To enter post a story on Instagram before 7pm on August 28th and tag:
@flowfitnessseattle
Prizes include
Winners will be announced by our MC right after the yoga class. You must be present to claim your prize!
Most people have a favorite form of exercise such as barre, yoga, cardio, strength training, or HIIT. These workouts are what makes trips to the gym rewarding and motivating. Each form of exercise provides a unique benefit that can’t be achieved anywhere else. For example, Yoga and barre focus on isometric strength and developing flexibility and mobility. Strength training builds up your strength, physique, and bone density. Cycle classes intensify your cardio routine. The unique qualities of these types of workouts are their greatest strengths. However, with that strength comes their greatest weakness. Every form of exercise comes with a weak spot, an essential part of fitness that cannot be achieved. You cannot gain flexibility through strength training or increase your cardiovascular endurance with yoga. No one form of exercise covers the basics of fitness that will allow you to feel, look, and act your best. So, how can we ensure we are as healthy and fit as possible? Cross training!
Cross-training is a style of a weekly workout split where you engage in multiple types of training in a single week. Cross-training is a tool that allows you to optimize your workout split. It focuses on your primary goals and will enable you to recover optimally. Cross-training provides for the reduction of weak spots in your training split by having you incorporate multiple types of exercises into your routine. To apply cross-training, you must incorporate two or more exercise styles into your weekly split. For example, doing yoga and cycling. Whether your split is two days or seven days a week, cross training is essential to support a balanced physique, improve your fitness skills, and allow for healthy recovery work.
Many people start their journey with specific physique goals in mind. These goals can be strong motivators and help people find their place in the fitness world. However training for physique can lead to an unbalanced fitness routine. We have all seen people overwork a portion of their body, leading to an imbalanced composition. Many like to point out the “chicken legs” of upper body-focused exercisers. While an imbalanced physique can keep you from looking your best, what may be less noticeable is an imbalance in fitness skills. Many people who hyper-focus on strength training ignore their cardiovascular health and flexibility, leading to an imbalance of strength seen in their inability to have full mobility or proper cardio endurance. On the other hand, those who hyperfocus on flexibility and cardio can find themselves feeling weak. Both hyper focuses can lead to severe and chronic injuries that take away from your training. Overall, you cannot expect to feel your best when you are ignoring essential training types. This hyperfocus can also lead to excessive fatigue due to improper recovery.
Doing only one form of exercise can quickly cause your body to fatigue, and no matter how much you may love that type of exercise, you can become bored with your split. For those who have the time and desire to do some form of exercise every day, cross-training is necessary to maintain this practice. Having no form of a rest day for any kind of exercise will quickly lead to an overworked body. Rest is when our body takes the hard work from our exercises and applies it to improvements in our body. Many dread the idea of doing nothing for the sake of proper rest. However, cross-training allows us to circumvent this issue. If you train your body differently, you can still benefit from rest while maintaining your routine. Doing Yoga the day after a weightlifting session or cardio the day after barre will allow your body to recover from the previous day while still getting a beneficial workout.
I hope I have thoroughly convinced you of the value of cross-training. If you want to use this fantastic split tool but don’t know where to start, I have created some examples of 3-day flow class-supported workout splits based on your focus!
Example Exercise Splits
The Cheat Code to Easy Cross Training: Flow Fit Classes! By attending one of each type of class a week you will hit all your essential fitness categories: Strength, Cardio, Balance, Mobility, and Flexibility!
Day 1: Endurance Fit Class
Day 2: Power Fit Class
Day 3: Resistance Fit Class
Strength And Cardio
Day 1: Lower Body Lift
Day 2: Flow Cycle Class
Day 3: Upper Body Lift
Strength, Balance, And Flexibility
Day 1: Full Body Lift
Day 2: Flow Power Yoga
Day 3: Flow Candlelight Yoga
Cardio, Strength, And Balance
Day 1: Full Body Lift
Day 1: Flow FIT Class
Day 3: FlowBarre Class
Cardio, Balance, And Flexibility
Day 1: FlowBarre Class
Day 2: FlowCycle Class
Day 3: Flow Yoga Class
Fitness Friday nights are back and we will have it the last Friday of each month in February, March and April. We will have special themed classes, open gym access, refreshments and pop up events with other local businesses. The best part is Fitness Friday Night Out is FREE and open to non-members so invite your friends to come and celebrate community and healthy lifestyles.
Sign up for classes or open gym access using the schedule below.
Summer isn’t here yet but we’ll get you ready with a night of Spring Break themed fitness classes. We’ll have tropical mocktails on hand for after the class end the night. Come out and join us for this fun an novel event.
Flow Fremont
Friday, April 25th – 4:30-7:30 pm
The holiday season is full of guilty pleasures. However over indulgence can ruin your holidays by making you susceptible to disease, causing or exacerbating health issues and damaging your mental health. For many it’s far from the most wonderful time of the year. Here are some tips on how you can be healthier and happier this holiday season!
Being in the fitness business, we get frustrated seeing fitness misconceptions all over the internet. The most common myth we see is spot-reducing fat (which isn’t really possible), but there are plenty of others too, mostly centered around weight loss. While we’d love to throw away everyone’s scales, we understand the importance of it to many. The facts around weight loss have become muddled by stigmas, stereotypes, and other misinformation. (Anyone ever try to “work off” that extra donut?) But here at Flow, if we’re going to discuss weight loss, we’re going to use actual science to break things down.
