And I’ve got to say, they’re good at it: Last year YAS raised nearly $140,000 and was ThinkCure’s leading fundraiser! It doesn’t surprise me, we have such an amazing YAS family. Americans are good at giving back and it’s something business owners should be good at too. After all, it’s a win-win proposition for causes that are important to your community and for your business.

By helping others, your business helps strengthen and support your community. And the stronger your community, the stronger your business. Giving back is critical to those you’re helping. It also generates good will for your business. At YAS, fund raisers like YAS-A-THON for ThinkCure are a powerful way for people to come together for a common cause and to create new and deeper friendships and bonds. And giving back just feels good. It’s good for moral at your business and in your community. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Our YAS Gives Back philanthropic effort has been going strong for a decade, providing donations for virtually all local school fund raisers while fund raising for neighboring schools, kid’s athletic programs, flood relief (for Katrina victims) and other causes. Every time we give back, we strengthen our YAS family and our local communities.

I’m beyond grateful for all the efforts everyone has put in over the years to help YAS raise funds and awareness for great causes. I’m especially excited by the amazing outpouring for our 2nd Annual YAS-A-THON and Silent Auction for ThinkCure, coming up Saturday and Sunday, June 11th and 12th. And I’m excited for the event. Check out the video (below) for last year’s YAS-A-THON to see why.

To find out how you can support this year’s YAS-A-THON for Think Cure and help us break last year’s fund raising record, go to YAS-A-THON First Giving page.

You began taking my Yoga for Athletes® class around two years ago. What drew you to it initially?

While training for the Pan American Games (one year out from Olympic Trials), I needed to incorporate an additional component in my swimming routine. At first, one of my teammates and I went to a spin class for cardio (as a cross-trainer). The teacher offered to let us take the yoga class afterwards for free. We’d been training so hard and were so sore, we figured, why not?

At first I was not a fan of yoga. It moved too slowly and it was hard not to be competitive in class. (You know: I can stretch further, get into the pose faster and deeper.) But after coming a few times, I started to notice how fast I would swim the following day. It really helped me focus on stretching, which was an important piece of my training that I kept overlooking.

How exactly does yoga help your swimming?

It works on flexibility and strength. Since most of us spend two-to-four hours each day in the pool six days-a-week, we do not spend a lot of time focusing on stretching and working on flexibility. Yoga makes you really focus on holding the poses, and most importantly, becoming aware of your body.

So yoga helps with your conditioning for swimming?

Yes. I think yoga has helped with my core strength, which is extremely important in swimming. Everything comes from your core—every stroke you take is initiated by your core muscles. I also think that balance is really important to swimming, because you have to maintain a streamlined position in the water, and that means you have to have amazing body position and alignment.

The core strength and balance from yoga directly applies to your swimming.

Core stability is important to improve posture that will make you float higher in the water, which ultimately makes you more aerodynamic. Every stroke you take should be driven from your core. The core strength you build in yoga makes it easier to maintain this balance in the water. And body position is the key factor in swimming. By maintaining core strength and learning to balance while you float in the water, you can become as streamlined and efficient as possible to maximize your speed. Making the least effort possible, but covering the furthest distance, is our goal. Maintaining balance and core strength makes this possible.

Does the breath work in yoga help with your breathing in the pool?

Yes, we use our breath work to lower our heart rates, and to also push through pain. Being a swimmer and not being able to breathe at all times makes it very important that when we are breathing we use your breath as efficiently as possible.

Talk a little more about how improved flexibility impacts your swimming.

Flexibility is important to swimmers because it lengthens our muscles, which makes them stronger and healthier. And stretching is a great way to recover after a hard workout. Flexibility maximizes your range of motion, which is extremely important in any sport, but especially swimming.

So yoga helps swimmers with recovery.

