Dr. Wildman takes a break from his training program in the mountains of Northern Italy to offer a simple tip to combat aches and stiffness. 

Sometimes-- especially as we get older-- our muscles and joints can ache and feel stiff, discouraging us from exercise or our usual activities. In this video, Dr. Wildman recommends getting on the floor and slowly rolling around. As you roll gently, the floor will exert pressure throughout your body. 

Rolling is one of the simplest, fastest ways to massage your way into good health and should be a part of any healthy aging program.
 

Dr. Frank Wildman, creator of Change Your Age, provides tips and techniques and a mindfulness approach to exercise and youthful movement. 

Growing older is not just sinking skin and sagging muscles. We also suffer from loss of coordination. When we lose our coordination, our bodies "forget" how to do some of the basic activities of daily life. 

In this video, Dr. Wildman demonstrates the manner by which a typical older person may, with difficulty, sit down and stand up from a chair. Employing some simple techniques, this everyday activity can be easily made less burdensome, and instead be more energetic and rejuvenating, in both action and appearance, thereby overcoming, or at least hiding, one of the more visible signs of aging. 

Signs of aging appear in our walk, such as moving more slowly. Dr. Frank Wildman, creator of Change Your Age, provides tips and techniques and a mindfulness approach to exercise that enable you to walk faster with greater confidence. As a result, you will feel and act younger, exhibit good posture and improve your overall coordination. As recent research shows, better movement and faster walking can promote better brain fitness and function, delaying and reducing the possible onset of cognitive decline and dementia associated with aging.

A recent New York Times article, The 10-Minute Workout, Times Three, discusses current research showing the health benefits of 10-minute workouts, three times a day.

In the early years of studying cardio-vascular exercises, endurance exercises and even strengthening exercises, time periods of about half an hour of activity were most often used.  Periods even longer than that were often considered when studying athletes.  But when it came to medical health effects of exercise on the average person, taking lifestyle factors into consideration, half an hour of physical activity became the benchmark. The recommendation for consistent, continual exercise for 30 minutes or more joined "eat less red meat and more vegetables" as a good idea for healthy living.

But, I know with the exercises I give to my students and clients, they benefit more and are more compliant about really doing their exercises if it is given in tasty, small morsels of time. Ten minutes, three times a day is more natural in terms of the evolutionary design of the human body than doing a half hour of jogging and then stopping activity for the day.

One, two or all three 10-minute periods of time could also build into higher intensity than some people could withstand during a full half hour.  Also, you could work a little harder during one or two of your three 10-minute burst.  Of course, you also have the choice of making one or more of your bursts 12 or even 15 minutes long.  The farther apart our exercise bursts might occur, the less sluggish our system becomes.

What I am suggesting has been revealed to me to be a truth by hundreds of students all over the world, that is if you want to increase compliance and decrease resistance to an activity, give yourself full permission to do less and you'll be more likely to do more.

For those who feel too fatigued to get started with an exercise routine, feel no shame to start with a fast 10-minute walk or going down to lay on the floor and returning to standing several times for 10 minutes.  You'll feel better because you'll be doing something smarter.

The benefits of short bursts of exercise is why I tried to keep my Change Your Age lessons brief and varied.  Check out some of the sample lessons from the Chang Your Age program for 10-minute movement inspirations.

Recently I read Jane Brody’s New York Times article, It’s Not Too Late to Become a Yoga Believer.  In it, she discusses her colleague William Broad's book, The Science of Yoga, her apprehensions about the dangers of yoga, and the lack of certification for yoga instructors.

In my private practice and in my workshops, I have worked on too many injured yoga instructors and their students to discount the dangers of yoga.

Many of the same benefits you would find in a well-taught and protective yoga class, you would find designed into the way you learn how to move in my new mind-body fitness program, Change Your Age.

Change Your Age uses developmental movements from childhood and applies them to adults, which requires moving in entirely new ways.  It emphasizes the quality of your movements rather than taking a typical quantitative approach of How Much, How Far, How Fast, How Many, How Well Do I Fit Asana?

As we get older, we lose coordination, which can have devastating effects on our quality of movement.  Change Your Age focuses on regaining lost coordination.  If you improve your coordination, you'll improve your overall mobility including your posture, your balance and your gracefulness.

