​What does Essentrics mean?
It is a play on the word “eccentric.” An eccentric contraction is a muscular contraction in which the ends of the muscle are moving away from one another, like when you lower your arm with  the weight at the end of a biceps curl. The actual biceps curl is a concentric contraction, where the ends of the muscle are moving towards one another. 

What makes an Essentrics workout so effective? 
Eccentric contractions are more efficient in building muscle strength than concentric contractions. Joints are decompressed with eccentric contraction, and tendons and ligaments are strengthened leading to injury prevention.

In an Essentrics workout, we focus on movement of all 640+ muscles of the body. This results in the rebalancing of the entire body, rather than just focusing on one specific group or chain of muscles. We gently move within a stretch rather than hold it in one spot, because the myotactic reflex kicks in with a held stretch, causing the muscle to tighten. We also move and articulate the joints throughout the body, for example the hands and feet, which helps increase mobility and energy. If you don’t think tight hands and feet drain your energy, try flexing your feet stiffly and walking a few steps that way, or grip your hands tightly and try opening a doorknob. 

The music and movements of Essentrics help us to move fluidly and rhythmically, and the focus throughout on pulling up our posture, using specific muscles in specific movements, and the reasons for doing each move (yes, every movement has a purpose), enhance body awareness and brain engagement. In fact, one of the most effective things you can do for brain agility is combine physical exercise with brain-work, and I start each of my classes with a few minutes of brain-work to get that ball rolling. 

We don't use weights in Essentrics. Rather, we work against our own resistance which allows us to work as hard (or as loosely) as we want to, supporting gains in strength without injury.

Did I mention that we have our arms up overhead for a good portion of our workout? This is how we really strengthen our back and improve posture. One of the things that consistently grabs my attention is the amazing participants in my classes, and how over time they have developed the strength and flexibility to have their arms reaching for the sky like pros. 

What might you expect to notice after an Essentrics workout?

• Improved energy because you’ve released tension throughout your body. 
• Increased range of motion in your hands, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles and feet.
• A sense of ease in your body as you move through your day.
• A brain that is alert and aware.
• Over time, stronger muscles, improved posture, and better balance.
• A decrease in chronic pain.
• A decrease in developing injuries.

Learn more
The science behind Essentrics®
My Essentrics® classes

​It is a warm July Sunday, and I’m eating a late lunch on my patio. Though I’ve been on an organize-and-declutter binge, my little place is still cool inside so the sunshine filtering through the lush aspen leaves is welcoming. There’s a movement in the mid-air to my right, and I see a robin glide to a low branch, a few feet from where I sit in my wooden rocker. From its perch, the robin sings. Smooth rusty brown chest, dark brown wings, black face with some white markings - and its beak doesn’t close. Is this open beak the way it sings? Is the pulsing throat a part of its vocalizing?

The way a bird produces song is by using its syrinx, similar to the human larynx. Air flows over membranes and cartilage to produce sound in the syrinx, which is the shape of an upside-down Y. Birds can use both passages at once, which means they can sing a high note and a low note at the same time. Still, looking at the open beak and pulsing throat of the bird off my patio, I think something is going on besides singing.

The robin flits down to the edge of one of my freshly planted half-barrel planters, the one with the lavender. Good choice. It balances there, facing me, and I notice that the beak still hasn’t closed and the throat fluttering continues, though there’s a break in the melody. Then it dawns on me. Perhaps the bird is panting. The robin then continues its serenade, watching me as I watch it, admiring its color, its bright eyes, the pretty trills emanating effortlessly from its throat. After several minutes the robin catches sight of another bird, and whizzes away. It seems that I have been granted a gift today. 

I'm grateful and also curious. I do a little searching, and yes, birds do pant. Their form of panting is called gular fluttering, where moisture evaporates via their vibrating throat membranes and open beak. Some research indicates that the size of the bird's bill is related to the temperature of their environment; blood flow to the beak is another cooling mechanism.

