At the end of my first
Kinrgy class—hosted by
Julianne Hough, the platform's founder—I burst into tears. After 20 minutes of channeling my energy into movement, it felt as if every single emotion I'd been bottling up since March came out, and eventually began overflowing. It was exactly the release that my mind and body needed.
According to Hough, that's exactly the point. The workout combines dance-based movement with meditation and breathwork—a trifecta for achieving the sort of emotional overhaul that hit me in the last song. "Meditation, movement, and breathwork are three things you can do on your own to get you to that flow state, and when you put them together, it’s a supercharge to get you to that place of ultimate [mind-body] connection," she says. “Kinrgy can be a resource for people to...let the emotions of this year move through them."
As a lifelong (and very famous) dancer, Hough knows how powerful dance-based movement can be. With Kinrgy, she wanted to help other people realize it, too. "When you're dancing, you surrender your mind completely and you access your emotions—you're either feeling excited or free or sexy or whatever—and it's all about expressing yourself from the inside out instead of the outside in," she says.
Through this, her goal was to make Kinrgy's workouts go beyond just the physical benefits they offer. "[Using your workouts] to focus on what you look like on the outside might work for a little while, but it's not sustainable," says Hough. "The only thing that is sustainable is...finding something that works for you that makes you feel alive, expressed, and free, even when you're just sitting at home."
Dance-based workouts are known to have significant impacts on the brain, and Hough worked with neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki to ensure that Kinrgy's routines have both a physical and emotional payoff. "[Dance] connects the emotional field as well as your auditory and your senses with the music," she says. "Any time you're creating a new memory with emotion, you're building new [neuropathways]." This can help with your energy and focus and is one of the most efficient ways to fight off brain fog in the few minutes you have between meetings.
Speaking of squeezing in a workout between meetings, Kinrgy's classes are designed to be efficient and are prime examples of the boom of time-saving, "restorative fitness" that we expect to take over in 2021. "Exercise is becoming more about what people need to stay focused or boost their heart rate and energy levels," says Hough. "The Kinrgy method takes your heart rate up and down and burns out your muscles through certain movements so that by the time you're finished—whether it's a 20-minute class or a 40-minute class, you're getting what you need to restore your energy and be fully expressed and energized for the day without feeling depleted." This month, Kinrgy will expand into e-commerce (which means you can wear your Kinrgy pride on your chest), and looking ahead, expect it to blossom into a full-scale lifestyle brand.
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