’s you, try to visualize what the tension feels like. Tight coils? A hard, stuck feeling? Per Chock, creating a clear mental picture of your physical tension will help you release it with equally vivid visual metaphors. Try thinking of washing the tension away with cool water, untangling a ball of string, or anything else that resonates with you.

 

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A post shared by Shirley Chock (@aipingtaichi)

Step 4: Tune in to your body’s symmetry

“Our bodies are designed to be symmetrical, and they function best when symmetrical,” Chock says. But, she adds, most of us spend our days shifting between uncomfortable, asymmetrical positions.

Chock’s fix? “Learn to notice the stillness, calm, and symmetry in your body.” Maintaining healthy posture and a neutral stance will cut down on the daily bodily micro-stresses caused by poor posture and its close companion: asymmetrical body positions. Put both feet on the floor when sitting, uncross your arms, spread weight evenly between both hips—you’ll feel your body start to feel better.

@aipingtaichi Why Tai Chi is S-L-O-W #taichi #overcomeyourfear ♬ original sound – AipingTaiChi

“While they’re related terms that refer to a person’s ability to sustain mental or physical effort over an extended period, there’s a difference between them,” shares personal trainer and Barry’s chief instructor Drew Nunez.

Stamina vs. endurance

“Stamina generally refers to a person’s ability to sustain [intense] physical activity for an extended period of time without experiencing fatigue,” explains Nunez. He adds that it typically refers to activities that require bursts of energy, like sprinting, weight lifting, or high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

Endurance, on the other hand, generally involves activities that have prolonged and steady efforts, like long-distance running, cycling, or low-intensity swimming. “Endurance refers to a person’s ability to sustain a mental or physical activity over an extended period,” he says.

As Brooks running puts it, “Stamina is about maximizing output while endurance is about maximizing time while performing an activity.” Stamina has to do with increasing how long you can perform at your peak, or max effort, while endurance is just about increasing the duration. To get science-y about it, Brooks clarifies that “endurance can be defined by the body’s ability to deliver oxygen to muscles while performing an action and stamina is more…about delivering energy.”

While stamina and endurance may have different definitions and relate to different types of activities, jointly, they work to improve our overall training and fitness as well as activities in our everyday lives. “Together, they have a positive impact on physical health, mental well-being, daily productivity, and athletic performance,” shares Nunez.

Can you have one without the other?

While this pair typically goes hand-in-hand, there is one exception. “It is possible to have stamina without endurance,” says the Barry’s chief instructor. “You might have the energy and strength to perform a particular physical activity, but not be able to sustain it for a long period.”

If you think of running a long distance for example, you may be able to start the run at a fast pace, but soon burn out and not be able to continue. However, the opposite doesn’t exist, he says. To have endurance, you need to have a certain level of stamina.

How to improve your stamina and endurance

To train your endurance, focus on activities that require you to sustain a low-intensity effort for 30 minutes or more, such as jogging, cycling, or swimming, suggests Nunez. The trainer explains that this type of training is referred to as “steady-state cardio”and works to improve cardiovascular endurance and build the body’s tolerance to sustained physical exertion.

Try this endurance workout that zeroes in on the lower body: 

As for building your stamina, it’s best to practice activities that require high-intensity efforts for prolonged periods, such as interval training, HIIT, or circuit training. “These types of workouts can help improve your muscular endurance, increase your lactate threshold, and teach your body to recover quickly for intense efforts,” he adds.

The benefits of training both is that you’ll be able to push through all your workouts more effectively—no matter whether you’re aiming to go longer or harder.

This HIIT workout can help to build your stamina: 

“When I need a feeling of success, I go for a 10-mile hike,” Barac says. He knows that once he finishes, he’ll have a concrete “win” to boost his confidence, and he’ll “be back in balance,” he says. Essentially, in order to give himself the fortitude to overcome a challenge in one part of his life, he demonstrates to himself that he can surmount a challenge in another area.

“If you have the feeling of finishing something every day, then it’s most likely that you will finish bigger and bigger things,” Barac says. “Feelings are habits.”

A pro’s tips for hiking motivation

Hiking doesn’t always guarantee that “finishing feeling,” however. Sometimes it gets too hard, or tiring, and we find ourselves coming up with excuses for why we need to turn back early.

