Six Degree Flow is a yoga-based program consisting of body-weight movements chained by seamless transitions designed to improve flexibility, coordination, stamina, and strength, as well as to reduce cortisol and burn excess body fat.
The Vinyasa-like flow sequences have a compound effect on calorie burning, making them a viable alternative to regular joint-crushing cardio and can be performed anywhere with no equipment at all.
This program may be particularly suitable for young and older people who want a safe and gear-free workout protocol to improve agility, range of motion, endurance, and overall strength while getting lean at the same time. Below a detailed critique of Scott Sonnon’s bodyweight program.
POST CONTENTS
Who Is It For?
Scott Sonnon’s Six Degree Flow is suitable for those who want an equipment-free workout blueprint that can be followed for life and implemented anywhere.
It is particularly indicated for those who need not just to burn fat and strengthen muscles, but also want to restore their mobility, coordination, balance, posture, and suppleness to younger times.
The routines are very much low impact and “joint-proof”, making this program also suitable for seniors with joint issues, but the workouts are still calorie burning and demanding, thus beneficial for both fat loss and lean muscle.
For flow, the author means a Vinyasa style yoga sequence of movements. Vinyasa is the Sanskrit word for “flow”, and this particular format of yoga has apparently been proven as effective for promoting fat loss by a number of studies like this one from the American Journal of Managed Care.
This pattern of movements is allegedly proven to reduce levels of cortisol by regulating the sympathetic nervous system. Cortisol is a hormone produced during the time of physical or psychological stress.
Excessive stress and elevated cortisol levels promote weight gain particularly on the waist and belly, the most dangerous and toxic fat storage associated with cardiovascular disease, strokes, and heart attacks. This is a well-documented fact shown in many studies like this one.
Scott Sonnon also refers to another study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle showing that flow yoga does help people burn substantial amounts of fat with as little as one 30-minute session/week. Here we found this study.
The Program Outlines
Six Degree Flow is an electronic program that you can view on any device immediately upon purchase and can be implemented anywhere, no physical delivery necessary.
The program’s assumption is that when it comes to resistance training your body can’t tell a difference between a barbell, a machine, and your own bodyweight, therefore Six Degree Flow can be considered a calisthenics program designed to improve all aspects of fitness like strength, stamina, and flexibility, in a functional way.
This approach makes this blueprint ideal for those without access to a gym. The program comes with a set of PDFs manuals and follow-along video classes organized for different fitness levels.
This format makes the program user-friendly and error-proof, as many flow sequences would otherwise require a long apprentice time to be implemented.
Scott Sonnon is there in the videos showing you all the moves and transitions from one to the next. The flows are very gentle on the joints but surprisingly demanding on overall workload, hence effective for calorie burned, metabolism, fat loss, strength, flexibility, and coordination.
This is where this program is most surprising because yoga moves are usually associated with gentle workouts that do not elicit much calorie-burning whereas, in fact, the combined chain of movement patterns make up for a solid workout.
These flows may be gentle on the surface but are demanding if followed through to the end. Scott Sonnon has also taken great care to make these movements safe to perform with additional detailed coaching videos designed to familiarize yourself with the moves and avoid injury.
Just because Yoga is not power-lifting it does not mean that it is injury-proof by default and in fact, it is quite common to get hurt while performing yoga moves incorrectly.
Aside from the fat loss, the Six Degree Flow workouts are designed to strengthen the whole of your body with a comprehensive approach. Rather than viewing your body as a collection of parts as in bodybuilding routines, it targets all the muscle groups in sequence for a full-body workout.
This creates the build-up and honing of additional fitness skills like coordination, flexibility, increased range of motion, and stamina, as it works your muscles, joints, and nervous system synergically as a chain, and not individually as a factory assembly line.
The Benefits Of Six Degree Flows
When performing the Six Degree Flow routines, your body is gently coached into engaging your musculature, balance, coordination, and joints with a wide range of pushing, twisting, squatting, also called Roll and Sway, Pitch and Surge, Yaw and Heave in the program.
They are quite fun to follow along and you can do them from the comfort of your home or while traveling. Because of the calisthenic nature of these routines, you are bound to engage most of your muscles in any given position, making up for a full-body workout at the end of the session. No split routines required.
This kind of working out is proven to be effective for developing lean, functional muscles without the need for boring cardio or repetitive split routines, as it naturally increases your BMR, so you can burn off calories even while resting.
In short, Scott Sonnon’s program is in line with his usual quality output and does deliver a very effective blueprint that targets all aspects of general fitness like strength, lean muscle growth, fat loss, flexibility, coordination, balance, and injury prevention.
What Makes Six Degree Flow Different?
Six Degree Flow is more than a basic body-weight workout program.
The scope of this blueprint is to offer not just some workout routines to improve your fitness, it also helps boost your well-being all over by reducing cortisol levels and restoring the lost range of motion and flexibility.
The seamless routines are particularly beneficial for those with aching joints since they consist of smooths transitions from a body position to another without impact forces involved.
The continuous flow engages all muscles for a complete body workout without the risk of injury and in fact, even preventing it.
