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5 Ways to Energize Yourself Before a Workout

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Working out in the morning might be a monumental task if you aren’t an early riser. But a previous article on Namafit explains that morning workouts can put you in a good mood and improve your focus for the day. If you’re finding it hard to motivate and energize yourself for a workout, here are some tips to get you started — no matter what time it is.

Be sure to hydrate properly

You don’t have to wait until you feel thirsty before drinking water, as thirst is a sign that you’re already about 2% dehydrated. Before working out, you should already prepare your body by staying hydrated throughout the day. According to Self, not having enough fluids in your body means your heart needs to work much harder to pump blood — which means it will make your workouts feel more intense than they should. Plus, staying hydrated also reduces the possibility of guzzling too much water during the workout, which can upset your stomach.

Eat healthy carbs

Carbohydrates are an essential energy source, acting as the body’s main fuel during exercise. However, Healthline shows that not all carbohydrates are ideal pre-workout food. Simple carbohydrates, such as white bread and sweets, are only short-term sources of energy. Consuming these will make you feel tired even before your workout is over. Opt for complex carbohydrates instead, since the body digests it more slowly than simple carbs — giving you a more consistent source of energy for a longer period of time. Examples of these are whole grains, corn, rice, fruits, and vegetables.

Practice breathing exercises

Don’t immediately jump into your workout routine. Take time to do deep breathing before you start exercising, since it increases the oxygen in your blood, which also helps prepare your body for all the movement. Moreover, it releases tension and endorphins, which are natural painkillers. Consider adding deep breathing to your warm-up and reap its positive benefits to your immune system, mental health, and more.

Have some caffeine

Caffeine is perhaps one of the most popular pre-workout drinks. After all, it helps improve circulation, decrease muscle pain, and improve workout recovery. But there are many ways to drink caffeine aside from coffee. As explained on Pretty Me’s feature on Lean n Green coffee, many beverages make use of green coffee beans. These not only give you the energizing benefits of caffeine, but it comes with the added bonus of converting more fat and glucose to energy. Some are even combined with more powerful ingredients like L-carnitine, which helps further enhance energy production. If you’re not much of a coffee drinker, BBC Good Food’s article on tea explains that black tea and green tea have the highest caffeine content for your pre-workout buzz.

Ensure you’ve had enough sleep

The more rested you are, the better your mind and body will function. Sleep improves your concentration, mood, and focus, which makes you more efficient and prepared for your exercise. Having enough sleep also motivates you to stick to your plan to exercise. Exercising while you lack sleep, on the other hand, will make you feel fatigued faster — making it harder for you to complete your workout.

A good workout isn’t simply a matter of finishing your routine. A good workout is also determined by what you do to prepare for it.

    The Realities of Practicing Yoga – Yogis Are Still Everyday People

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    From social media, to magazines, TV ads, and more, it seems that those who practice yoga are portrayed as people who are permanently at ease, always consumed in love, peace and happiness, and practically floating on air. In reality, this is just unrealistic.

    I can speak to this misconception first hand. Recently, I had an anxiety attack, and me being a yoga instructor, people were surprised and maybe even a little confused to learn that anxiety is something that I still have to manage. To that I say, just because one practices yoga, does not mean that person will be in a complete state of bliss for the rest of their life. Sure, yoga can change how you think and can create a shift in your life, and yes, the practice has been proven to be beneficial for ones physical and mental health, but yoga is not a magical wand that you can wave and will miraculously erase all of your problems.

    I think because of the way yoga is portrayed in the media people sometimes forget yoga instructors and practitioners are still just regular people, who, more often than not, were drawn to the practice because of certain issues or circumstances that they were and may still be trying to work through.

    Yoga has brought me a long way. I found the practice when I was at a low point and when anxiety consumed me. Once I started seeking help and I accepted yoga into my life, I felt more in control of my anxiety and I learned how to manage it. That being said, I’m still human and I will still come up against certain obstacles that will trigger the anxiety, because that is simply the way of the world. Life has its ups and downs, and no one is completely immune from its low points. I liken it to having a common cold, which can be brought on or triggered by numerous factors like germs or the weather. You will have to take some medicine and get some rest in order to recover, but there’s always a chance that you’ll catch a cold again, even if you are taking proper care of yourself. The same goes with my anxiety. I can do all the yoga and meditation I want, but there will be days that I’m feeling low and will need a time out, just as others who are not of the practice. After all we are all human and we should keep that in mind and treat each other accordingly.

    Linking your social media to your Namafit page is a great way to stand out!

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    When you create a Namafit account, you get a professional profile page with a unique URL address that you can use to promote yourself! Take charge of the level or privacy you want, and add your instagram, twitter, facebook and website links to your profile to get more exposure, more SEO love, and showcase your dedication. Stand out to employers and the industry!

    Instructors, trainers, teachers, professionals aren’t the only ones who can add social links to your page. BUSINESSES can too! Go to https://namafit.com/business/edit to add your social links to your business page and get more exposure for the business you work hard to make successful.

    Link your social media to your professional Namafit page
    Linking your social media to Namafit is a great way to stand out

    If you have a Namafit account already go to http://namafit.com/profile/edit to add your social links to your page.

