Synergetics will relax your mind and body.  Rhythmic deep breathing with every motion will enrich your entire system with oxygen, massaging your body internally as well as externally.

Your brain and the rest of your body will begin to function better as the circulation of more oxygen, vital body fluids, and body-relaxing substances begin to increase.

Stressful mind-chatter will fade as you begin to focus your attention on yourself.  Your body, mind and spirit will come together in a harmony that you may never have experienced before.

Doing Synergetics for 12 minutes before breakfast, and 12 minutes before bedtime (that’s less than 2 percent of your day), will help you develop your muscles and your body’s natural proportions.

In only 24 minutes a day you will be gently flexing every muscle in your body over 800 times a day.  In a week you will have flexed every muscle with good resistance over 5,000 times!

You will have a wonderful workout, actually a tune-up, without panting, without sweating, without getting down on the floor, and without any impact on your joints.

The cumulative effect of these motions, and Power Breathing with every flex stimulates your body’s fat burning furnaces, called mitochondria, producing the energy needed for muscle contraction.

And as your muscle mass increases, your more efficient metabolism will gradually decrease your percentage of excess body fat.

The frequency of short Synergetics workouts will effectively increase the rate at which your body burns calories, assisting you in losing weight as your body begins to take on more youthful proportions.

As your circulation improves, you will experience many internal changes.  Synergetics stimulates the muscles of your large intestine and colon, which in turn makes your body more efficient at digesting food, absorbing nutrients, and eliminating wastes.

You may notice a decrease in blood pressure as your increased physical activity increases the efficiency of your circulatory system.  Your heart will become stronger as you gently increase your heartbeat 12 minutes twice a day.

You will experience a surge in energy and lightness in your body.  Every day you will feel stronger as you decrease your percentage of fat and increase your muscle mass.  Do not mistake newfound energy for anxiety!  Initially that’s what it can feel like…amazing energy that you aren’t used to.

You will achieve the balance and agility that you normally see only in trained athletes.  You will stand taller without conscious effort.  Your body will have a youthful look because of the way you carry yourself.  You will feel a sense of wellbeing—an elation that comes with being proud of yourself and what you are doing.

By following the program faithfully, you can develop and maintain an athletic and energetic body at almost any age and any physical condition. The true test will come in a few weeks when you ask yourself: How do I feel? How do I look? Your body and feelings won’t lie to you. Your body and your mind will respond to Synergetics because this exercise system closely imitates the motions that your body was naturally built to perform.

In this section we will provide the answers to some of the most common questions people have about Synergetics. Use these answers as a starting point for your own personal philosophy of health. As you begin to learn Synergetics, you will become more conscious of your physical, emotional, and mental processes.

Listen carefully to the messages that your body and mind are sending you, follow their instructions, and trust in yourself. If you haven’t had a recent medical checkup, get one. It’s very important that you know what your present physical condition is so you can set realistic goals and keep yourself in perfect working condition.

Your progress will depend on your present condition and your commitment to the twice-daily Synergetics program. The program recommends that you work out twice a day: 12 minutes in the morning and 12 minutes in the evening.

This is the ideal schedule for optimum results. However, there may be times when you can only work out once a day, or just a few times a week. Work out with Synergetics whenever you can and wherever you can, always shooting for the ideal, because a little bit is better than nothing at all.

You will probably feel the results first: more energy, less stress, better elimination, a feeling of strength and quickness, and clearer thinking. Some people see physical results in just a few days, or within a week or so.

Much depends on your age and present physical condition. Some bodies may respond more quickly to the exercises because of previous athletic training. Usually, your measurements will begin to change, first with inches lost in different parts of your body.

If you are overweight, you might begin to experience a gradual weight loss as your muscles develop (keep in mind that muscle weighs more than fat—so don’t go by the scales alone). You will notice more muscle definition as well as a more youthful look to your face. Friends and family seem to notice the changes first, even without knowing that you are working on making changes.

If you have an injury or condition that could be aggravated by even a gentle workout routine, consult your physician before beginning any new exercise program.

Synergetics can help with lower back problems by relieving stress, improving spine alignment, repositioning spinal disks, and strengthening abdominal muscles (which helps take the stress off of your lower back).

