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When Danny Benoit began practicing yoga more than 20 years ago, he wasn’t trying to tone up or touch his toes. “Most people come to yoga, I think, to find some calm, or to get in shape. … I came to it to fix my head,” he says. After serving in the US Air Force during the Gulf War, Danny received a yoga book from his mother, a yoga novice herself. “She said, ‘I hope this helps you,’” he recalls. “It just brought a calm to me. … The postures, the breathing—all [of] that connected created a balance and a calm that I’d never felt before.” That was in 1991; Danny didn’t discover his love for teaching yoga until 2008 as a pilot in Nepal. During a time of political upheaval, he found himself in an airport hangar with 300 pilot students, all of whom were grounded due to the turmoil outside. Demonstrating yoga became his way of engaging with them. It was “the one common denominator we had.” Those crowded lessons in the hangar revealed Danny’s knack for forming and leading a yoga community. He then brought that talent to Chicago and became an instructor at the city’s first CorePower Yoga studio. He still works for CorePower today, though his classes are a bit smaller than his first: 30–40 students instead of 300. Nevertheless, he approaches teaching with the same enthusiasm and has become an advocate for the physical benefits of the practice, specifically its bolstering effect on the core. “As we get older, the first thing that usually goes on us is our lower back or our knees, and that’s because of lack of core strength,” he explains. “If you gently pull your navel in … it acts like an airbag. It compresses everything together.” This airbag effect can help support the body and guard against injury as you age. Here, Danny demonstrates six moves that work to strengthen the core and, therefore, stabilize and protect everything around it. 1. Navasana  This classic yoga move can be performed at five different levels of difficulty. For the most basic, lean back on your tailbone and bend your knees, grasping right behind them. Make sure to lift your chest—or “heart center”—toward the sky. Danny recommends holding for at least 30 seconds. For some extra oomph, release the hold on your legs and extend them. 2. Single Leg Slicers “A Danny B. special,” the yogi says of this move. To begin, lay on your back and extend one leg to the sky with your foot flat. Press your palms together, and draw them to the outside of your raised leg, twisting your torso and lifting your shoulders off the mat. When you inhale, drop your leg; when you exhale, lift it back up. “If you want to work harder, hover your [other] heel.” 3. Dolphin Crunches Start in plank on your forearms, making sure that your tailbone is even with your shoulders and that your hands are palms-down on the mat, shoulder-width apart. On an exhale, press the heart center back to “crunch” upwards, bending the body into a V. Inhale to come back to plank. 4. Flat Crunches aka Sacrum Balance   Before demonstrating this move, Danny expounds on its power: “This one doesn’t look like much, but try it and you’ll puke.” Lay back, but hover your feet and shoulders, balancing on your sacrum (right above the base of your tailbone). Simply hold this pose for 30 seconds to feel a burn in your belly. 5. Double Knee Taps Sit up and bend your knees, as if you’re going into a navasana level-one lift. Extend one leg and place your hands behind your ears, positioning them like you would for a traditional crunch. Inhale and tap your opposite elbow to the knee of the bent leg, then to the knee of the extended leg, exhaling once with each tap. 6. Cross Lifts Danny notes that this is a more advanced move better suited for the seasoned yogi. Lie flat on your back and plant one foot firmly on the outside of the other leg. Then, place your hands behind your head and square your shoulders toward the sky. Lift the bottom long leg, and crunch up as you exhale.

