Good Posture - Take The Pressure Off Your Body

- by Bobbie Lanham

Despite a university degree in physiology and three years in the military, Stephanie Silverhorn Brooks thinks yoga has improved her conditioning more than any other experience. "I've never been in better physical shape. Even after boot camp," Brooks reported.

Brooks teaches yoga twice a week at Max Performance Physical Therapy and Sports Rehabilitation, in Shelbyville. Her enterprise, P.M. Yoga and Personal Training, is about six weeks old.

At a recent session, Brooks guided clients through stretching and conditioning exercises. P.M., of P.M. Yoga, stands for Pretty Machine, because of Brooks' respect for the perfection of simple machines, like fulcrums and levers. "Most simple machines are modeled after the body."

She was the tallest and youngest contestant in 1993 when she won the Miss Shelby County Fair contest. Brooks is a 1995 graduate of Shelby County High School. She has a 1999 exercise physiology degree from Transylvania University in Lexington.

She began learning Hatha-style yoga while with the U.S. Army in Washington state. She continued the training while stationed in Germany. Hatha yoga is characterized as slow-paced and gentle.

Since completing her Army service, she has been certified as a yoga instructor and personal trainer by the National Exercise and Sport Training Association, NESTA. She also works as a lab specialist and medical assistant at Stonecrest Family Medicine.

Alice Creque, owner of Max Performance, reported positive reactions to Brooks' yoga. "It's a great exercise program, and she's a great teacher," Creque said. "We have a sports enhancement room, and it worked out well because it's a soundproof room." The floor is a plyometric sports floor designed for exercise.

Brooks thinks that yoga has gotten a "bad rap" for being classified as religious and mystical. "It's not hocus pocus," said Brooks.

The positions, suggested by elements of nature, like flowers and trees, are simply ways to condition and expand the body's potential. Her clients progress at their own levels.

Source: http://www.sentinelnews.com/articles/2006/10/03/news/news01.txt