BBM Connection

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

Well, I was certainly mistaken about getting back to form immediately after the last workout. A mental lassitude gripped me, and I’ve been unable to shake it for several days. I finally managed to break out today, and hopefully I’ll be able to stay out.
At any rate, it certainly seems to me that my idea of just doing six days a week isn’t really working. I don’t think I yet have the discipline to dedicate a certain day as a day of rest and stick to it. So instead, I think I’m going to return to my previous method, and just work out every day, with the caveat that I intend to listen to my body as well, and take off a day when necessary. The trick with that, of course, will be to only take days off when actually necessary, and not just because of laziness.
As for today’s workout, it went reasonably well. I was having some difficulty syncing up my breathing, especially early in the workout. I think that perhaps drained some of my energy prematurely. However, I was able to get through most of the workout, although I chose to only do one of the upward bows. I didn’t feel like I quite had the positioning right, and felt too tired to work it out with subsequent attempts. Also, I’m attempting to avoid any of the poses that strain my knees, so I’m passing on the one-legged forward bends, seated twists, and anything but basic bent leg seated positions. Hopefully this care will allow my knees to start recovering, so that I can eventually return to using them in a full range of motion. Otherwise, I hope to return to working out every day, preferably beginning with today.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

It seems to be a bit harder to get back to a consistent schedule than I expected. Motivation is the main issue, I suppose, although that’s really making the matter more simple than it is. However, I am determined to return to that type of regular schedule, so we’ll see how this all turns out.
As for the workout today, it felt like it went pretty well. My breathing was much better than last time, and I felt very solid in many of the poses. I’m continuing to make adjustments… however, I think I’m getting to be pretty good with warrior II. Of course, it’s always somewhat difficult to say for sure without knowing, and especially not being able to view the pose from the outside, as it were. Still, from descriptions and pictures, I think it’s pretty good. Did fairly well with upward bow today as well… I think perhaps the trick is to make sure the hands are high enough when you place them initially, to give the body room to expand into the bow. Not entirely sure, but I managed two today and they both felt fairly good, and they didn’t strain the quads greatly, so by my theory of pose simplicity, it’s probably at least more accurate than I was getting before. Anyway, hopefully I’ll manage to put in another workout tomorrow, and start getting in the habit of daily workouts again.

Workout: Power Yoga: Stamina, Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Did a combined PY:Stamina and PY:Strength session today. It’s been a long time since I attempted a dual session… after doing a cycle of them in September, my body was basically worn out, and I ended up later falling into a long break of little yoga. But that was largely because I wasn’t really ready for multiple sessions at that point, and forced myself into them.
This time I was definitely far more ready for a multi-session workout. I didn’t have any trouble with completing the two together, and actually felt that I probably could have completed the third as well, but didn’t want to push the matter, especially since I’ve been just slowly returning to a normal schedule, anyway. So I left it at just the two, and I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.
At any rate, the workout went pretty well… the best thing about doing them together is that I’m all warmed up for the second one. I’m not sure how much difference that really made, but it felt good, at any rate. I had a really solid crane pose today, and a pretty good simple arm balance as well. I even felt like I was improving with pendulum pose, although I still can’t get off the ground. Small steps, I guess. I’m definitely beginning to feel that these workouts were designed to be a little too quick, though. Too often you just don’t have time to actually get set into a pose before moving to the next one, and I think it’s detrimental to the workout as a whole. So while I’ll definitely continue using the video, I’ll probably be doing it less often, and working with the Total Body one more.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

Well, I certainly experienced soreness after yesterday, but it was just an ordinary soreness, not the soreness of injury. Had I attempted yesterday’s workout in the middle of January, I might not have even noticed any extra soreness from it, although I wasn’t as prepared then as I am now, so perhaps it would have been worse than I’m thinking, in retrospect. At any rate, I’m now quite confident that I wasn’t extending myself too far with the dual workout, and will probably partake of them more often in the future.
Today’s workout was really more of an exercise in warming and stretching than anything else. My hamstrings in particular were quite tight after yesterday, but they had pretty much gotten through that by the end of the workout. I think my shoulders are almost to the point where I can really rest in downward dog. One of my modifications today to avoid straining my knees was to simply stay in downward dog while the video was going through pigeon lunge. It went pretty well, I didn’t really notice any extra effort being needed to maintain the pose for considerably longer than I would normally in this workout. Hopefully that’s indicative of development, and not… well, something not as good.
I was thinking about all the little instructions that are thrown into the middle of various poses, and realizing that they have (at least) two purposes. The most obvious one is to help make subtle corrections to the poses. The less obvious, but potentially more important one, is to help you stay focused on the body and in the present. I think that’s part of the reason I’ve felt less focused lately… since I’ve gotten used to videos, I already know more or less what’s coming next, and that makes it easier to “tune out” and end up thinking about things completely unrelated. I’m going to have to keep that in mind in the future, and try to work on staying focused on the workout, not mentally wandering off.

Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 2
Author: chaos

I made a return to this session today mostly in hopes that doing a slower workout would help me to really focus in on what I was doing. I think it was fairly successful, in that I felt like I was paying a lot more attention to the poses and my movements between poses than I have been lately. I still don’t feel like I was fully there, but definitely more there than has been common recently. Hopefully I’ll start translating this into the power yoga workouts, and into my life in general.
In terms of the physical aspects of the workout, they went pretty well. I was very solid in half moon pose, more so than I have been in quite a while. I feel like I may have gained a little more understanding of the pose, but it’ll require more sessions to see if that’s true. I also did well with warrior III, having no problems with holding the pose, for a change. Crane pose also went very well, and I even got off the ground for a bit in pendulum pose. I think that I’m very slowly getting to the point where I’m going to be able to do that pose from sheer strength, if not from proper technique. Determination will eventually get me to the correct place, I’m pretty sure. I might have to stop doing tree pose for a while though, at least until my knees recover. Or perhaps modify it slightly to put less pressure on them. At any rate, it was another good session.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

Had a tough workout today. Wasn’t too sure that I was going to manage to get through the middle section, but I persevered. I’m not entirely certain why, but I became quite fatigued after the first few sets of warrior II. I think it was because my breath got out of sync with my actions, after being very well synced to start. Whether that’s because I lost focus entirely, or because I was focusing on something else and lost track of the breath, I’m not sure. I’m inclined to believe that it was the latter option tonight, since I was focusing a lot on my positioning, particularly during that stretch. So while it could be worse, I need to keep in mind that everything flows from the breath, and stay mindful of it.
During the cooldown/relaxation part of the workout I attempted to concentrate a little more on my breath, and staying inside myself and the workout. It’s a very difficult thing for me, especially lately. My mind tends to wander off at the slightest opportunity, and there are plenty of opportunities while cooling down. So it was challenging trying to remain focused and involved. I don’t really think I did all that well, but certainly better than if I hadn’t been paying attention at all. It’s something that I plan to continue working on, and will hopefully become much better at, benefiting both the mind and the body.

Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 1
Author: chaos

Went for another slow session today. I’m growing fond of these sessions again, because they really give me time to settle into poses and make adjustments. Now that my strength and understanding have increased, I want to start fine-tuning these poses, going deeper into them and increasing my flexibility. That might be the key… when I first started doing yoga, strength and endurance were my primary physical goals. Now I’ve developed some strength and endurance, and my primary physical goal is turning to increasing flexibility. I suppose this makes a certain amount of sense… at any given time, there is probably one or more attributes that you think is limiting your practice. In the beginning, it was strength primarily, and somewhat endurance. Then as strength developed, it became more endurance. Now that endurance has developed, it has become flexibility. However, I need to approach this with care, as my knees are still somewhat susceptible to being torqued. But I think that they are slowly starting to heal, so I need to maintain caution and allow them to continue the process.
The physical aspects of today’s workout went pretty well. It was pleasantly obvious that my strength has developed quite a bit since I first started practicing, as the headstand preparation sequence was hardly tiring to me at all. The two minute downward dog wasn’t a problem, aside from the fact that my hands started getting sweaty and sliding near the end. I’m not certain I’m yet up to being able to do downward dog for 5 minutes, though I imagine I’m getting closer. That might be an idea for off days, to work on extending downward dog. Depends on why I’m taking the day off, I suppose. At any rate, everything else went fairly well. Continuing to work on the torque at the waist for triangle pose, part of my attempt to increase flexibility. Overall, it was a fairly satisfactory session, though we’ll see if I tried too much on the stretches tomorrow, I imagine.