Birds use other strategies to stay cool in the heat. Bathing in cool water, as well as spreading wings and fluffing feathers, are effective at thermoregulation. They also tend to feed in early morning or evening hours, finding shade and shelter during the hotter part of the day, thus avoiding the heat and spending their energy more efficiently. 

The expression “birdbrain” as an insult to intelligence is a misnomer as birds clearly demonstrate greater wisdom than many humans. Just yesterday I saw someone floppy-jogging down the black asphalt street during peak heat - better to seek the shade beneath a nice large tree or shrub. Birds have a one-up on us: I wish I could produce beautiful song while cooling myself with gular fluttering.

Sources/Learn More

• Finger Lakes Land Trust: Songs In the Key of Life…
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: How do birds keep cool in the summer?
• Audubon: How Birds Keep Their Cool​

Originally published July 2024

​Years ago when reading Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” I was struck by something he mentioned early in the book: Character Ethic versus Personality Ethic.

In the 1970’s Covey did an in-depth study of success literature in the United States. He found that in the 1920’s and ‘30’s, the literature shifted focus from developing principles like integrity and trust (Character Ethic) to a focus based on techniques to manage how one appears to others, manipulation of perception (Personality Ethic). Here’s a video of Stephen Covey explaining this concept. 

In both my work and personal life, I am passionate about and committed to transformation for the long-haul. This is work that involves introspection and self-awareness - in the realm of character ethic - and is not a quick and easy endeavor. And yet the messages all around us, from books, podcasts, articles, companies, social media “influencers,” seem to echo the same unrealistic message of “Get Great Quick” personality ethic. 

Messages like “kick those bad habits forever, guaranteed!!” and “achieve your wildest dreams in just three days!!” offer shortcuts, quick fixes, and one-size-fits-all instructions, but they don’t work, not for real change. These techniques might help with some initial success but they don’t last.

Why? Partly because personal work is ongoing, and often involves daily practice rather than one-and-done. And partly because each of us is an amazing individual. And to continue to develop our character, uncover that amazingness, we have to put in effort tailored to our own lives. I call it shoveling out the stable. You’ve got to move out the manure (old habits, patterns, beliefs, and behaviors) in order to really see what you are made of. 

This is sometimes hard work, but it is good work. Work that you’ve probably already been doing in order to get through life’s sometimes excruciating curve balls. Developing character, inner awareness, new insights, and changing actions to get different results is truly a lifelong process. It is rewarding to apply new learning and to cultivate new habits in order to go through the day proud of how you look, feel and act.

I think Stephen King says it best: “It is the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters."

Originally published July 2022

​The eastern sky is glowing, the mountains dark against the rising sun. Pearl Lake is silent, the early morning breeze riffling the glassy surface. I paddle steadily, skirting the lake’s edge, and look to the opposite shore, where I catch a flash of white against the grayish blue water. A few minutes later, I come upon the source of that white - three pelicans move easily amongst the grasses then out into the open water, their strong flipper-feet creating ripples that stretch behind and around them in a large wavy V. 

These are American White Pelicans, and they are native to Colorado. Their winter grounds are along the Gulf Coast, southern Texas, and as far as South America. 

In unison, the three angle their heads slightly to the side and back, the better to keep their literal side-eye on this stranger on a paddleboard. A couple summers ago, there was one lone pelican who seemed elected as the delegate. It paralleled my progress, keeping just a few yards away, never taking its calm, watchful eye away from me. The bird most likely had its reasons, but I attributed its behavior to part curiosity, part suspicion, and part hopeful that I might just have a large tasty fish I’d toss its way. 

The pelicans seem an ethereal presence in this alpine setting. They don’t blend the way the ducks and great blue herons do. They aren’t shy like the greater sandhill cranes, whose presence I am only aware of from their haunting calls echoing through the Pearl Lake valley. The pelicans move in a way that signals self-assuredness, confident of their place on this lake.