If you’re someone who’s often tempted to call it quits prematurely, Barac has some suggestions to help you keep going. And he knows what he’s talking about: In addition to going on five-day Highlander expeditions multiple times a year, Barac goes on 10-mile-or-so hikes around two or three times a month just for fun.

Name what you want to get out of the hike

Barac’s first piece of advice for finishing what you start is to have a clear idea of what it is you’re trying to finish in the first place. That is, set a goal for the hike. The goal can be distance or time-based, but you can also set goals based on the way you want to feel, or things you want to do or see. Having a non-arbitrary goal in mind that you’re committed to from the outset diminishes the temptation to turn back early, in Barac’s experience.

The goal should be attainable—don’t try to accomplish something you’re not physically set up to finish. Which goes into Barac’s second piece of advice…

Be prepared for the hike you’re taking

“A big part of this is really how prepared you are, and how you condition,” Barac says. “Most of the hard times on hikes come from bad equipment or the wrong diet.”

A 10-mile hike is not the place to try out your new hiking boots. Wear them around the house, and go on shorter walks in them before taking them on a long trail. And make sure you have enough snacks—and water!—to fuel as many miles as you’re aiming to conquer.

Plus, Barac says that on Highlander expeditions, someone can be in great shape, but if they have not practiced distance hiking beforehand, they’ll be hurting in places they didn’t even know existed. Even if you’re not heading out on multi-day expeditions, when you’re setting your day’s hiking goal, Barac says to take your physical readiness into account. Consider the terrain, the elevation, and the weather in addition to the distance, and be honest about what your body is prepared to handle. That way you can work up to longer and longer hikes, practicing that feeling of finishing—making you all the more likely to successfully finish again and again in the future.

Know when to call it

At the same time, Barac says sometimes conditions just aren’t right. Maybe it’s super hot. Maybe you don’t have enough water or sunscreen. Maybe you’re having tummy troubles. Listen to your body and figure out what your roadblock is, knowing that ultimately, on a hike, you’re doing something just for your own personal enjoyment.

“You don’t need to finish every hike,” Barac says. “You don’t need to finish every task in your life.”

But if you find yourself on the trail, with a goal in mind, all the equipment you need, and all the training behind you, and you’re still having trouble putting one foot in front of the other, Barac has one more trick up his sleeve.

“Just ask yourself what are the hardest situations in your life that you went through, and compare them with this situation,” Barac says. “Put this on the scale, and you’ll see that you can really finish this.”

Once you’ve got your answer, then just take it one more step at a time.

“I don’t go to therapy because I work out so much,” she responded. It completely caught me off guard.

Sure, working out is beneficial for your mental health—the science and research clearly state this. Exercise releases neurotransmitters, notably feel-good endorphins, which increase feelings of pleasure and decrease feelings of pain. It also boosts dopamine, which also increases pleasure and feelings of motivation, and can help relieve feelings of depression.

In fact, a meta-analysis published in 2016 found that exercise had a “large and significant antidepressant effect” in people with depression, including major depressive disorder. Another review published in Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology found that exercise “has been shown to significantly reduce the symptoms of anxiety” thanks to a combination of biological and psychological factors. Exercise is also a powerful stress reliever. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that healthy adults who exercise regularly were better able to handle acute stressors and develop emotional resiliency.

I’m sure that’s where my friend was coming from, that she views her gym classes as an opportunity to relieve stress and get in a positive headspace. I know she didn’t mean to be invalidating or offensive, and I don’t even think she realized what she was saying. But it really got me thinking about how dismissive some people can still be about therapy and how many conflate the benefits of physical activity with the work that’s done in therapy.

Although I’ve been a champion for mental health in the 12-plus years I’ve been a writer, I personally have only been in therapy for two years. Within that time. I’ve learned positive coping mechanisms, how to work through the guilt and shame of my late ADHD diagnosis, what to do when I’m plagued by scary intrusive thoughts, and I’ve unpacked some unresolved feelings that I’ve held on to for years, to name just a few positives. Honestly, therapy has completely changed my life.

To be clear, I’m also very physically active. I’ve been working out consistently in a gym since I was 14, and in a past life, I was a full-time fitness editor. I lift weights about four days a week and do cardio another two to three days a week. And I’m diligent about getting in my 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day.

