The EDGE-Your Fitness Advantage

The EDGE-Your Fitness Advantage

http://theedgefitnessadvantage.com/

Cape Girardeau, MO United States

We started out predominantly as a yoga studio back in February 2011 and were known as The Source-Yoga n More. Each year, we would get requests from our students for various mindbody options not offered at other fitness facilities. If it were something that stayed in the mindbody realm, we would try it out. Our first request was for a bar method style class. We created and incorporated our own BarreBody method which gained a great following and became a staple of our class curriculum. Two years in, we had the amazing opportunity of having Sara Wagganer come into our space with her Pilates equipment and set up shop with her private clients. Tracy Curtis followed a few years later and the Group Reformer class was conceived. Last, but not least, the aerial arts found there way in the door—first with aerial yoga and then its sister, the aerial arts. What is interesting about all four modalities is that they all utilize mindbody techniques and incorporate using the body as the mechanism to achieve mental and physical health and well being. It is something we have come to call “functional fitness”. All of these modalities create a fitness that has real life applications— in other words, functionality over “form”. We are not about just looking good if doing so means that you lose your ability to have a healthy mind and body that are truly fully functional—whether that means for everyday life activities all the way to performance athletes gaining that edge needed to get that extra 10 seconds off their time or way to find their zone for ultimate achievement. We’ve all seen those with big muscles that can’t touch their knees. Why? Because they sacrificed whole body health for something they think looks good. And the kicker? They are not really as strong as they look! Anyone who has done yoga, barre, Pilates, or aerial arts will tell you how much more challenging (and rewarding!) it is to be able to mobilize the body effectively and efficiently using just body weight. We’ve had cross fitters come in that look amazingly strong that cannot do one dead hang pull up with good form— they do not have the strength! Their muscles are not functional. What is mindbody? How does that mesh with Aerial Arts/Barre/Pilates/Yoga? Mindbody is taking into account the physiological, psychic, and spiritual connections between the state of the body and that of the mind: at The Edge-Your Fitness Advantage, we feel that these four modalities incorporate and embody what it means to be a mindbody space teaching our students how to utilize everything at their disposal when it come to being “fit”....all of these require a mindfulness to perform or undertake.