    If you haven’t created your professional profile page yet, you should! Just go to https://namafit.com/signup – it only take a few minutes and will open up new opportunities for you in this industry!

    You can also confirm and adjust your account privacy by going to https://namafit.com/settings

    Thank you for sharing your gifts with the world…and happy job hunting

    Upload Your Resume & Stand Out From The Crowd – Yoga, Fitness, Dance, Wellness Professionals!

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    upload your yoga, fitness, dance teacher resume to namafit
    Upload Your Resume for yoga and fitness jobs

    I remember a time when LinkedIn.com was just a site that fellow tech workers would say, “You’ve gotta add your resume to LinkedIn. It’s gonna be better for finding jobs than Craigslist.com”. So, I took the bait and uploaded my resume to LinkedIn.com, even though I had no idea what LinkedIn was.

    Fast forward 3-4 years. LinkedIn had grown and the professional network had grown. Office professionals were then filling out their job history and skillsets on their LinkedIn page.

    But there wasn’t a fit to create a professional resume page for yoga instructors, group fitness instructors, personal trainers, coaches, dance teachers and wellness professionals. Until now- Namafit is the right fit for you. Create your professional web presence now with your Namafit instructor profile page by going to https://namafit.com/signup

    If you already have a Namafit profile page, add your resume by going to http://namafit.com/profile/edit

    If you haven’t created your professional profile page yet, you should! Just go to https://namafit.com/signup – it only take a few minutes and will open up new opportunities for you in this industry!

    How to Use Yoga to Start Your Day

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    Every day is a different day. After practicing yoga for over 6 years, one thing that I’ve learned is to have intention in your actions and thoughts. Each new day is an opportunity for us to start with an intention and purpose that will permeate throughout the day. Here are three ways you can use yoga to be more mindful and purposeful in your life.

    #1 Visualize Your Day

    Start your day with mindfulness and meditation. Before you get out of bed, take a few minutes to visualize how your morning will look. Prior to leaving the home to head to work or to run errands, try to see how you want that to look. Will you need to make coffee? Freshen up in the restroom? Get dressed? What will you wear? Do you have to walk the dog? Vividly think about how you’re going to start to your morning and then begin your day. If it does not line up, that is OK. Try it again the next day until your mind is aligned with your actions. This quick meditation and mindfulness exercise will allow you to move with intention as you go about your day. Feel free to use it throughout the day (i.e. visualizing how your workday will look, and what your preparing for bed process may look like).

    #2 Start with Pranayama

    Breath is our life source. It’s important to reconnect with breath on a regular basis, either through yoga or meditation. The practice of pranayama allows us to connect to that life source that flows through us whether we want it to or not. A pranayama technique that I love to use is breath counting.

    How to Count Your Breath:

    1. Sit in a comfortable seat in a chair or on the ground on blocks or a meditation cushion.
    2. Place your hands on your knees or find dhyana (concentration) mudra.
    3. Close your eyes and take your drishti or focus point inwards.
    4. Take three deep breaths and sigh audibly to exhale them out.
    5. After the last breath, take a pause and then begin to slowly inhale as you count up to 4.
    6. Pause at the top of your inhale and then count down from 4.
    7. Repeat by counting up and then counting down one more time.
    8. On the next two rounds, count up to 6, then to 8, then to 10.
    9. Once you’ve completed your last two rounds of counting up to 10, stay in your seat and breathe normally.

    #3 Move Your Body

    This last tip is what most people think of yoga, as a way of moving your body. While it is important, the yoga poses, or asanas, or only a fraction of what yoga truly is. Yoga is the connection of mind, body, and the present moment. I recommend doing 8 cat and cows, 3-5 sun salutations, and then a child’s pose (balasana) to start your day. Do this every day and reflect on how it makes your body feel. Listen to it, and modify if you need to.

    woman in child's pose doing yoga
    Yoga practitioner in child’s pose

    Guest Contributor Profile: Alex Tran AKA Schimiggy is a Digital Marketing Strategist, fitness fashion, travel, and food-obsessed raconteuse. She currently resides in Seattle and teaches yoga while writing about her favorite topics.  Schimiggy Reviews is a lifestyle blog where Schimiggy shares her passions and interests with the world!

    How To Use Your Namafit Profile Page As Your Professional Webpage URL

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    Did you know that when you create your profile on Namafit that you get a professional URL so you can share your page?

    That’s right.  You can customize your profile to highlight your skills, expertise and interests, so you will stand out to prospective employers and partners.

    To get your Professional URL address just go to your profile page, https://namafit.com/profile and highlight the website address at the top of your browser window. Then click “copy” (command + c in Mac, windows + c in Windows).  You now have a shareable profile URL copied to your clipboard.  Go share it!!!!

    Of course, sharing is even better when your profile is complete!

    Update your profile

    • Go to https://namafit.com/profile/edit to complete your profile details.
    • Add your profile photo.
    • Update your “About Me” section.
    • Confirm your location city and state.
    • Update your social links.
    • Update your certifications.
    • Add your resume.
    • Update the styles and levels that you teach and practice.