Workout: Power Yoga: Stamina
Author: chaos

I was considering doing another multi-session workout today, but after getting through the first part, I felt like the workout had been sufficient for my needs, so I decided to go ahead and leave it at that. I’m not sure if there’s a point at which the body feels worked sufficiently due to laziness or not, but regardless, I don’t think I’ve hit that point. I was a little bit sore after yesterday, mostly in the back. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if that’s because I’m doing something wrong, and slightly injuring my back, or because I’m doing something right, and using muscles in the back that I wasn’t previously. Both possibilities are fairly equally valid, unfortunately. It certainly seemed at the time like I was doing the poses correctly, but it’s hard to be sure. At any rate, all I was really looking for in today’s workout was some good stretching, and I think that I accomplished that. I also continued to work on making adjustments to the poses… I think that I’m finally starting to get about the correct amount of torque in the waist for triangle pose. I’ll need to have someone critique the pose at some point, see if I’m really getting as much twist as I think I am. Either way, it’s not like I’m going to be twisting less, I’m quite certain, so I suppose it’s not that important overall, just nice to know.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Simple sequence continuation. Had a pretty decent workout, although my breathing felt like it was off again. I had the breathing for this workout down a few times in January… not quite sure what happened, but I haven’t really been aligned with it the last few times. I think I’m not concentrating on it enough in the beginning of the workout, and then when the pace picks up, it gets out of sync. That’s my current theory, anyway.
Physically, crane went pretty well. I think I’m getting pretty close to perfect on that pose… maybe if I can straighten my arms just a little more. In theory they should be completely straight, but I don’t know that I’ve hit that yet. Simple arm balance was fairly mediocre… I set up wrong, somehow. Possibly just thought too much about it, instead of just doing it. I thought I had an insight on pendulum pose, but nothing came of that. Although I still think the progression of this workout is a little too fast, at least it’s highly repetitive so that you can anticipate what’s coming next. Saves some trouble trying to catch up. On another note, my shoulders have seemed a bit… not quite tired or fatigued, but not quite fresh lately. Not entirely certain what to make of it, really. I’m going to just keep noting their status, and take off a few days if it seems necessary. I certainly don’t want to end up having a repeat of what happened back in September when I pushed too hard and ended up taking a long time off.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

Well, I was originally thinking about doing Total Body today, but after taking a brief nap I was no longer inspired to do so. Actually, I was pretty uninspired, and was going to take the night off, but then I realized that it was really just laziness talking, and I motivated myself to get up and do this session. The session itself was fairly standard. My breathing was somewhat better tonight, much more aligned with the workout. However, I did notice that my shoulders still have that odd feeling in them. I’m anticipating that I’ll have a new workout to do in the next couple of days, which I’m predicting will probably not focus as much on poses involving the shoulders. However, I may end up needing to take a few days off anyway. For the moment I’m going to continue forward, but if this continues for more than another two workouts, I’ll probably rest a couple of days and see if that helps them recover.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

After somehow straining my neck slightly after the workout two days ago, I decided to just go ahead and take a day of rest yesterday, and let the neck and shoulders heal. The neck is fine now, and the shoulders seemed much better. So it was probably a pretty decent idea.
Today’s workout had a few interruptions. About 15 minutes in or so, the phone rang, so that threw the workout off a bit. Which was rather unfortunate, because I felt like I was starting to develop a pretty good rhythm. After that, I continued where I had left off, and managed to get back into it fairly quickly, though not quite as well as I had been. Things progressed fairly normally for a while, managed two of the three upward bows. Not quite sure what happened in the middle one, but I tried to lift up into it and my body quickly objected that it was not pleased with the position, so I released back to the ground. Then during the cooldown/relaxation part, a screaming bird decided to make a few appearances into the workout. Doesn’t matter as much with the cooldown, but it does make it more difficult to relax when there’s a sudden loud noise. Still, it was a fairly decent workout. Probably going to try out a new workout tomorrow, so we’ll see how that goes.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Tried out a new workout today. It’s part of the Abs Conditioning video… this particular workout started in my standard area, yoga. Judging from how I already feel, I think it’s going to be pretty effective. And I’m not even certain that I was getting some of the workout in… it was a little difficult to follow all the audio cues, never having done it before. It’s not terribly often that the setup of not being able to see the video becomes a problem, but I think that perhaps the first time a workout is done it’s best to be able to see it. After that, if you do it often enough you’ll be able to cue off the audio just fine. At any rate, this seems like it’s going to be a great new workout to add to the rotation. As a bonus, it doesn’t contain any downward dog poses, nor any other poses that work the shoulders. So sequencing this in should not only help with (much needed) ab work, but it also lets most of the muscle groups used in the other yoga videos rest. So it’s kind of like taking a day off, without actually taking it off. This will probably become a fairly routine workout, at least until my abs become much more developed.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

