Slow Form Fitness — (Studio above)

By Jose Martinez           

For those of us determined to make 2016 a healthy year it can be difficult to find the time to stay committed and focused. Well, you need not look any further than lovely Malibu and trainer Kathryn Linehan’s Slow FORM Fitness.

At Slow FORM, while looking out onto a spectacular and tranquil view of the Pacific Ocean, Linehan encourages and pushes you to new physical limits. Her once-a-week, 30-minute workout will ensure you don’t get off the road of better fitness so many of us promise ourselves at New Years.

Having practiced Pilates for over 20 years, teaching for 15 years, Linehan incorporates what she calls FORM, a process to help you integrate breathing and reflection with movement and stillness. FORM consists of Freedom, Order, Renewal, and Meditation with Movement. This practice is intended to help you shed what is not necessary.

Believing in synergy of mind, body and spirit, Linehan looks to find the balance in life between the body and how the mind effects the body, and the body effects the mind.

“Most people over exercise and think they have to be in the gym an hour or two everyday, and unless you’re training or are a serious athlete, that’s not practical,” Linehan explains.

Based on Adam Zickerman’s Power of 10 program, Linehan takes his approach and adds a Southern California flare to it. “His theory is that you can do three to five exercises, effectively, once a week and that will maintain your proper muscle mass,” she points out. “You take a moderate amount of weight and go very slowly so there’s no momentum, so your muscle failure happens without 1 or 2 minutes; the average is about 90 seconds. It generally takes four or five sessions for someone to see results but after two months they’re hooked.”

And who can’t spare 30 minutes once a week to improve their health? And if you’re worried about the trek to-and-from Malibu, consider time spent along the beautiful California coast as part of your meditation. Come on, you’re worth it!

Linehan, a ACSM certified personal trainer and body therapist who now also teaches FORM at Pepperdine University, began creating the practice of FORM meditation movement in 2001, and now has created "slow FORM" to help people renew strength. As FORM was being developed, she served as managing director of the American Repertory Dance Company, working with prominent dancers and choreographers.

At Slow FORM, you won’t hear loud, pumping music, instead the serine half hour private, or semi-private, workouts are designed for you to reach failure by lifting weights on a slow 10-count, lowering weights on a 10-count, and continuing to push for 10 seconds after you can no longer move the weights. In this case, failure is success.

For those skeptical of a weekly 30-minute workout, Linehan is quick to note the advantage of Slow FORM.

“With once a week of strength training you can spend the rest of the week doing recreational sports, whatever brings you joy. That helps keep you sane, and with sensible eating, eating foods that aren’t processed, reducing your intake of sugar and caffeine, and getting a proper amount of rest, sleeping at night and not overtraining, you’ll feel better. Slow FORM of movement really helps reduce body fat and keeps you stronger in a really efficient way.”

With the three pillars of Slow FORM being exercise, nutrition and rest between exercise bouts, every workout is actually tailored to suit the individual client’s needs.

As a filmmaker with a degree from UCSB, Linehan has produced over 20 documentaries including Children of Afghanistan and Voices in Wartime and continues to produce learning materials for FORM, offering a whole range of services including custom workouts on DVD for travel or at-home use in order for you to reach your genetic potential.
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Now offering Liangong Chinese exercise classes with Doria Cook-Nelson, a 30-year practitioner of Liangong and other forms, Slow FORM is here to help shape our mind, body and spirit.

For more information on Slow FORM see www.slowformmalibu.com

 

 

Slow FORM is located at 22741 Pacific Coast Hwy,

Suite 240, Malibu, CA 90265. Call at 310-569-1806