    Update your personal preference settings

    • Go to https://namafit.com/settings and select the settings you prefer.
    • You can:
    • Change the distance for job notifications you receive
    • Select who you would like to be able to see your professional profile
    • General Public
    • Only logged in Namafit members
    • Only those businesses you apply
    • Update your password
    • Update your email address
    Namafit profile preferences
    That’s it- we’ve worked hard to make it easy to make you profile page and keep it up to date. Please email or message us if you have any questions.

    The Journey Begins. How Namafit Got Started.

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    How I Solved My Own Staffing Problems At My New Fitness Studio

    handstand

    When I opened a yoga, fitness and dance studio in 2010 I was embarking on a journey very new to my family and me. Prior to opening our new studio, I had been a software engineer for over 16 years, a husband and a father of 3 boys. As you can imagine, my wife and I were very busy — on top of being an awesome mother to our boys, she owns and operates a busy local restaurant.

    I always knew that I wanted to open a small business close to our home — something that would help contribute to the overall wellbeing of our community. After living in our area for several years, we realized that there was a need for an awesome local dance/fitness studio. We had lamented the fact that there was nowhere in Menlo Park to take good fitness and yoga classes. We also noticed that the dance studios where our boys were taking classes were packed with kids. We have both been active and into athletics our whole lives, and as parents, that segment of our lives had definitely been neglected for years! So, looking back, I guess opening a yoga, fitness and dance studio was a pretty natural thing to do.

    Getting the business systems setup, finding a space to rent and getting ready to open was time consuming but all fairly straightforward. I called a contractor to help with the interior build out. They took care of the details. I opened bank accounts. I signed up for MindbodyOnline to handle reservations and payments. Making a schedule of classes was actually pretty difficult because it meant taking into account the demographics in the neighborhood and neighboring cities, figuring out what types of classes were appropriate at which time of day. The initial goal was to offer youth classes, mostly dance, in the afternoons, so factoring in the times that schools let out was important. But in the end, it was all set in place. This was all in motion leading up to an opening date.

    Staffing for a new fitness, yoga and dance business

    Staffing (hiring professionals who were going to instruct my classes, not to mention represent my business to the public) was something of an unknown. After doing some research online, Craigslist quickly became my go-to resource for posting job ads to find teachers. Being a new business, I had a budget for marketing and advertising, which helped cover the cost of the $75 each job post cost with Craigslist. Everyone knows Craigslist — you write up a job title and description, pay $75 and submit. The job loads into the “fitness/spa/salon” category search results and you wait. At some point for most Craigslist posts, just like anyone else who posts on Craigslist, I received emails from people interested in my open positions. Sometimes I would get an email with a nice paragraph about the person, along with their name, email, phone number and resume attached. Sometimes, I would receive a quick request to be hired, with a name and nothing else. The rest of the responses I saw fell somewhere in between those two extremes.

    When I did receive enough information about a person applying, my next step was to google their name and hopefully find out more about their background, where else they teach, how long they’ve been teaching, etc. After several email and phone call chains, followed by onsite interviews, ultimately, I was able to hire enough professionals to fill my staff sufficiently to run thebusiness.

    Connections

    A big part of running a business that relies on independent contractors for its staff is the maintaining and building of professional connections. I found out very quickly that my day-to-day staffing needs relied heavily on my ability to search my rolodex in an efficient manner for not only “great instructors”, but “great instructors” that could teach the types of yoga/fitness that we were filling classes for. (I don’t actually have a rolodex, as I’m sure you may have surmised, but instead have several email lists that I am constantly curating.)

    Basically, this is how my current “networking” efforts have gone:

    1. Post to Craigslist
    1. Email/phone back and forth
    1. Invite potential instructor for an onsite chat
    1. HIRE them for a class
    1. After hearing feedback from those who participated in the class, add the instructor to my list.
    2. Repeat steps 1–5 next time an instructor bails on a class (which happens more often than you’d think)

    After going through this process more times than I can count, I started to think that there had to be a better way. After doing a bunch of research, and interviewing a bunch of my instructors and many similar businesses, I came to realize that there wasn’t anything available that suited my needs. As it turns out, the fitness/yoga industry is very word-of-mouth driven when it comes to staffing. Most other studios and gyms follow the same pattern of Craigslist and email lists to fulfill their staffing needs.

    Enter Namafit

    As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been a Software Engineer for years, for startups all over the Silicon Valley. After experiencing the above issues for months in my own business, I decided that enough was enough! I hooked back up with a buddy of mine that I’d worked with for years on other projects and we built namafit.com.

    Namafit is a platform that completely solves my fitness instructor staffing problems. I’m able to quickly post opportunities, which are then automatically broadcast to all of Namafit’s extensive database of instructors. Instructors have the ability to create their own profile, which includes information such as their qualifications, styles/levels they teach, and even their resumé. We have been hard at work building a product that will replace the dreaded email list, and will give businesses such as myself a tool to find quality instructors quickly. And it’s a tool to for fitness instructors and trainers to find more work, and more importantly, have more work find them.