Deep Fitness: The Mindful, Science-Based Strength-Training Method to Transform Your Well-Being in Just 30 Minutes a Week

by Philip Shepherd, Andrei Yakovenko, Doug M. McGuff, M.D (Foreword by)

Overview

Fight aging, build strength, and achieve whole-body health in just 30 minutes a day, once or twice a week, with these 30 strength training exercises based on science and mindfulness practices—for people of all ages and activity levels.
 
The mixed messages we’ve received about exercise, aerobics, and mental and physical fitness are all misleading...or at least incomplete. Clinical research shows that we lose muscle mass as we age, and that preventing muscle loss through strength training—more than cardio, stretching, or flexibility—is the key to staying active, healthy, and well.
 
Deep Fitness introduces Mindful Strength Training to Failure (MSTF), a science-based method that reverses muscle loss and improves overall strength in just 1 or 2 30-minute sessions a week. MSTF exercises are simple and effective, and can be done at home with resistance bands and bodyweight, or with the machines at your local gym. Using slow reps, MSTF marries mindful body awareness with proven strength-training techniques to help you become stronger at any age.
 
With more than 30 full-color exercises, Deep Fitness explains the science behind MSTF. It shows how the program boosts longevity and healthspan; aids weight loss and fat reduction; increases overall wellness and mental health; and can improve or reverse symptoms of:

  •  Prediabetes and diabetes
  •  Cardiovascular disease
  •  Metabolic syndrome
  •  Alzheimer’s and dementia
  •  Chronic inflammation
  •  Osteoporosis
  •  Other chronic illnesses

Appropriate for people of all ages and activity levels, the exercises and techniques in Deep Fitness are effective, straightforward, and sustainable, helping you enjoy the vibrant, fit, whole-body health you deserve.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623176679
Publisher:	North Atlantic Books
Publication date:	10/19/2021
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	415,621
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

PHILIP SHEPHERD is recognized as a leader in the global embodiment movement. He is the creator of The Embodied Present Process(TM) (TEPP), a modality that uniquely combines the two resources necessary for embodiment: effective practices (TEPP has over a hundred), and a deep understanding of our culture's blind spots, which tend to keep us in our heads. TEPP is based on Shepherd's two books - Radical Wholeness and New Self, New World - and his forty years' experience teaching embodiment techniques. He currently travels the world sharing workshops, and running year-long Facilitators Trainings with his co-director and wife Allyson Woodrooffe.

ANDREI YAKOVENKO is the founder of New Element Training and the creator of the NET Method training, which took him years of practical experience and multidisciplinary exploration of various scientific fields to develop. The NET method is the foundation of the book. Yakovenko holds an Honors B.Sc. degree from University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Foreword xiii

Introduction xvii

1 The Modern Epidemic 1

Muscling onto center stage 3

Chronic disease-the modern affliction 6

Conditions associated with sarcopenia 9

2 The Next Health Revolution 11

Three anomalies 15

Why fitness starts with muscle 20

The magic of myokines 22

Strength training as medicine 27

Deep fitness 36

3 The Principles of Strength Training 40

Principles 1 and 2: Lange and Milo of Croton 41

Arthur Jones 41

Principle 3: Momentary muscle failure 44

Principle 4: One set is enough 45

Principle 5: Slower is better 46

Principle 6: Strengthening happens after a workout 48

The West Point "Project Total Conditioning" study 51

Arthritis, biotensegrity, and HIT 55

4 Mindful Strength Training to Failure 60

Background: The merging of two practices 60

The MSTF workout 66

Can half an hour a week keep you healthy? 77

Blood vessels, chairs, and the body's joy 81

5 Thriving on Failure 86

Hormesis: A positive shock 86

The most important form of fitness? 91

Eccentric strength gains 93

MSTF and osteoporosis 95

Why intensity is needed for muscle health 97

The adrenaline response 100

Growing younger 102

Strengthening mitochondria 105

Two more longevity regulators 108

MSTF and weight loss 109

Diet 113

Failing while you can 115

6 Embodied Mindfulness 119

The benefits of exercising mindfully 124

Coming home to the body 130

Stage one: Presence 133

Stage two: The body's fluid experience 137

Stage three: The core 143

The core workout 150

The exploration 156

7 MSTF Exercises 159

Getting the most from MSTF 159

Machine-based routines 168

Body-weight / Resistance band routines 196

8 Four Personal Accounts 234

Andrei yakovenko 235

Kira Newman 241

Allyson Woodrooffe 245

Philip Shepherd 250

Glossary 257

Notes 261

Our respective and shared gratitude 275

Resources 281

Index 283

About the Authors 299

Editorial Reviews

"This book will change your life for the better."
—DOUG MCGUFF, MD, author of Body by Science

"Mindful Strength Training to Failure (MSTF)—the core of this text—encourages a mental and physical submission to your understanding, appreciation, and improvement of your body and its function. This might be the most important book you read. Ever." 
—DR. JAMES FISHER, senior lecturer, Exercise Science, Solent University, UK

"This book is a valuable weapon in fighting the trajectory of aging."
—GABRIELLE LYON, DO, founder of the Institute for Muscle Centric Medicine

"I can say with ... truth that my paradigm of what health looks like now and into my old age has changed forever."
—PAT CARRINGTON-HOUSE, owner of DolphinLeadership Inc.

"This radical approach stands as a model to new frontiers in aging neuroscience research, and sets anyone who will listen on a path to living not just a longer, but a healthier and happier life."
—DR. W. DALE STEVENS, director of the Cognition & Aging Neuroscience and Neurointervention Lab, York University, Toronto

"Deep Fitness provides the most comprehensive and compelling chapter on resistance training benefits that I have ever read." 
—DR. WAYNE L. WESTCOTT, professor and chair of Exercise Science, Quincy College

"Deep Fitness shreds the misguided notions of well-being that have led me astray for decades and replaces them with clear wisdom and transformative tools. This book may well save my life."
—JEFF BROWN, author of Grounded Spirituality and Hearticulations

"A mind-blowing historical, cultural, and scientific exploration of the path to physical fitness and total well-being ... a practical and doable fitness method accessible to every age and stage of life."
—GREG FARRAND, executive director of Second Breath Center

"Deep Fitness opens the benefits of MSTF to anyone, enabling them to transform their healthspan,
functional stability, and groundedness. I wholeheartedly endorse it."
—XIAOLAN ZHAO, author of Reflections of the Moon on the Water and founder of the Xaiolan Health Centre

"If you know you need to radically transform your fitness but you know you just don’t have the time for that, then Deep Fitness is the place to start and where you will find your home."
—MARK BOWDEN, co-founder of TRUTHPLANE. 

"Deep Fitness conveys an extremely embodied intelligence, which I see as the next step in the integration of what we call the spiritual dimension of the human sphere.
—MAURIZIO BENAZZO, co-founder of Science and Nonduality (SAND)

"... this is the strength of our intelligent, animal bodies; this is the strength that deepens our embodied mindfulness, presence, and intimacy with life. A book for our times ..." 
—CARL RABKE, Feldenkrais teacher and co-host of the Embodiment Matters podcast

"The ultimate guide for anyone desiring a new and much higher level of fitness."
—BARNET BAIN, producer of What Dreams May Come

From the Publisher