The motions are excellent, in many cases, for injury rehabilitation, since they can be done very gently to safely build up damaged parts of the body.

It is important to ask yourself, what are you trying to accomplish with your exercise program?Are you training for the Boston Marathon? Getting ready for another pro football season with the New York Giants?Or trying to get fit so that you can enjoy an active lifestyle?If you just want to stay fit, then play it safe and avoid overdoing your exercises

You can learn the basic motions in just a few days, by yourself by watching the DVD’s. In a very short time the Synergetics motions will become second nature to you. The best way to learn is a little at a time. You will practice the basics until you feel comfortable with them. By this method, you will be able to take the time you need to develop a permanent plan for keeping your body fit.

You don’t have to rush through the program if you feel like taking more time.Learning a little at a time will allow you to master the proper form for each motion and will let your mind and body learn to do each exercise naturally

Yes. The amount of weight you lose will depend on your age, your specific body type, your present physical condition (height to present weight ratio), as well as the timing, frequency, duration, and intensity of your workouts.

According to one study, the best time of the day to exercise is early in the morning. Professor Anthony Wilcox, in a 1986 study at Kansas State University, found that you burn the same amount of calories no matter what time of day you exercise, but if you exercise early in the morning you will burn mostly fat calories. And if you exercise in the afternoon, you will burn mostly carbohydrate calories.

You can trim down a lot faster by burning fat. The recommended time for your first Synergetics workout is right before breakfast.

According to a study reported in The Rejuvenation Strategy by Rene Cailliet, M.D. and Leonard Gross, athletes were able to increase their metabolic rate (calorie burning rate), by as much as 25 percent for 24 hours with a brisk morning workout.

By permanently increasing your metabolic rate (the process by which you turn food into energy and living tissue), you can gradually lose excess pounds until you reach a plateau of perfect weight for your body type.

The recommended time for your last workout of the day is right before bedtime. Instead of going to bed with a “sleepy” metabolic rate, you can again tune your body to burn additional calories all night long while you sleep with a series of gentle Synergetics motions. Not only does this workout wake up your metabolism, but it also helps trigger a natural, body-relaxing, stress-relieving, narcotic-like brain compound called endorphins.

How many times a day you work out, when you work out, how long you work out, how hard you work out, and what you eat are going to determine how much and how fast you lose excess body fat.

Be patient with yourself, take your time, lose weight gradually, and enjoy your new lifestyle as you make your permanent changes in your body and in your life.

If you can get rid of body fat, you can get rid of cellulite, because that’s what cellulite is; excess fat that has built up in certain spots on your body, which has broken through some of the natural netting of your tissue just under your skin, causing dimpling.

For decades, people desperate to get rid of cellulite dimpling have subjected themselves to spot exercising, spot surgery, and now spot liposuction with not-so-satisfactory results.

First of all, spot exercising doesn’t selectively get rid of cellulite (fat), in one particular spot because the body utilizes its fat from all of its parts for energy—not from one specific area. Synergetics exercises all parts of your body simultaneously, which will create natural body proportions as you burn excess fat.

Second, and most important, removing fat cells from your body surgically or by liposuction is an unhealthy shock to your body, which is genetically programmed to function with a certain number of fat cells. And each body is unique, having a different number of fat cells than any other.

Recently there have been reports that the body will begin to create new fat cells to replace the ones that were torn from the body by unnatural means, so you would be right back where you started after risking your health with potentially dangerous and unnecessary surgery.

If you really are serious about getting rid of your cellulite, then begin eating a diet of fresh vegetables, fruit, rice, potatoes, grains, beans, etc., and a very small amount of animal and dairy products, or anything that contains sugar or refined flour. Juicing organic fruits and vegetables is a guaranteed way to get your nutrition, lose weight and keep your energy level where you want it.

Think carefully about the foods you’ve been eating and consult with a nutritionist or an osteopathic doctor to get advice on better eating habits.

Add a daily program of Synergetics to your new eating habits, and in a few months you will have dramatically changed your body’s dimensions and reduced the dimples to nothing but smooth, firm flesh.

The old notion that the human body cannot reverse and cure most diseases on its own is out the window! Most disease, including Osteoporosis is caused by stress, smoking, bad food and lack of the proper daily exercise. So if one commits to curing themselves, one must first make a plan, follow a routine that will ultimately become a daily habit. With a healthy environment a body can use its own powers to reverse its aging process, and cure itself.