Change Your Age teachers are certified Feldenkrais practitioners and require a minimum of 800 hours of training and many more hours of practice, spread over a 4 year time span.  These are the requirements to be admitted into a Change Your Age teacher training program. Change Your Age teachers are highly qualified instructors, familiar with exercise and aging issues.

I invite you to read some excerpts of my book Change Your Age, published by Perseus Books/Da Capo Press Lifelong Books in 2010.

How to Assess Your Current Exercise Program

The Danger of Exercise: Overstressing

Assessing Your Current Exercise Program: Quantity Versus Quality

Prevention to Performance: Athletic Tuning

I believe the Change Your Age program-- available as a book, DVD set and classes and workshops nationwide-- offers a safer and more interesting way for people to engage their body and brain to achieve healthier aging. 

Exclusive one-on-one interview with "Change Your Age" author Dr. Frank Wildman.

Click here to read the article

"The benefits of tai chi, with origins as a Chinese martial art, seem to be adding up. Evidence that the exercise might help people with heart failure feel less depressed and more energized is but the latest in a string of positive findings about tai chi’s health effects.
The light exercise, whose origins go back about 5,000 years, may also improve mood, quality of life and well being in other groups as well. "

[END QUOTE]

Click here to read the entire article in the LA Times

From the Los Angeles Times ...

"... As people get older and more frail, falls are preventable but serious problems that affect millions. Every year, 1 in 3 adults over the age of 65 suffers a fall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and falls are the leading cause of injury death in the age group... To combat the problem, the Lake County Health Department has formed a Falls Prevention Task Force with hospitals, senior centers and fire departments. The department is printing and distributing prevention and awareness literature and is sponsoring balance classes, which work to improve lower-body strength in seniors." [END QUOTE]

Click here to read the entire article "Breaking the falls", on the LA Times website

Press Contact: Paula Batson Batson.paula@gmail.com
917 873-8294
Frank Wildman to Host Change Your Age® Workshop in Chicago on October 22nd and 23rd at the Loyola University Campus

Program based on the Feldenkrais Method can help Participants Feel Younger, Stronger, More Agile and Free of Pain  
Frank Wildman GCFT, Ph.D. and author of Change Your Age (DaCapo Press) will host his first public workshop in the Chicago area at Loyola University Campus’s Simpson Living Learning Center in October. The workshop will introduce attendees to a series of simple, but powerful exercises that will help change the way participants move.  Based on the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, each exercise actually trains the brain to send the correct signals to the body so it begins to move in healthier, stronger, more coordinated, and even more graceful ways. No previous experience is necessary and the workshop is suitable for people at all levels of fitness. The cost for the two-day workshop is $200 and registration is available online at http://changeyouragenetwork.com/chicago2011 The workshop program is based on Frank Wildman’s new book and DVD set Change Your Age <http://www.changeyouragenetwork.com/>, a powerful, easy-to-follow program that is helping people feel years younger by teaching them new ways to move and feel. Based on principles of childhood development applied to adults, the Change Your Age program is being taught throughout the USA to enthusiastic students of all ages.
Frank Wildman is widely recognized for bringing the Feldenkrais Method® of movement education to thousands of physical therapists, dancers and trainers throughout the world. He holds degrees in Physical Education, Biology, and Psychology. For more than a decade, Dr. Wildman studied directly with renowned scientist and engineer Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, the creator of the Feldenkrais Method. PROGRAM DETAILS:
Date
Saturday and Sunday, October 22-23, 2011, 10:00 AM - 4:30 PM.
Location
Loyola University, Chicago, IL (click here for a campus map) Simpson Living Learning Center- Multi-purpose room
 
Benefits
* How to assess if your current fitness program is hurting instead of helping * How to recognize and change physically damaging habits to avoid injury and pain * Core lessons that help you discover more youthful movement * Tips to improve flexibility, posture, and the coordination of your mind and body * Tips on customizing the program to suit your own needs and lifestyle   
Cost The cost for the two-day workshop is $200 with discounts available for group registrations.
Registration
http://changeyouragenetwork.com/chicago2011  
Further Information
Cyaadministrator@changeyouragenetwork.net
1-510-527-2634 or toll free  1-800-342-3424
Contact the local organizer, Mary Susan Chen - marysusanchen@gmail.com

We recorded testimonials from a few of the participants of the January 2011 workshop.

Please click here to visit our Video archive and view the testimonials.