Before we start wading into the details, we need to clarify a few things about weight loss itself. Weight loss is lowering a number on a scale, however, it is not indicative of overall health or body shape/size. Most people don’t want weight loss, they want to improve their body image, health, energy and self-confidence. It’s important that we distinguish the difference when people say they want to lose weight, most want the later which this article will focus on.
Next, we need to become aware of our misconceptions around weight loss and throw them out. It’s easy to keep a stigma because it’s what you learned at an early age. For example, growing up, every time someone would cough or sneeze, people would break out the vitamin C and take more than the daily recommended amount. We now know this doesn’t actually help, but we still pour a fizzy orange drink when we think we are getting sick.
The same thing happens with cardio and weight loss. When people want to lose weight, they often try to do as much steady state cardio (e.g. running or biking) as possible. Cardio is absolutely proven to help lose weight, but it should always come second to diet, and is best when combined with other forms of exercise, especially strength training.
Cardio does burn the most calories per minute out of any type of exercise, but it does a poor job of building muscle, and can even lead to muscle loss. A cardio program without proper strength training included can actually slow down your metabolism (due to muscle loss), leading to plateaus. This doesn’t mean cardio should be avoided and still provides significant benefits, such as improving aerobic conditioning and the efficiency of the heart and lungs, but it shouldn’t be your sole form of exercise.
Strength training provides benefits that are often underappreciated. It builds and maintains muscle, improves bone density and posture, and reduces the risk of injury. People who strength train are also more likely to recover quickly from injury. You may not lose as much weight strength training program because muscle is denser than fat, but it will help you achieve a leaner physique, lose fat and keep it off through a higher metabolism. The muscular development that comes with strength training won’t make you “bulky” either. There are specific ways to train and diet for bulking and it takes a lot of time and effort that most people don’t have. So don’t be worried that it might happen to you. It’s like getting in a pool for the first time and being worried that you’ll become an Olympic swimmer.
Muscular growth offers a wide range of benefits when it comes to weight loss. It creates longer-lasting calorie burn because muscle is metabolically active. This increases calories burned throughout the day and builds a better metabolism. You can further your efforts to lose weight by strength training to maximize burning calories. This can be done by moving faster between exercises, increasing reps and sets, shortening rest times, and choosing heavier weights. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) exercises are a great way to do this, like in our Flow FIT classes. HIIT is still a strength training method, but it keeps your heart rate high, challenges your lung capacity, and burns lots of calories while building muscle at the same time.
At the end of the day, both cardio and strength training are important and when combined can optimize weight loss. So if you are trying to lose weight, be sure to incorporate strength training in addition to cardio. If you’re unsure of how to incorporate strength training into your routine, the good news is that you’re a member of a gym with a staff of knowledgeable trainers and instructors, ready to help you achieve your fitness goals.
CategoriesUncategorizedFor the past year, Bianca has directed and managed our Yoga program here at Flow Fitness. She unfortunately will be moving to San Diego later this month. To bid her adieu, join us for a 50-minute “Candlelight Restorative Yoga” class with a glass of red wine. The middle of the week is a great time to re-center yourself and restore your mind and body. Wine – red wine in moderation – is known to provide the body antioxidants that reduces stress and anxiety. Combining that with yoga on Wednesday evening may be just what you need to get through the rest of the week!
CategoriesUncategorizedWe are excited to announce that Flow Fitness will be participating in hosting Yerbana Yoga In The Park, Seattle’s largest weekly FREE yoga gathering. Bianca will be leading us in an All-Levels Yoga practice on Thursday August 4th at 6:30pm.
Sign up is not required to participate! Bring your mat, a friend, and good vibes.
See you there!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/yerbana-yoga-in-the-park-tickets-348545548117
CategoriesUncategorizedOur June Yoga pose of the month is Side Crow (Parsva Balasana)! Side Crow is a powerful arm balance inversion that strengthens your upper body as well as core. Although this pose takes patience and focus, it can reduce mental stress.
To get to side crow, begin in chair pose. Bring your hands to touch at your heart center. Next, twist your top body by hooking your elbow on the side of your opposite thigh. Give a deep bend to your elbows and place your hands evenly on the mat. Slowly lift up one foot at a time, finding balance as they both come off the mat to balance on your palms.
CategoriesUncategorized🌈 A Celebration of SELF🌈 Yoga Flow!
On Sunday June 19th at our Fremont location, Flow trainer and yoga teacher, Segale, will be hosting a body positive, all gender inclusive yoga class in which all proceeds benefit @lamberthouse .
This class is geared toward members of the Seattle LGBTQ+ community. Come as you are in your favorite Pride gear and spend time after class sharing snacks and drinks.
There are three pricing options for this class: $10, $20, $30 or a free option as we do not want cost to be a barrier to this event. If you’re able to donate, please do so as this benefits Lambert House.
Lambert House is a organization advocating for LGBTQ+ youth, connecting them to peers and mentors to help them thrive.
You can sign up via Mindbody or at www.flowfitnessseattle.com. See you on the 19th!
CategoriesUncategorizedJoin Bianca for a 50-minute Candlelight Restorative Yoga class with a glass of red wine plus a POPUP with @inapropro_candle_co !
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The middle of the week is a great time to re-center yourself and restore your mind and body. Wine – red wine in moderation – is known to provide the body antioxidants that reduces stress and anxiety. Combining that with yoga on Wednesday evening may be just what you need to get through the rest of the week!
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Inapropro Candles are made for everyBODY. They are handmade from just three ingredients – Natural Soy Pillar Wax, Color Chips, and Cotton Wick.
Enjoy yoga, wine, and check out these beautiful candles. See you next week!
