The philosopher of fitness

I’ve had the pleasure to train with Ari Weller, a truly unique personal trainer (actually the term doesn’t really do Ari justice because he’s really more of a philosopher of fitness). With Ari, I am constantly learning new ideas, gaining a deeper understanding of my body and realizing new insights on wellness and life. No matter what is going on in my life, I always leave each session with Ari, revitalized, energized and balanced…but I am also completely sore the next day!

Ari doesn’t just demonstrate the moves; he really explains to me how they work, why they work, how my body will react to them and the overall balance and unification of body, mind and spirit.

Ari has trained the likes of P. Diddy, super models and top Olympic athletes. I first read about him in W magazine and trained with him for a while before he left to run a wellness retreat in upstate New York for the past two years. But, he’s finally back in New York and Hamptons, training again, but unfortunately I am in Stockholm and only have the pleasure of seeing him on my short trips to New York.

We train in a small piece of heaven found in the flatiron district among the hustle and bustle of Manhattan in a tiny studio that is also occupied by Master Lee, a top qigong master and healer.

Unlike many other trainers I have tried, Ari’s technique requires no machinery but only simple fitness equipment that you can buy at Casall. I have my own little home gym that includes all the tools I need to do Ari’s unique one-of-a-kind workouts. Here are the basics you need:

Gym ball

Yoga mat

Pilates ring

Exercise ball

After many years of bodybuilding, Ari realized that the traditional methods of training actually are not good for your body. In fact, it often results in making you less agile, less flexible and even weaker, especially in your smaller muscle groups. Ari has developed hundreds of unique exercises to target all of your muscles, beyond just the large muscle groups. Combining movements from gyrotonics (I love this btw and will blog about this later), yoga, pilates, core training, functional training, stretching, martial arts, Qigong, dance, interval calisthenics, Feldenkrais and more. Ari focuses on helping me develop a balanced, fit and agile body. He suggests thinking like a cheetah: fast, strong, agile and powerful. At the beginning of each workout, I start with gyrotonic undulations focusing on loosening my muscles, finding my center and breathing fully and deeply. Then we do a series of unique exercises that differ session to session, we often end with resistance stretching (part of the Meridian Flexibility System. I will blog about this later after further research).

It’s not easy to book an appointment with Ari as he has so many loyal clients that have been with him for years. However, with his expansion to the Hamptons in addition to Manhattan, there are some spots available. I am so excited to be able to show you the following videos: a series of four effective core exercises that I love. Ari also blogs at: http://ariweller.com/blog/

For more information go to http://www.ariweller.com