aerial yoga hammocks

by Colleen

If you follow my personal Instagram, you may know that I just came back from a trip over to Singapore. While I was there I had the opportunity to try Virgin Active, a really fabulous fitness center by the Virgin group. I have family and friends who live in Singapore and so I joined them for a couple of days as a guest. 

Singapore and Clark Quay

Singapore is a very modern and supremely clean place and the fitness center was no exception. Housed in one of the financial buildings in Raffles Place, the three floor center offers classes for every taste, the latest equipment and machines, a gorgeous shower area with steam room, ice room and salt room with amenities from Molton Brown. Judging from the  crowd, it is obviously very popular with young professionals especially during lunch hours and after work.

Intrigued, I signed up for antigravity Pilates and was so enamored that I joined the next class of Aerial Yoga. I’ve been doing Pilates for years now, and so the idea of doing Pilates while suspended in a silk hammock sounded fun and relaxing. Relaxing it was not! Never before had my core been put through the ringer as in this class. I am now even more in awe when I see those acrobats in Cirque du Soleil seeming effortless as they twirl up and down their silks suspended from the ceiling. Maintaining your balance while only your hips are being held by the hammock as you glide through the air in a superman position, demands a very strong core as at any wavering you can find yourself propelled forward or backward and onto the floor! Many of the traditional Pilates moves you would do on the reformer are done using the hammock as the resistance. It takes practice but as you get the hang of it (and lose your fear of suspending yourself upside down!) you get a really fantastic workout especially for your core.

With abs still trembling I awaited the start of the aerial yoga class. Thankfully the Pilates instructor had been very good at explaining how to use the hammock so I was able to follow the yoga class more easily. Using traditional Yoga poses in combination with the hammock you are able to go deeper into the pose and really find the benefit. Downward dog is performed with the hammock under your hips so you can really feel that stretch in your back.

My favorite pose was hanging upside down. Unlike in traditional Yoga where I am still unable to do a headstand for an inversion, I was able to maneuver myself into a inverted position with the hammock under my lower butt and wrapped around my legs. It feels a bit like being an inverted frog hanging in a bat cave with your head a few inches from the floor. Once you relax into it you can really release the pressure on your lower back, something I have been struggling with since I took up running.

aerial Yoga class with students upside down

With my back thoroughly stretched and my core worked out I dragged myself to the steam room and showers with a brief relaxation moment in the pink salt room. Ahhhh……

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I am on the look out for classes in Miami, if you know of any. Have you tried any aerial or antigravity classes?

* this is not a sponsored post and photos of the classes are not mine since I had no one to film me while I was doing the class!

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