I view exercise as not only something I need to do as an adult to take care of my physical health, but also as a tool in my arsenal to treat my mental well-being. As someone prone to depression and anxiety, I find that regular physical activity helps balance my mood and relieve some of that anxiety.

All of this is to say—exercise is beneficial for my mental health, but it’s by no means a replacement for therapy.

“They’re really two different things,” explains licensed therapist and board-certified behavior analyst Laurie Singer, LMFT. “Exercise is a great way to relieve stress, and it also can get you on track to utilize the strategies that you’re using in therapy. But it is different than therapy.”

Singer says that she always recommends physical activity as part of a treatment plan for her clients. It depends on their abilities and how much time have to exercise, but she says she typically encourages them to work out at least four times a week.

“[Exercise] relieves that tension, that stress,” she says. “It boosts your physical and mental energy… It enhances your well-being all from those endorphins. Isn’t that amazing?”

The best part is that you don’t have to pay for pricey gym classes or use fancy equipment to get those benefits. Lacing up a pair of walking shoes and going for a brisk walk is free—anything that gets your body moving and your heart rate up is going to be beneficial.

Still, physical activity isn’t therapy. Think about it: While you might feel better mentally after a workout, Singer points out that you could experience intrusive thoughts while exercising or you might ruminate on worst-case scenarios—which might keep coming back if you don’t deal with them head-on. A therapist can offer an outside perspective and tools to help you deal with distressing situations. For example, Singer says she often helps patients manage their anxiety, especially around catastrophizing or dealing with the dozens of “what-ifs” we all experience. She also can offer solutions around communication issues people might be experiencing in their relationships—things you won’t get from a HIIT class.

Conflating regular exercise with clinical mental health treatment might just boil down to misconceptions around therapy. While it’s become more acceptable to talk about therapy in recent years, there is still so much that’s misunderstood. For instance, therapy isn’t just lying on a couch in a psychologist’s office and crying about your childhood (although, no shade to people who use their therapy sessions that way!). There are a variety of therapy modalities that therapists utilize, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, to name a few.

And while I’ve been exercising regularly for 20 years, it wasn’t until I started seeing my therapist that I noticed a dramatic shift in my mental health. Running gave me energy, but it didn’t help me deal with feelings of guilt and shame. Lifting weights helped relieve some stress, but it didn’t help me learn to be a better communicator. And while I certainly feel better mentally after a tough spin class, it doesn’t erase my depression, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts.

Singer says that, along with therapy and medication if people are prescribed it, taking care of your mental health also requires other lifestyle factors like eating well, getting enough sleep, not drinking too much alcohol, and yes, exercise. As Sepideh Saremi, LCSW, running therapist and founder of Run Walk Talk told Well+Good in 2020, “It’s not good to be too reliant on one tool.”

That’s just the strategy I believe in—I know my mental health requires a diligent 360-degree approach. But that doesn’t prevent people from making off-color comments.

“If somebody does say, ‘Well, I don’t need to go to therapy because I exercise’” suggests Singer, “I would say, ‘That’s great that exercise is helping you, it’s creating those endorphins… if you ever do need [therapy], let me know, I have a great therapist.’”

“There are many muscular attachments around the hips that help control the motion of the knee joint and your leg,” Jaclyn Fulop, PT, founder of Exchange Physical Therapy Group, told Well+Good in 2020. “Knee pain is often due to muscle imbalances from tightness and weakness, and sedentary behavior for long periods of time can cause knee pain due to these imbalances.”

For example, she explains that when your gluteus medius (one of your butt muscles) is weak, it allows your thighs to rotate and pull inwards, which causes excessive strain around your knee joint. And tightness in your vastus lateralis (part of your quadriceps) can pull your kneecap in a wonky direction and damage the cartilage underneath.

When your muscles aren’t firing optimally, that also means your joints don’t get all the good stuff they need to thrive. “A weak muscle pumps less blood in and out of the joint, meaning the knee won’t have enough nutrients, and over time they won’t be able to work properly,” Mitch Torres, PT, physical therapist and lead editor for Knee Force previously told Well+Good. Additionally, “strong muscles also act as shock absorbers. They protect the knee joint by absorbing the impact coming from the floor. Weak muscles won’t be able to do this, so the whole impact will be received by the joint tissues. Over time, this makes them prone to injury as well.”

So what’s a girl or guy in knee pain to do?

