The Movement Miracle : The Essentrics Stretch Program to Increase Strength, Improve Mobility and Become Pain Free

From Canadian fitness pioneer, bestselling author and PBS star Miranda Esmonde-White, the definitive Essentrics stretching and strengthening book, designed to keep your body strong, mobile and pain-free whatever your age. Miranda Esmonde-White's fitness revolution began with a simple insight: many exercise programs, including the ones she used to teach at her own studio, actually cause injury and prematurely age the body, bulking muscles and restricting joints. Throwing out the idea of "no pain, no gain," she studied how we are actually designed to move, creating a program that stretches and strengthens all the muscles in the body in a balanced way, enhances the full range of motion of every joint, and unglues stuck connective tissue. The result is Essentrics, a groundbreaking practice of gentle movement, respecting the muscle chains and joint mobility of the body, that scientists from Harvard, Adelphi and McGill universities have validated as a way to keep us strong, flexible and fit for life, as well as providing immense benefits for brain and digestive health. Where her previous bestsellers, Aging Backwards and Forever Painless, focused on anti-aging and pain-relief, The Movement Miracle is the Essentrics bible. In beautifully shot illustrations, twelve models who range in age from their twenties to their late sixties—all of whom have benefited from the program—demonstrate 100 sequences of gentle movements that can be combined to meet the needs of everyone from office workers to elite athletes. Another section of the book concentrates on posture, teaching us how to counteract the harmful impacts of sedentary living and too much screen time. The revolution Esmonde-White offers us all: only twenty-five minutes a day of gentle movement, following the Essentrics formula, will radically change and strengthen your body, relieve you of pain, replenish your energy and keep you young, no matter your age.