Photo: Courtesy of Brand
A couple of weeks ago, I overheard two of my co-workers complaining about the aches and pains of aging. The three of us are in our 40s (how on earth did that happen?!) and things are, well, changing. We’re stiff and sore in the morning. It’s harder to rebound from injuries, no matter how slight they are. But we have kids and like being active. And we want it to stay that way.
I’m not sure if I’ve found a one-size fits-all solution for the people of the world, but I have found something that has helped me—a lot. So naturally, I popped up like a whack-a-mole from my cubicle and said, “Y’all have to try Pvolve.”
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I signed up for Pvolve about a year and a half ago at the recommendation of my friend Karin (hi Karin!). She had been dealing with back pain, and although yoga was helping, it wasn’t healing like she hoped. Karin looked into all sorts of exercise and physical therapy programs and decided to give Pvolve a try. She fell in love the first week. Three months in she said her pain had gone down 70%.
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Karin kept doing Pvolve and kept talking about how beneficial it was to her overall health and well-being. I wondered if it could help me, too. I’ve struggled with pain in my lower back and hips for decades—there have even been a couple of days that I wasn’t able to get out of bed. Even on my good days, I would still wake up most mornings stiff, sore and slightly hunched over. Also, my calves tend to be really tight, and I have bad ankles (so bad that I have undergone ligament reconstruction on my left ankle). I wondered if Pvolve would help with any of this.
Karin and I aren’t the only ones who came to Pvolve for pain relief. Relieving pain is precisely the reason it started in the first place.
“I found myself at a crossroads. I was experiencing a lot of back pain from all of the high-intensity workouts I was doing. On the other side, I wasn’t seeing the physical results that I wanted from all of the workouts I was doing,” shares Pvolve founder Rachel Katzman. “Then I found a studio that was training in this functional fitness world, and I started to see what I wanted to see physically, but more importantly my back pain went away.” She felt like she found the answer and couldn’t wait to share it.
First, What Is Pvolve?
According to its website, “Pvolve is a science-led method that combines low-impact functional fitness with resistance-based equipment to deliver results beyond a traditional workout.” Many of the sequences are meant to mimic everyday movement. “From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed, we are moving in 3D—our bodies are moving in all planes of motion. We’re reaching, we’re rotating, we’re bending,” Katzman says. “If we applied those principles to the way we worked out, imagine how much better the rest of our day is going to feel.”
And the instructors cue them as such to really drive the idea of mind-body connection. For example, one might mention thinking about stepping off your back foot like you’re running in one sequence, or say that a movement is akin to lifting a box or reaching for a jar on a high shelf in your kitchen.
Do You Need Special Equipment to Do Pvolve?
While you don’t need any special equipment (there are more than 200 classes that require nothing more than yourself), most of the classes use equipment. If you exercise at home, you may have similar items already, like ankle weights and gliders.
Currently, you cantry out Pvolve for freefor seven days. If you like it, they offer a 30-day trial in which you can try out the equipment, too. In theSignature Bundle, you get two pieces of equipment, the Precision Mat and one month of streaming for $199.99, or opt for theTotal Transformation Bundle, which includes all of the equipment plus a full year of streaming for $624.99. If you’re not a fan, just send back the equipment. If you like it, keep it—and keep going.
What I Thought About Pvolve
I’ve done lots of other types of group fitness—everything from Jazzercise and spinning to inferno hot Pilates and barre. From the first class, it was clear this program was different. I moved my body in ways I’ve never moved it before in an exercise class. Many of the movements are created to mimic things you do every day, like reaching and walking. And with its focus on the mind-body connection, I quickly noticed that I was incorporating some of the class cues in my everyday movements.
But I felt a difference really fast. I tried to do classes three times a week and about six weeks after starting the program, I realized that my morning stiffness and soreness was almost totally gone. A few months later, I noticed that I was moving differently. I was hiking with my dogs in the woods behind my house and I realized I was actively thinking about engaging the top of my quad to pick up my leg. I was engaging my glutes more when I walked and ran. While I can’t say if it’s helping my ankles I will say this: Almost every time I do a substantial hike, I roll my ankle—at least once. In April, I hiked almost 7 miles and didn’t roll it! Seems like progress to me.
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Bottom Line
Katzman told me that movement is her medicine, and that really resonated with me. While I’m not super fit, I am active. I hike, run, bike, practice yoga and more. If I’m not moving, I feel it in my mind and my body. And if I slack on my Pvolve workouts, my body is not happy. For instance, April and May were crazy busy and I didn’t prioritize Pvolve. My morning stiffness returned. But the instant I did another workout, I felt myself standing and sitting up straighter. I felt my legs moving the right way. When I woke up in the morning, I feltgood. And that’s all the reason I need to keep at it.
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