Scientific studies measuring bone density have indicated that if a living bone is flexed, like pulling a bowstring on a bow, the bone begins to reverse its aging process.

The bones regenerate by receiving more blood supply and nutrients from the 400 Power Breathing, flexing-resistance motions that you do in 12 minutes of Synergetics.

Finally, another old notion that should also be thrown out the window is that bone can only become less brittle by doing impact exercises with weights. This may increase bone density but it wears out your joints.

You only need the weight of your own body with the body-flexing, weight-shifting motions of Synergetics to maintain healthy bones, and reclaim what you might have lost over years of neglect.

So pick up a big pad and a pen and devote at least one day to writing out your plan…then TAKE ACTION!

Synergetics is a safe, no-impact alternative to the “go for the burn” aerobic exercises. The problem with strenuous aerobic exercises like high-speed calisthenics, jazz dancing, and jogging, is that they keep the heart in good shape but they often destroy the body’s bone structure. And many of the so-called soft aerobic programs aren’t soft at all; they are designed primarily for young bodies with a great deal of athletic ability and endurance.

With Synergetics, the no-impact action of shifting your weight from the ball of one foot to the other, with your knees slightly bent, gently increases your blood circulation in your lower extremities.

It’s a stalking type of motion that gives your legs more of a flex. The steady force that you exert on your hands as you slowly pull or push your body to its maximum twist or bend creates a muscle-pumping action that pulls blood through your upper body.

The deep breathing technique increases the volume of oxygen that you are able to take in with every inhale and decreases the amount of spent air that you leave in your body on every exhale.

The combined leg and upper body action, coupled with steady force on your hands along with deep breathing, increases your heart rate in a safe and gradual way.

You can increase the tempo of your repetitions and increase the force that you use on your hands to increase your heart rate. Since Synergetics uses the actions and the strengths of your own body (and not a machine), and since you are not required to run, jump, wiggle, swing, or kick, there is no excess impact on your joints or danger of hurting yourself.

The word aerobic is defined as any activity in the presence of oxygen. Synergetics can give you the degree of aerobic activity you desire. Synergetics can be used as a gentle, right-before-going-to-bed, stress relieving, metabolism-priming ritual, or as a replacement for jogging, aerobic dancing, or high-speed calisthenics.

You can pace yourself, using your built-in instincts to tell you how much action your body needs at any given time, and bring your heart rate up to the level you would get if you briskly jogged a mile or two.

Since you are purposely forcing added oxygen into your lungs rather than being forced to gasp for it (as in strenuous aerobics), there is no danger of straining your heart from lack of oxygen. If you are deep breathing properly, you should be able to carry on a normal conversation right after you have ended your workout without being short of breath.

In two moderate, 12-minute Synergetics workouts a day you will flex your body more than 700 times, shift your weight almost 700 times, and supercharge your body with almost 400 deep breaths (2 seconds per flex, or 4 seconds for a complete back and forth motion).

If you choose to work at the Breezing Tempo, you can double the above figures and build your endurance dramatically.

It stands to reason that fourteen moderate, 12-minute workouts a week will give you a more efficiently conditioned cardiovascular system than three strenuous 20- or 30-minute workouts a week.

The Synergetics program is also safer. Your body works best if it has more frequent, shorter sessions of concentrated physical activity.

Be wary of trying to get your heart rate up to the “recommended heart rate numbers” unless you are sure you are in excellent physical shape. Do you have a latent heart defect? Or maybe a heavy buildup of cholesterol in your blood vessels?

Why not get a thorough medical checkup and be sure of your present physical condition? Show Synergetics to your physician and follow his or her advice. Work against your own standard, not some statistical table.

If your doctor tells you that your blood pressure is too high, or that your cholesterol count is too high, or that you are overweight for your body type and height, and that you have too high a fat to muscle ratio, then take notes, make goals, and do something about your condition.

Synergetics is another name for the natural motions of your body, and these motions can condition your cardiovascular system naturally—allowing your body to use all of its muscles in a single, coordinated motion in an upright position which helps circulate your blood more efficiently.

