Professional athletes from the Dallas Stars, Vancouver Canucks to the New Zealand All Blacks love an exercise technique called ELDOA. Developed by internationally renowned French Osteopath Dr. Guy Voyer, D.O., it’s a French acronym that essentially means active joint decompression.

What Is ELDOA?

ELDOA is a series of static exercises that put the muscles into their postural working capacity for one minute holds. Each joint has its own ELDOA exercise. “You don’t move but work so hard you sweat!” reports Lisa Swarbrick, founder of SomaFit Wellness. “Through working the muscles and fascia this way, it’s like heating up a plastic so you can reshape it.”

         Muscles create joint integrity and stability, and bones follow muscle balance or imbalance, so it seemed essential to Dr. Voyer that effective exercise should activate the underlying muscle/joint relationship. “The reason inversion tables only provide temporary relief is because they are passive and don’t actually use the muscles; they use gravity to decompress the joints. But when you stand up again, the muscles still aren’t strong enough to balance the joints,” states Brian Kermizian, owner of Living Fit Health and Wellness. “That’s why the ELDOA approach is so effective.”

         Its unique process rehydrates and increases the height of spinal discs creating more joint decompression, and enables tissues to normalize and creates space in the spinal joints (and hips/shoulders) that stops the pain and dysfunction of nerve compression. ELDOA works for spinal degeneration, disc bulges, herniations, athletic spinal stability and overall spinal health.

         ELDOA is a powerful stimulus the body needs to strengthen and increase function, renew the spine and overall body systems. Those who experience the amazing relief from pain and ease of movement through using ELDOA simply call it the “fountain of youth.”

Living Fit and SomaFit Wellness are located at 406 Pompton Ave. in Cedar Grove. For information, visit LivingFitNJ.com or SomaFitWellness.com.