It should go without saying that any knee pain should be checked out by a doctor, who can determine if there is something more serious going on. But a good bet is also to keep your muscles strong. “You can help to correct muscle imbalances with strengthening of the gluteus medius and the vastus medialis, and stretching the lateral musculature,” says Fulop. Stretching and strengthening the hips can also be useful, since strong, mobile hips can help prevent movement in the kneecap and protect the cartilage in your knee.

One smart option to make this all happen: Doing this Pilates for knee pain workout. In the latest episode of Well+Good’s “Trainer of the Month Club,” Chloe de Winter, a Pilates instructor based in Australia, walks us through her 20-minute Pilates for knee pain routine.

Each move is designed to create the strength your body needs to support those knees for the long haul—and none of the exercises should give you pain. If they do for any reason, try a variation, or skip ahead to the next move. But we’re gonna bet you’ll end up stepping off the mat with an extra spring in your step.

A 20-minute Pilates for knee pain workout

Now, who’s ready to kick knee pain to the curb? Here’s what you can expect.

Format: A Pilates mat workout, all done on the floor.

Equipment needed: Nothing but a mat to lie down on (comfy carpet works just fine, too). Though you can increase the challenge of a couple of the exercises with a booty band or Pilates ball (or rolled-up towel) if you want.

Who is this for?: This is a beginner-friendly workout for anyone who wants to strengthen the muscles that support their knees.

Clam series

De Winter starts off her Pilates for knee pain routine with an outer-hip exercise she swears by: clams. The movement consists of lying on your side (pick a side, any side), with one leg atop the other with a bend in the knees, and pulsing one knee up toward the ceiling while keeping the heels touching and the pelvis stacked.

“We are really going to work into the muscles of the hip,” says de Winter. “Now the glute muscles all around the hip help support those knee joints. Strong glutes mean supported knees.” By strengthening the hip and glute muscles, de Winter says that you’ll feel more supported during walks, runs, and even while standing.

Just in case clams alone don’t get those glutes burning (though they likely will), de Winter ups the ante by progressing to clams from a heels lifted position with the feet a few inches off the floor so that you can access a greater range of motion. She eventually adds kickouts at the top of each clam to really challenge those buns.

Want even more? De Winter says you can add a resistance band. Too much? Don’t hesitate to take a break and punch out those glutes whenever you need. (Trust us, you’re gonna feel it.)

To make sure you’ve got the clam basics down, check out this demo: 

Bridge series

The next way de Winter works the muscles around the knees is with the Pilates bridge, which works the backs of the legs, including the glutes and hamstrings. “Really important muscles to really strengthen,” says de Winter, adding that they’re particularly good for the knees.

To do this exercise, lie down on your back, place your feet flat, raise your hands into the sky, and lift your hips up to form a straight line from your shoulders to your knees, keeping a neutral spine. “Press through your heels like you’re trying to dig a hole,” says de Winter.

If you’re feeling lower back pain during bridges, one tip de Winter gives is to scoop the tailbone to take the pressure off. Remember, “It’s not about the height that you lift. It’s about really getting the muscles to activate and fire up,” she says.

The workout continues with three different variations of the bridges: pulses at the top, bridges with heels lifted to engage the calves, and then alternating leg lifts to march with the hips in a bridge position (hello, hamstrings!).

Start by nailing that Pilates bridge form:

Abdominal work

De Winter tops off this knee-friendly Pilates series with abdominal work to really engage the core and provide the base and foundation for you to move about the world in one solid piece, without putting undue pressure on other parts of the body (like the knees!).

This final section includes slow, gentle crunches; alternating marches that eventually add in an upper body twist to build into bicycles. Then de Winter caps everything off with triceps dips so you get a bit of a full-body burn, and she ends it all in a delicious butterfly pose to stretch those hips, inner legs, and your back.

If you find that ending pose leaves you craving more stretches, you can make it a double feature by moving into Well+Good’s stretch series for knee pain, led by East River Pilates instructor Brian Spencer. Because, as Spencer says, “If it surrounds the knee, it’s a good idea to try and release it.” Expect deep calf massages, a series of lunges to open up your hips and quads, some hamstring and IT band stretches to help you get the backs and sides of your legs, which will support your knees from 360 degrees. Check it out, and thank us later:

Additional reporting by Zoe Weiner