There’s practically an entire industry devoted to returning new moms to their “pre-baby shape,” but there’s a good reason why it’s so hard to bounce back from a baby belly. It’s called relaxin, a hormone produced at high levels at the end of pregnancy with a name that’s true to its function. “It relaxes your muscles [and the] connective tissue,” says prenatal and postnatal Pilates instructor Joan Van Geison, who previously walked me through prenatal exercises. Relaxin eases the birth process, but it can make new moms feel “mushy,” like they can’t build muscle tone no matter how hard they try—and the hormone can stick around for months after giving birth. “Oh! Nobody says that! Nobody ever told me that,” is the common refrain Joan hears after delivering this news. Another common postpartum misconception is the idea that intense, high-impact workouts will spur faster weight loss. In reality, this practice may be harmful for new moms, particularly if they’re breastfeeding. “Vigorous or intense, prolonged exercise is not recommended for mothers who are breastfeeding, as this may increase the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles, which in turn may cause breast milk to taste sour,” Joan explains. It can become a cycle where a fussy baby refuses to feed and the mom “gets frustrated and works out more to release their frustrations.” At Soulistic Studio & Spa, Joan’s low-impact postnatal Pilates classes aren’t as much about regaining a pre-baby body as they are about ensuring a safe and healthy recovery. Because of this, the classes are highly customized to individual needs: “It’s all about what happened, so you listen to the birth story before you do anything,” Joan says. This process involves some highly personal questions, but it’s all so Joan can recommend exercises that don’t aggravate existing conditions. “Yeah, you’re up in people’s business,” she admits. Most new moms don’t get a doctor’s clearance to begin working out until six to eight weeks after giving birth, and Joan finds that most women are grateful for the break. “They are happy to have some ‘me’ time. It is critical to have that time to focus just on yourself. If you can't keep yourself healthy, then you can't take care of others.” During my visit, Joan walked me through three common postnatal exercises. Even as a regular Pilates student—and without having had a baby myself—I’ll admit I found them challenging. I walked away slightly sore and with a better appreciation of the challenges of postpartum recovery. 1. MARCHING ON THE BALL Lying on your back on the reformer, place a small inflatable ball right at your tailbone, then place your feet on the bar and grab a wooden handle with each hand. As you press your pelvis down against the reformer, drawing the hip bones together, bring your arms straight up to the ceiling. Staying steady atop the ball, bring your right leg into the “tabletop” position (knee bent at about a 90-degree angle) and bring your arms forward slightly, moving the carriage about an inch. Bring your left leg up into tabletop as well, keeping the carriage steady, and inhale as you lower the right leg just a few inches. Exhale, and bring the right leg back up; repeat with the left leg. Perform the exercise a total of five times on each leg. Though this exercise involves the legs and the arms, you should really feel it in your core. The goal here, says Joan, is “re-engaging the abs.” “The abs have done this humongous job by keeping the baby supported, but they have stretched, so a lot of times women lose the connection with the abs.” She’ll often begin postnatal workouts with this exercise because it imparts a valuable muscle memory of how to keep the core engaged during the rest of the session. 2. THE ROLL-DOWN WITH TRAPEZE Sitting on a Pilates cadillac or tower, place one foot against each pole, keeping your legs straight. From there, grab the trapeze bar with both hands placed about shoulder-width apart. Tucking in the tailbone and keeping your shoulders down, inhale, and as you exhale, engage your abs as you slowly roll down, articulating the spine one vertebra at a time. When you’re lying down, inhale, then exhale as you begin to curl yourself up slowly, keeping your tailbone tucked and your abs engaged. Once you’ve reached the starting position, roll all the way down again and slowly pull the trapeze closer to your chest as you exhale, drawing your elbows away from each other. Pull the trapeze a total of three times, then roll up to finish. “The roll-down is about shoulder stability and about abs,” Joan says. Women often adopt a hunched-over posture while breastfeeding, which contracts the muscles in their chest. Opening up the shoulders stretches out the chest muscles and allows for a deeper connection with the abs, which work with the shoulders to keep the body steady during the roll-down movement. The chest press with the trapeze further stretches the shoulders as it works the pecs and rotator cuffs. 3. BRIDGE SERIES WITH ONE-LEGGED BRIDGE Lying on your back on a mat or a flat, cushy surface, bend your knees with your legs hip-distance apart and your arms long by your sides. Press down into the feet, keeping your shoulders down and chest open, inhale, and as you exhale, curl your hips up slowly. Hold the bridge position for an inhale, then exhale as you slowly roll your hips down, one vertebra at a time. Repeat once more. As a progression, you can repeat the bridge exercise beginning with your right leg in tabletop position, making sure not to shift to one side as you raise your hips. Repeat again with your left leg in tabletop; perform the one-legged bridge a total of two times on each side. Similar to the roll-down, the bridge series is powered by the abs, which control the articulated movements, and it further opens up the shoulders to engage the upper-core muscles. As an extra challenge for the glutes and hamstrings, the one-legged bridge also connects to the abs and “makes you keep yourself centered,” Joan says. She’ll often incorporate progressive exercises into her postnatal routines to gradually build up strength until students feel comfortable returning to regular Pilates classes, usually within two or three months. Photo: © Michelle Klosinski, Groupon