You will feel the results of your workouts and see positive physical results as well. Make a point of getting regular checkups from your doctor and let him keep track of the blood pressure and pulse numbers for you.

For optimum cardiovascular conditioning, always do a series of the Leg Synergetics in conjunction with the Rainbows at a brisk tempo.

Yes. There have been recent scientific studies by Priscilla Clarkson, Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, which show that active older people have the same ability to safely increase their strength as college students, although it may take a little longer. In an article, “Sore Muscles,” William Stockton, a New York Times writer, reports on her work:

…What scientists have found is that when we exercise a muscle and put some unaccustomed stress on it, the muscle is damaged slightly. Some of the muscle fibers become torn or broken and proteins and enzymes “leak” out of the muscle cells.

But the significant discovery was that after the muscle repairs itself, it is more resistant to injury than before.

In fact, just a single exercise session can induce this adaptation, and the effects can last for several weeks. And as they have narrowed their focus on this training effect, Clarkson and her colleagues have found that a minimal workout that puts just enough stress on a muscle can result in a muscle a few days later that can perform a strenuous exercise without damage. Such a feat would have been impossible without serious damage before the training session.

The trick is to put just enough stress on the muscle, but not too much. Overdo it and the damage can become so substantial that days or weeks can be lost while the muscle recovers….

…begin slowly, pushing your muscles slightly the first day and continuing to up the ante day by day. In the long run, the results will be greater, Clarkson contends….

The researchers have also extended the research to older people, comparing their muscles with those of college students.

They have found that the older people—average age 67.4 years and very active—have the same ability to adapt to muscle damage and that the muscle repair process is equally effective as in the young people. Subsequent research has shown, however, that strength may return more slowly in the older people.

Regardless of your age, with few exceptions, you can gradually and safely increase your muscle development and functional power by simply following the Synergetics philosophy of using your own, built-in body strength to exercise yourself.

Gender and body type have a lot to do with the way your body develops. Unless you were, or are a trained athlete, you probably haven’t ever developed your physical potential.

Your body is unique. You have a different bone structure, a different number of muscle fibers, and a different number of fat cells, all distributed in a unique way in your unique body.

As you exercise regularly, the shape of your body will gradually change into its most desirable form. Your body will become more graceful, strong, and shapely. Since every motion stretches your entire body, your muscles will become long, smooth, strong, contoured, and very quick.

Sweating is not necessary for fitness. Sweat has always been associated with fitness, because most types of exercise cause us to sweat by overheating our bodies. A few beads of perspiration won’t hurt, but the “sweat and burn” that many exercise programs promote, robs your body of fluid which is filled with essential minerals, salts, and electrolytes—all vital to your health and energy.

Remember when you got dizzy or sick to your stomach after a strenuous workout? Your body was telling you to leave its fluid level alone and to quit overheating it!

If you love the feel of sweat smarting in your eyes as the beads trickle down your face and drip off your nose, and if dark patches of wetness on your clothes are fitness symbols to you, then go for the burn. But, if you want to conserve your energy, your clothes, your precious time, and your one-and-only body, forget the sweat.

Most health experts agree that drastic dieting rarely works for losing weight, and often upsets your metabolism. However, monitoring the amount of food you eat, and the quality of the food you eat, is essential.

Most of us don’t grow our own food, but we all have a choice of how we feed our bodies. We can eat out of flashy plastic packages with photographs on the label showing what the food used to look like (food that is now loaded with sugar, refined flour, and chemicals), or we can nourish our irreplaceable, one and only bodies with fresh, natural, unprocessed foods.

You must learn how to eat naturally. Your body evolved by eating “live” foods—foods containing live enzymes, which are essential for absorbing whatever nutrition the food contains. Your body is genetically programmed to process high-fiber, untainted foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, a little fresh meat, and a lot of pure water. Anything less begins to prematurely age your organs and your entire body.

Fat will begin to form in excessive amounts on your body from over-caloried manufactured foods; your blood sugar level will begin to go up and down like a yo-yo from the excessive shocks of heavily sugared products; your digestive tract and colon will spasm and get inflamed from a thick, pasty coating of refined flour products; your blood will begin to fill with a waxy substance called cholesterol—from eating too many animal/dairy products—which slowly but surely builds up on the walls of your veins and arteries, closing off your lifeline of blood until you could have a heart attack and die.