There are much larger nesting colonies throughout Colorado, in larger bodies of water. Why does this little group come here? Are they the same group year after year? Do they remember and return intentionally, or randomly find themselves at Pearl?

Imagine the daily feast they have, with Pearl’s fish population mostly all to themselves. Imagine how it would be to take flight over Pearl, wings stretching over four feet to either side, strong and sure.

Sources/Learn More

• Steamboat Magazine: The Pelican Brief
• NoCo Wildlife Center: June 3, 2025 Pelicans really do live in Colorado! 
• iNaturalist Guide: Wildlife of Steamboat and Pearl Lake State Parks: American White Pelican

​Independence, noun: the ability to live your life without being helped or influenced by other people. (Cambridge Dictionary)

Tomorrow is Independence Day in the U.S. Flags, parades, hot dogs, hot weather. Summer’s climax. 

But on this morning’s hike, straps biting into my shoulders with 20 lbs of dumbbells in my daypack, I have another sort of independence on my mind: independently aging. To me that means aging capably, cultivating resilience in both body and mind as the years go by.

Surely this starts with mindset. Because, things happen as we age. Unexpected things like a chronic pain or illness, a cardiac event, an injury that takes five times longer to heal than it used to. Things that start to make us reluctant to venture out. Things that make the chair in the summer shade or the soft warm winter couch alluring for too many days or hours. Those cozy spots are siren calls, and we might then find ourselves wrecked on the rocks of stiffness, immobility, enervation and ennui. 

Sometimes mindset needs a little work. Those mornings when I dread getting out of bed to go run up a hill, I think into the near future, when I’m back from that run. I know I’ll feel energized, clear-headed, and fully alive. I know that the sooner I get out the door, the sooner I’ll be drinking coffee and eating my yummy breakfast. Cultivating this discipline helps my mind stay resilient in the face of discomfort and challenge.

Physical challenges are sometimes a matter of the patience to build up to something. Doing fingertip pushups to make my hands stronger for my massage work has been a game-changer. Several years ago, I could have quit and chalked it up to my hands being too old and too tired. I decided instead to get stronger. At first I could just do two or three fingertip pushups. I’m now doing 60 (to be clear, I’m on my knees). Building the strength in my hands and arms means that I continue to do the work I love, and the sense of capability plays out in other areas of my life as well - like paddleboarding Pearl Lake!

Independently aging also means having the perspective of the long game. Things might take longer to do than they used to. Healing time might be longer, recovery and rest are more of a priority, new goals need a longer timeline. I so often hear from folks older than me their seeming amazement that they haven’t recovered from this injury or that joint replacement within the tiny window of time they allotted. I wish they’d tune in to what their body requires, work together with their own body as a team, and I think the recovery would be much more successful despite the time necessary. This too speaks to cultivating resilience. 

Years ago, I had a client named Sylvia. Sylvia was a feisty Italian woman who’d run a grocery in New York City with her husband while they raised their family. Due to an aneurysm decades before, Sylvia had progressive neurological issues. The warm pool at the retirement campus where I worked was important therapy for her, and she’d get a massage afterward. 
​
She’d come down the hall to my office, first with a cane and later in an electric wheelchair, her white hair elegantly styled, make-up and dress impeccable. This took a painstaking amount of time, but Sylvia would not walk out unless her appearance was just so. She did everything this way. 

Getting ready took longer and longer as she moved more slowly. She shared how it might take her two hours to get a simple meal together at her home, where she lived alone. There came a day when she hired someone to clean, and then someone to take her to the grocery store. I asked her about that. She said, “I hope that I’m never too stupid to ask for help when I truly need it.” 

Her words have stayed with me. Sylvia was independently aging. She had the discipline, the mindset, and the courage to live her life on her terms. When challenges came, she figured them out. Even when it meant being smart enough to ask for help when she was ready.