our story

our story

laura ocampo

Yoga-Bells was conceived as my life took an unexpected path about three years ago. At that time I was experiencing what I can only describe as my body literally “falling apart”. I had lived with chronic injuries to my neck, shoulder and hip and had just finished a successful battle against breast cancer (Yeah!!). Although I had been a competitive athlete and Martial Artist for well over thirty years I found that I could no longer do activities that I loved which had defined me as a person. I left training in Shotokan Karate and turned full time to Yoga. I started with a yearlong teacher-training program at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis. This part of my journey was defined by two differing realities. The first was, that as a former competitive athlete and Martial Artist I had the idea that perserverance and strength of will would overcome my physical limitations. The second, was, reality, it simply couldn’t! I was shown time and again that pushing and striving were unproductive in healing my injuries. My wonderful teacher and mentor taught me the power of tuning into the wisdom innate to the body and Hatha Yoga. By embarking on a daily practice guided by the principals of breath awareness, postural integrity, body alignment, and constant self-study my body slowly, but surely started to get stronger, re-align and heal! I learned the absolute truth: “it is not what you do but how you do it” that is important. This knowledge led me to the second part of my journey.

As I started to heal and feel stronger, the athlete in me was looking for a way to gain strength and stability, and lose a little weight. I could no longer take any pounding impact to my neck, shoulder or hip joint. My husband had been teaching Kettlebell classes, and although I had always been resistant to weight training I decided to give Kettlebells a try knowing there is no heavy impact to the hip joints. I found that not only did I enjoy these classes, but my hip and shoulder felt significantly better and stronger for days after the class. My learning curve for Kettlebells mirrored my experience with Yoga. Once again I found that pushing and striving yielded little results. There were many drills that I needed to modify, change or simply not do as I started my Kettlebell training. I discovered that a thoughtful and step by step increase in weight and intensity was the key to progressing without injury. My motto became: “Strength follows form”.

angie charpentier

Most people are surprised to learn that I didn’t discover my love for exercise until I became a mother. The more children I had the more I found that I needed to take care of myself both physically and mentally. Having several young children, I have had to find ways to maximize my workouts and my time. Over the years, I have slowly added more forms of exercise and the amount of time I devote to it. I was not an athlete in high school or college and had a long way to go to build up the muscle memory and coordination that comes from being an athlete when you are young. After having reached a plateau, I started taking Yoga, since then, I have acquired more true athletic strength and increased breath through Yoga than any other form of exercise. The body awareness that has developed through the practice of yoga has been essential to everything I do, and the basis from which we created this class.

I had already been training with free weights for many years before I ever tried kettlebells. I was surprised by how differently it worked my muscles, especially my core. I really appreciated that I could get a full body workout with one piece of equipment. Just like in Yoga, kettlebells worked my core muscles with the standing moves instead of just during mat work. Traditional strength training had helped me develop a certain level of strength in my individual muscles; while kettlebells helped strengthen those muscles as a unit, developing my body as a whole. The cardio junkie in me also loves the fact that I can still benefit aerobically while I am gaining that functional, flexible strength.

When I used to lie on the floor to do crunches my stomach would dome from the separation of abdominal muscles that is common from having children. None of the things I was doing had helped- not running, step, bike riding, free weights, mat work, kickboxing- absolutely nothing! I had resigned myself to the belief that it was permanently damaged. When I started doing both kettlebells and yoga, that separation finally began to close. That is when I knew that this was something special. The combination of the breath work in yoga, yoga poses which target core muscles, and unique kettlebells moves was the magic combination I had been looking for.

creating yoga-bells

Over the course of several months, during the Kettlebell classes I would instinctively feel the need to do a yoga pose after some of the drills. Often I would look over and see that Angie and I would be doing the same yoga pose. So, AHA, we should combine in one class both Yoga and Kettlebell and out of this Yoga-Bells was born!!

Angie understood weight training and Laura came from the knowledge of Yoga, as we combined our thoughts and efforts to create Yoga-Bells. We realized what an incredible program this could be for the average busy American person. With seven children between the two of us (Angie has 4 Laura has 3) we understand how difficult it is to make time for yourself. With the Yoga-Bell program, in just one hour you can combine strength training, to help burn fat and increase muscle mass, practice Yoga to help develop balance, enhance muscle length and flexibility and at the same time learn breath work to calm the mind and relax the body.

In Yoga-Bells Level One we do not reinvent the wheel. You will experience basic kettlebell drills designed to burn fat, create core strength and increase endurance. Many of these Kettlebell drills have been adapted for function and efficiency to enhance their value for core strength and functional flexible strength. Hatha Yoga introduces you to the proper postural alignment needed to use Kettlebells safely and efficiently. Hatha Yoga is literally “science of the body”. Yoga will not only improve your flexibility and tone your muscles, but will also improve the health of your organs and nervous system.

why weight train?

Built naturally into Kettlebell training is interval-intensity training, this type of training is anaerobic and will bring you into what is called EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). The EPOC effect occurs after training is finished, and is a result of short bursts of strenuous activity followed by a short resting state. This could be compared to running up to the top of a hill and than walking back down, the body reaches full effort capacity, than you slow down and bring your heart rate back to normal. This type of training increases (FT) fast twitch muscles, FT muscles are helpful in regulating

certain hormone functions. As we age the body naturally starts to lose muscle mass around the age of 45. While aerobic exercise is excellent for the cardiovascular body it does little or nothing to reduce the normal decline of protein synthesis and reduction of essential hormone production. Interval-intensity training increases the fast twitch muscles and can be productive in switching this change around. Plus, ultimately a stronger and more flexible body works BETTER!