Personally, I use yoga to recover. It allows me to take the time to stretch my muscles so that the next day I push myself harder than the day before. You’d be surprised how tight you get after a swimming workout, and how yoga allows you to stretch and recover. I always swim fast the next morning if I’ve done yoga the previous day. Also, after I fly to a competition, I usually do yoga in the hotel room because it reduces the stiffness from the flight.

Stretch also helps lessen sports-related injuries, particularly when recurring motion is involved.

Swimmers overuse their shoulders and knees, causing weakness. Yoga allows you to stretch and strengthen without putting too much stress on the joints. If more swimmers were to use yoga, I truly believe they would see less injury, because they would not be as tight in their shoulders and would have a larger range of motion.

It seems the current holiday season had succeeded in doing to Amy what holiday seasons are famous for doing to us all at one time or another: It had stressed her out, gotten under her skin, made her cranky.

Or as Amy put it: “I was so pissed off when I stepped into the yoga studio an hour ago.” Then she grinned and said “And now I’m totally blissed: Pissed to blissed! That should be your tag line.”

Everyone within earshot had a laugh, knowing exactly what she meant.

“It’s cheaper than therapy,” another student chimed in.

That’s an expression we hear a lot about YAS from regular students. “It keeps you sane,” is another one.

Naturally, such feedback is gratifying to hear. It’s why we do what we do. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say “I don’t know what I’d do without YAS,” and I understand: I don’t know what I’d without YAS, and all my wonderful students like Amy, either.

And nothing brings a holiday glow to your heart like having a student walk up after class and say: “Working out makes me a better Mom—I don’t want to kill my kids after I take class.”

Score another one for YAS and the No OM Zone. And Happy Holidays.

(BTW-That’s Amy and her YASaholic daughter Katie in the picture above.)

You spend your life helping people look and feel better about themselves, so I take it as quite a compliment that you’ve been a regular at YAS for so long. With all the yoga studios and teachers to choose from–from 90210 to Greater Los Angeles–why YAS?

YAS fitness offers me the perfect workout with the most amazing motivational teachers. Spinning gives me an incredible cardio workout that gives me the energy to make it through my day and into the nights when I have to take care of my kids. On the days I don’t feel like giving it my all in the studio, the teachers rev me up and make me want to work harder, which ironically makes me more energized.

Besides being the name of this website, The No OM Zone is the title of my upcoming book and my latest yoga workout DVD. It also pretty much describes my approach to yoga–no chanting, no granola, no Sanskrit–and what you’ll find at any YAS Fitness Center. What is it about The No OM Zone that works for you?

As a Type A personality, I like the idea of something that is directed and to the point. I don’t want to shut off my brain. I find that I get my best ideas and creative inspirations when I’m on the spin bike or in yoga. 

Something a lot of people may not realize is how physically draining your work can be. 


Plastic surgery has aspects that are delicate and require fine motor skills, but often a lot of the work we do requires us to be physically fit. If you are removing 16 lbs of excess skin or liposuctioning 5 liters of fat, you have to by in good physical condition.

How does coming to YAS help you manage that heavy lifting? 


Spinning has been phenomenal for my stamina. When you are doing a 6-hour surgery, you need a tremendous amount of strength and energy to stay focused and on task. Yoga has increased my upper body strength and made the physicality of liposuction much easier.

How about with stress? I mean, there is obviously a great deal of pressure on anyone who literally takes peoples’ lives into their hands. Is that something working out with us helps?

Plastic surgery is something people want to do, not something they have to do so they have high expectations regarding results. YAS is the perfect experience in my day to help relieve the tensions and pressures that work brings on me. It’s ME time.

On a lighter note–and just in case anyone out there thinks Birkenstocks when they think yoga–could you please describe any one of the fabulous pairs of shoes you regularly wear to YAS?

Shoes and handbags are the two items that always fit–regardless! They can always put a smile on your face. I have a pair of Gucci wedges that look like a sneaker that I love to wear to class–after all, it kind of looks like a workout shoe.