Using our brains and our feet

14 Mar Using our brains and our feet

What’s special about 3-D Workout?

What do you say when people ask you about 3-D? How is it any different from what you get at the gym?

Dianne Woodruff demonstrating the “reach and pull” sequence

In the ten years since my first DVD came out we have come to understand why 3-D is a feel-good fitness experience. It conditions your muscles but also your fascia–the head to toe body suit that loves moving and stretching in every way. Fascia gets stiff with lack of movement and with age. 3-D “melts” the stiffness. 3-D Workout uses pleasant and safe age-appropriate exercises for the average person. Guess what? Elite athletes love it, too, because it improves their coordination.

More about fascia

To see the material that “melts” go to and click on “the fuzz speech.” The best 5 minutes you’ll spend today. Gill Hedley is an anatomist/philosopher who was my anatomy dissection teacher.

Go to strolling under the skin for a 25-minute video by Dr. Claude Guimberteau. “The beauty and excitement of this film is that is is living fascia in a living person, and so beautifully filmed that no one — lay or practitioner — can see this video unmoved.” I first saw this video at the 2007 International Conference on Fascia Research at Harvard. It’s now available to purchase.

The brain and movement

Watch Daniel Wolper, neuroscientist, talk about the real reason we have a brain. Twenty very worth while minutes from

And finally, Exercise on your feet!

I often say how important it is to exercise on your feet but then we spend 1/3 of a 3-D Workout class on the floor. Let me explain. That part of the class I call 3-D Body Integration prepares you for standing and walking and doing resistance work while standing.

But there’s lots more: 3-D trains you to use all the space around your body; the floor work starts that process. You can explore your kinesphere on the floor without fear of falling and with less pull from gravity. You are free to move all your limbs in a variety of ways. You effectively mobilize the long fascial chains and large body areas. You learn to coordinate your limbs and torso in various spatial configurations. Rolling on the floor stimulates the sensory receptors in your skin and superficial fascia, relaxing you and connecting you to yourself. Maybe you experience other benefits during body integration. Share them with a tweet.