Sounds pretty grim, doesn’t it? Well it is. The populations of three dozen foreign countries have a greater life expectancy than we do. In this country we spend almost as much on medical care every year as we do on food.

Go to your kitchen right now. Take all of the packaged and canned foods you have and line them up on your counter. Now read the labels one by one—marking a big X (a symbol for poison) on the ones that are full of sugar (and its derivatives) and refined flour. Do the same for any foods that have a list of chemicals on the label that you know nothing about.

Food processors had to be forced to quit putting red dye and sulphites in their foods, even though they are known to kill humans. Can you trust them now? If you have enough food without an X left for supper, then you are eating better than the average person in this country.

Go to your bookstore or health food store and get some current books on nutrition and whole foods cooking. Study them. Become an expert on how to keep yourself and your family healthy and alive.

You must know for yourself, and have a clear understanding of what’s good for you and what isn’t, before you can become determined and committed to do something positive about the deadly drift of our country toward nutritional collapse.

So don’t think diet. Think nutrition. Counting and measuring calories can throw your body into a physiological tizzy. Eating the most nutritious, natural food you can find is the simple way to give your body the health, energy, and beauty it deserves.

Fantastic Faces exercise 100% of your 1500 facial muscles in different combinations as you perform your Synergetics motions. And if you choose to do facial flexing for all 12 minutes of your Synergetics tune-up, you have flexed every muscle in your face 400 times!

By doing The Hunter, The Gorilla, The Popeye, and The Guppy in concert with your Synergetics motions you contract and stretch every muscle in your face and neck, which give you the following benefits:

1. Reduces cheek and lip wrinkles, double chins, eye-bags, and tones sagging face muscles.

2. Tones and strengthens neck muscles, which support your upper spine to reduce pain and gain flexibility.

3. Reduces Dowager’s Hump or what we refer to as Bison Back, a curvature of the upper spine that ‘shrinks’ your body and causes chronic pain.

4. Adds to your fat-burning process by including your 1500 face muscles in the Synergetics whole-body stretching, contracting motions.

5. Reduces stress and healing processes by stimulating meridian points in your face, which trigger the release of endorphins and anti-inflammatory hormones.

6. When you see the improvements in your appearance and have other people comment on ‘how you have changed’, you will experience a joy for living and become your own best hobby.

Norman Cousins, the late (1915-1990), author, professor, journalist, became famous by laughing his way back to health. Heart problems and many other diseases prompted doctors to sentence him to an early death, but he not only prolonged his life, but made the most of it by ten minutes a day of laughing at Marks Brothers comedies and taking massive doses of Vitamin C.

His daily dose of laughter not only gifted him with pain-free sleep, but gave him the energy to continue his prolific writing career.

His laughter (and smiling), was his version of Fantastic Faces, which triggered healing hormones by his facial muscles pinching meridian points.

The Bantu tribe in Africa had young faces at advanced age because they silently spoke to each other with facial motions as they stalked wild game.

So we all have the option of not only keeping our bodies young and agile with Synergetics, but also developing a younger, more beautiful face to match.

Harmonizing the powers of your body, mind, and spirit is the only way that you can achieve perfect health. For over a thousand years people have practiced Yoga exercises in order to consciously coordinate the body’s health with the health of the mind.

For generations, the Chinese have practiced Tai Chi Ch’uan in order to bring about a harmony between the body, mind, and spirit. And in recent years this same mind-body-spirit concept—the holistic approach—has attracted many people in search of better health.

Synergetics combines many of the motions of Tai Chi Ch’uan and Yoga to strengthen your body, beautify your face, and bring your conscious mind closer to the natural workings of your body.

The Yoga and Tai Chi Ch’uan philosophies of health have now been scientifically proven. You can’t have a healthy body without a healthy mind! Experiments have shown that the health of the body is directly influenced by what a person thinks and feels. And does.

