Ann Wycoff, VIVmag (May/June 2009)

Scott Sonnon holds the honor of being the first American ever to train in post-Soviet Russia in the martial-arts discipline of Sambo, going on to become the USA National Sambo Team coach. A remarkable athlete and successful coach, Sonnon has worked with members of the National Football League, National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, Secret Service and military.

Known as the “Flow Coach,” Sonnon created Circular Strength Training (CST) in 1999, which combines joint mobility movies, strength training and flow yoga. Today, there are more than 200 CST instructors across the country. Equinox recently picked up his class for its clubs in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City, and the waiting lists to attend grow longer daily. A client of Sonnon's introduced him to the former La Femme Nikita television star Peta Wilson, 38, and the two have been actively training for the last six months, readying Wilson for her next, intensely physical role in the film 124 Degrees. “Scott is my secret weapon,” Wilson says. “I feel like I'm almost flying in another dimension after our workouts.”

The goal

“Peta called me to help her train for an action role where she fights off terrorists,” Sonnon explains. “She had to have the skills of her character: surviving outdoors, scaling rocks, running long distances and handling physical combat. Our goal was to heal her body, boost her immune system and then condition and strength train so she could handle the role and not get injured. While her appearance is important, it's not primary.”

The result

“We trained intensely for six months,” Sonnon says. “We increased her endurance so she could handle the rigorous three-month shoot in the outback of Australia. She looks great — healthy and toned, but more important, she is strong, mentally focused and ready to face the challenges of her role. Peta has a warrior's heart — out of nowhere this lioness jumps out of her.”

Fitness philosophy: Exercise as play

“Most of us have the perspective of exercise as labor — it's called working out. Yet every other mammal has a form of play to develop strength and conditioning,” says Sonnon.

“After exercising, you shouldn't feel obliterated; if you do, you are not doing it right. Rather, you should feel fantastic and have more energy. If you are physically drained, you will not have the emotional capacity to deal with your job or life. I believe you must do pre- and post-habilitation — joint mobility movies and yoga combined with strength training. Mobility can heal old or new injures, restore the body's natural healing conduits and abolish chronic pain. Mobility is the elixir of life, a truly innate fountain of wellness.”

Sonnon flew from his hometown of Bellingham, WA, to Los Angeles several times monthly to work with Wilson over the course of six months. When hi wasn't in town, Wilson trained with one of Sonnon's CST coaches five days a week for 60-90 minutes. “Because of the intensity of her role, we spent the first three months doing exercises to prime her joints to sustain high-impact exercise. Each day we'd warm up by doing 10-15 minutes of joint mobility exercises. We scaled the high-intensity interval training up from 20 to 40 minutes over time. She worked with kettlebells, Clubbells [a baseball-batlike weight Sonnon developed based on traditional Indian clubs] and glide discs. We finished with 10-15 minutes of flow yoga to unload the tension put into the body.”

Nutrition philosophy: Front-load with breakfast

“My primary job was to help Peta overcome the notion of caloric restriction. We had to increase [her food] intake because she is training like an athlete, so food is fuel,” says Sonnon. “Without protein and the building materials it needs, the body cannibalizes its own muscle.”

“A Russian proverb says: ‘Eat breakfast alone, share lunch with friends and give your dinner to your enemies.’ The largest meal should be your first: You want to front-load protein in the morning. Another key is to eat within one hour of waking up. Peta is a fairly strict vegetarian, although I got her to add some fish to her diet. For breakfast, a fist-sized piece of salmon is the right amount. You can also eat two eggs with turkey bacon or whole-wheat bread with peanut butter. Lunch means a green salad heavy with vegetables like spinach and broccoli and complex carbs like garbanzo or black beans. For dinner, Peta is on her own, but she eats vegetarian fare — vegetables and brown rice.”

For Wilson's first three months of training, Sonnon advised that she drink about a gallon of water a day. “The next three months we trained at higher intensity, so she drank more water. Over the course of the six-month training, Peta started at 1,500 calories and slowly increased her intake to 3,000 calories during peak training periods (end of the fourth month and the fifth month), then tapered down to around 1,800-2,000.”

Peta Wilson's favorite move: Into-flow series - elbows

This exercise is part of Wilson's joint mobility routine at the start of each training session. “Elbows tend to be overtrained in flexion and underused in rotation,” Sonnon says. “Rotation revitalizes connective tissue that may be fraying from chronic flexion.”

Step 1. Stand tall with your body weight evenly distributed, shoulders back, knees slightly bent. Hold bent elbows close to your rib cage, hands in a loose fist, palms facing in.

Step 2. Keeping hands in a loose fist, extend both arms straight out in front of you at chest height.

Step 3. Keeping movement fluid, rotate arms to turn inside of elbows upward.

Step 4. Bend elbows, bringing them in to your waist so hands move toward your chest.

Step 5. Lower the elbows in toward your sides so your thumbs point upward.

Step 6. Repeat 3 or 4 times, keeping the movement as fluid and relaxed as possible, then reverse the direction.

To progress do one arm at a time, then do both arms together.