These routines are a kind of “bio-mechanical exercises” designed to improve flexibility, agility, range of motion, coordination, stamina, and last but not least, burn body fat and strengthen your muscles.
The movement patterns are there in place to break through the comfort zone, that is the set of personal bad hidden movements and postures that your nervous system acquired overtime to hide underlying problems with the result of making them even chronic.
The Six Degree Flow addresses this problem by tackling old postural and flexibility dysfunctions with these unusual techniques of seamless yoga transitions, restoring range, and freedom of movement.
About Scott Sonnon
Scott Sonnon is a highly regarded author and martial art expert who even has a Wikipedia article dedicated to him. He runs his own fitness brand and is deeply involved in self-defense and coaching, particularly in regard to professional training for military and tactical personnel, SWAT teams, bodyguards, or any area where action and self-defense are paramount.
He also carried over his expertise to the general public with popular bodyweight training programs designed to improve overall fitness, mobility, and strength, such as Tacfit Commando, Tacfit Warrior (reviewed here), Tacfit 26, Primal Stress, and the Six Degree Flow program reviewed here.
All of his blueprints require minimal or no equipment at all and can be done anywhere, making them ideal for gym-phobics or whoever prioritizes functional, real-life strength and athleticism over purely cosmetic or barbell strength fitness.
Scott Sonnon has had to overcome many difficult and unusual hurdles through his life, both physical and psychological, which he defeated through persistence and tenacity turning the tables around to become an accomplished martial art champion and world-class fitness coach with an impressive record of practical and formal achievements under his belt, such as:
Master of Sport degree.
Adjunct professor of physical education at Penn State University.
US National Team Coach and 5-time world martial arts champion.
Member of Mensa International.
Inducted into the National Fitness Hall of Fame, the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame, and the Personal Trainer Hall of Fame.
This list is not exhaustive by any means and much more could be said about the author which you can easily find online, but it just gives you an idea of what kind of world-class pedigree this man has.
What’s Inside The Six Degree Flow?
Six Degree Flow is an entirely digital program that you can access immediately upon purchase. It contains several components in PDF and MP4 format that you can easily access for quick reference from your smartphone, tablet, or PC wherever you are.
The electronic format cuts down to zero delivery times and also eliminates expenses like storage and shipping. However, it would be nice if a physical version was available for those who prefer hard copied and DVDs.
It is a heavy-weight program with a lot of information and you get a lot of bang for your bucks. Here is the breakdown of the components:
Main Components
The Six Degree Flow Handbook – A 26-page manual that is a kind of quick-start guide to get you moving as soon as possible. The book is quite short but it uses a no-nonsense and accurate description of what you are supposed to do and how to explain the theory behind the flow.
It makes use of detailed photos to illustrate the point, detailing what benefits each movement brings, helping you to set up your schedule with a useful FAQs section for the most common topics.
A 73-video Library – These are specific technical tutorials that teach you the techniques for correct movement, alignment, and breathing for each transition and position. It is a technical breakdown for the main follow-along video classes that you will follow later so that you are prepared to implement the workouts correctly.
The video tutorials are shot from 2 different angles to fully comprehend each move which is performed by Scott Sonnon himself.
3 Follow-Along Video Workouts – These are the core of the program, where the rubber meets the road, as you implement what you have just learned with the 26-page manual and the technique videos.
Each workout lasts for about 45/50 minutes and takes you from the warm-up through the progression and to the final cool down. You just follow Scott Sonnon through the moves anywhere you are from your phone, tablet, or PC.
3 Additional Manuals – These 3 manuals are called “Roll and Sway”, “Pitch and Surge” and “Yaw and Heave”. These manuals complement the technical video library with photos and detailed rundowns of each move that you can access for reference if you need to fully understand one or more particular moves.
FlowFit Program – This is an additional Prasara Yoga workout. The FlowFit workouts last only 14 minutes but they target the human body from every angle. FlowFit is organized for different levels of fitness and is equipment-free, except for a chair or a stool
The 2 Bonuses
Prasara Demo Video – A workout that includes a bit of everything like gymnastics, martial arts, yoga, and break-dancing.
Mobility Routine Video – A 21-minute routine designed specifically for those with significant injuries, limitations, and pains, who need a complete restoration of flexibility and range of motion.
Closing Thoughts
Six Degree Flow by Scott Sonnon is a high-quality bodyweight workout blueprint that surpasses the simple fat loss and lean muscle strength goals of typical calisthenics plans to include a much wider scope and range of fitness skills like flexibility, range of motion, stamina, injury prevention, and energy levels.
It is based on sound scientific studies and the life expertise of a world-class author who designed this program on Vinyasa-Yoga flow sequences that can be done with no equipment anywhere.
As such it is ideal for those who want to improve their fitness levels and quality of life while preventing injury and being free from gym memberships or equipment.
My name is Jay Fielding. I gained an interest in fitness since I was a child, and eventually developed my passion into a career path. I am now a Certified Personal Trainer with a natural ability to program customized body recomposition and motivate people in achieving their goals, be it gaining muscle or losing fat.