Tai Chi Ch’uan was originally developed as a martial art (fighting without weapons)–later popularized as purely exercise–while Synergetics was developed strictly as a health system for exercising your body and your mind. Both exercises have much in common, yet there is much that distinguishes the two. In his book Fundamentals of Tai Chi Ch’uan, Wen-shan Huang describes the Tai Chi Ch’uan motions by saying,

They are basically slow, continuous, light, gentle, circular, rhythmic, energetic and graceful movements which are capable of developing an “intrinsic energy,” ready to tune up the body, slow down the aging processes, and stretch out the life span of the human body. Each movement also involves the alternate shifting of the body weight from one leg to another and is always synchronized with breathing.

Movements are also performed with all parts of the body in unison and harmony to constitute a concerted act of the feet (toes, soles, heels), legs (knees), waist, abdomen, shoulders, neck, head (with eyes watching and ears listening), arms, elbows and hands (palms, fingers). With the spine and waist as sustaining pillar and axis and the feet firmly rooted aground, all other parts of the body are maneuvered, in pairs and fours, simultaneously and rhythmically….

Synergetics embodies these exercise elements in easy flexing/resistance/ breathing/posture motions that condition all of your body’s parts simultaneously, putting emphasis on flexibility, strength, body alignment, balance, facial flexing, and cardiovascular fitness.

You will learn how to gracefully shift your weight from one foot to the other, as you slowly pull or push your torso into a gentle twist or bend (toning your legs and buttocks as you gain more flexibility and balance).

You will learn how to exercise your upper body using the power of your joined hands in either a pulling or pushing position (increasing your functional strength and developing more beautiful upper body contours).

You will learn a new method of breathing which will dramatically increase the amount of oxygen you can deliver to your system with every breath (conditioning your cardiovascular system, improving your metabolism, elimination and trimming your waist).

You will learn how to develop your muscles so that your body will stand straight and tall without conscious effort.

Finally, you will learn flexing motions for your face, which will reduce stress, erase wrinkles, and regenerate sagging muscles that cause lines, wrinkles, and double chins.

Wen-shan Huang describes the benefits of Tai Chi Ch’uan by saying:

It is the combined effect of activated nervous communication, stimulated blood circulation, intensified flowing and draining of the lymphatic fluid and integrated mental relaxation. No wonder it is generally considered as the most successful system of internal and external training, embracing the best principles of modern psychology, physiology, biology, mental hygiene, and dynamics for the promotion of health.

Synergetics simplifies and emphasizes many of the Tai Chi Ch’uan motions and incorporates new motions in a way that produces faster and more dramatic results:

By doing every motion on the balls of your feet, you get the benefits of ballet training for balance and agility, along with additional strength and muscle tone for your legs and buttocks.

By bending or twisting your body to its maximum range with every motion, your muscles become smooth, strong, and Yoga-flexible.

By keeping your head fixed as you move, you are using your spine as your body’s axis, which creates more flexing benefits and ability to balance and coordinate your body.

By adding the forceful pulling and pushing of your hands against each other, you get the benefits of a resistance exercise, which is necessary for developing your upper body strength and toning your muscles.

By Power Breathing with every flex, you get the benefits of aerobic dancing. You increase your heart rate without strain and trim your waist at the same time.

By standing tall as you do the motions, you develop muscles that will hold your body naturally in its most attractive and healthful posture.

By doing Fantastic Faces with every motion, you are releasing stress and recapturing the youthful tone and look of your face.

Synergetics is similar to Yoga primarily in its emphasis on proper breathing and stretching, and both exercise disciplines promote relaxation, balance, grace, and flexibility.

Yoga focuses on stretching the body from varied positions and practicing the Complete Breath, which is similar to Synergetics Power Breathing.

Synergetics also stretches the spine and other parts of the body with every flexing motion, but all of the Synergetics motions are performed standing naturally upright, whereas many Yoga postures are performed sitting or lying on the floor.

Yoga means “union” or “joining together” in Sanskrit-a union of the body, the mind, and the spirit. Although Yoga has been practiced in Eastern cultures for centuries, many people in the West are just now discovering its wonderful ways of keeping their bodies, minds, and spirits in harmony.

The answer is quite simple. Keep yourself physically and mentally healthy so you don’t have to take prescription drugs or go to a hospital except in an emergency. Take your health into your own hands.  Get good advice when problems crop up (research carefully and get second opinions). Eat well. Sleep well. And move well.  Take care of yourself as carefully as you can so that you can keep being a vital part of life, family and community for as many years as possible!