The male-focused clothier Trunk Club makes a killer pitch: grab a complimentary microbrew or cocktail from the bar, follow your personal stylist to a furnished styling room, tell her where you work, where you play, and what your style is, and let her bring the designer fashions to you. They bill it as a “personalized high-end shopping service.” I’d settle for “brilliant.” I show up for Trunk Club’s specialized problem/solution consultation with my problem ready. I have a wedding coming up, and I need a new suit, something fresh and hip (though while I’m here, I figure I may as well upgrade the rest of my wardrobe too). That's part one of the problem. Part two? I’m colorblind—a get-out-of-jail-free card I’ve often played to justify prior fashion faux pas. But today, colorblindness isn’t an excuse; it’s a catalyst. It’s one of the reasons I’m sitting with Tara Jones, my personal stylist for the day. Tara is all smiles as we kick back on a plush velvet couch inside Trunk Club’s 45,000-square-foot loft in Chicago's River North neighborhood. We have a casual chat over beers; she asks about my lifestyle, my work culture, and how I want to look. So I tell her everything. Tara listens, smiles, and nods. It’s clear she’s heard it all before. “A lot of my clients are busy professionals who don’t have time to scour the racks,” she says. “Others appreciate the input from a professional. And a lot of them come for the experience.” Check, check, and check. Part boutique, part style clinic, part upscale man cave (think exposed-brick walls, a 40-foot bar, and a 5,000-square-foot rooftop deck), Trunk Club is worlds away from the department stores and retail shops I usually frequent. I take another sip of beer and we get to work. Our first project is the suit. Since the wedding is in Vegas, Tara picks out an Italian-made linen number by L.B.M. 1911, a lightweight selection that will keep me cool and comfortable in the desert heat. She also brings out some work clothes that can be mixed and matched with the suit. “Since guys pay a lot for suits, I figured we could make this versatile, so you can integrate the jacket, or the slacks, into your casual wardrobes. That way, the suit can be multi-purpose, and you can get the most use out of it.” My enthusiasm wavers a bit when Tara points out the pink accents in the tie, and she sees the doubt in my expression. “Let’s just give it a shot and see how it looks,” she says. “Our goal is to slowly ease you out of your comfort zone.” She’s reassuring, and she’s equally adept at introducing me to new styles and making sure I’m comfortable letting go of my old ones. “I think this will be a great look for you!” OK, I’m convinced. Let’s do this. I duck into the dressing room, slip into the linen pants, and don a light-blue gingham shirt. “How should I do the tuck?” I ask her, letting the shirt poof out a bit at the waist, as is my habit. “All the way in,” she says. “Streamlined.” The pants run a bit big, so she runs into the back and fetches a smaller size. “Much better,” she says when I try them on. “Slim-fit pants work best for you, since you’re skinny.” Next, I put on the silk, floral-patterned Eton tie. Tara helps me with the jacket and immediately begins fussing with the sleeves, collar, and slacks. “You want the jacket sleeves to end at your wrist, so that the shirt sleeves show a little bit.” Trunk Club has in-house tailors to tend to such particulars. Then she hands me John Varvatos dress shoes and a pair of socks with pink flourishes—you know, to match the tie. Tara fusses around some more and steps back to evaluate, and we both study my reflection in the large wood-bordered mirror. “I think it looks great!” she says. “It complements your skin tone, it fits your body, it brings out your best features. Very dapper!” I raise my beer to hide my blushing. We move on to the work clothes. “Keep the pants on, and try this,” she says, handing me a plaid shirt by Culturata and a blue V-neck Theory sweater. Then she sets down a pair of Fratelli Rossetti shoes. “This is a great business-casual outfit, a little conservative yet fashionable and comfortable. You can wear this to happy hour or to an after-hours work event.” I try it on and look in the mirror. “I never would have picked this out for myself,” I say, “but it looks great.” “And how does it feel?” Tara asks me. Looking good is top priority here, but feeling comfortable is a close second. And I feel great. The pants are light and breezy, the shirt is soft and snug, and the cashmere-blend sweater feels like a warm embrace. We move on to a casual "guys’ night out" outfit—a pair of 5-pocket twill pants by J Brand and a light-blue chambray Gant button-down. I put the pants on and tuck the shirt all the way in. Streamlined. I'm getting the hang of this. Photo: Michelle Klosinski, Groupon