Somewhat surprisingly, my abs really weren’t noticably sore today. I could tell that they had been worked out, certainly, but I was fearing that it would be much worse than what it was. What exactly that says, I’m not certain, but I’m not going to object, either.
Did the short version of this workout today, starting with the first section and skipping to the last. I’m not quite sure if it’s fatigue, or what, but I haven’t felt like I’m quite at full strength the last few days. So while I was fairly confident that I could have done the entire workout, it seemed like it would perhaps be for the best if I didn’t. I think the parts I did do went really well… I felt like my breathing was pretty decent during the first section, and that I was relaxing appropriately for the last section. I still have a lot of trouble with the relaxing parts, but I think that it went fairly well today. Anyway, I’ll probably try to get in another abs workout tomorrow, to start building up more strength in that area, which I think will probably benefit many of the other poses, particularly arm balances.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Well, due to circumstances somewhat beyond my control, decided not to do the abs workout today. But it should be a definite go for tomorrow.
Had a pretty decent routine today. My breathing was fluid pretty much throughout the entire workout, which was good, although I wasn’t using the ujjayi breath, which was unfortunate. If I don’t get going with that right in the beginning, I find it hard to pick up in the middle. Probably just because I’m not familiar enough with using it yet.
I definitely felt like I was a little more connected with the workout today than I have been lately. I wonder if it has anything to do with the lighting. I think that at least in terms of recent workouts, I’ve felt more connected with a workout when it was done with less light in the room. I may have to experiment with that a bit more. Anyway, I felt like I was far more aware of myself than usual, especially lately, and that let me notice some different things and tweak things a little. It’d be nice if I could keep up that level of awareness, but we’ll see.
Physically, crane pose was so-so… I didn’t set up quite correctly, so I was a bit off balance while doing it. I think simple arm balance was better, though, and I might have gained a bit more understanding of the proper balance. As always, we’ll have to wait and see. Not much to note other than that, besides the fact that after the first couple of minutes, my shoulders stopped feeling the fatigue that they have been lately. That’s a bit odd, in that they’ve typically felt worse as the workout progresses, so maybe it’s an indication of healing. At any rate, will almost certainly do an abs workout tomorrow, and work from there.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Went in for the second round of this new workout today. I’d have to say that it was even more deliciously abusive than the first time. The strange thing about it is that the abs feel worked for a while, but it goes away relatively quickly, as opposed to lingering for days. Well, that’s what happened the first time, at any rate. I’ll find out in the next day or two if that will be true of this workout.
It’s quite amazing, in a way, how effective a slow workout with relatively few repetitive movements is. I suppose that’s mainly because most of the movements are held for a few seconds, really targeting the abdominal area by holding it in a “working” position. It’s similar to the principle of negatives in weight lifting, where you force the muscle to slowly work in the opposite direction to theoretically maximize gain. At any rate, it certainly seems effective… though I can’t tell it yet, I’m sure my abs are becoming stronger already.
I might take a couple of days off… my body has been feeling slightly beaten up the last few days, and doesn’t seem to be fully recovering. I’ll probably start monitoring the situation very closely, and go day by day on workouts. If I decide to take a day off, I’ll probably take two or three, just to let the body fully recover, hopefully. So I might not do another workout before abs again, which would probably be in another three days. Further information as events warrant, as always.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, the theory is, “no pain, no gain”. I certainly hope that’s accurate, because it means that there will be gain out of this workout. Going to this workout for the third time, it seems that if anything, each time I do it the workout gets harder, and my abs seem to be in more pain. I have two current theories to explain this. I figure that either my abs haven’t fully recovered from the last time each time I do the workout, and thus it’s an accumulation effect, or my technique has been improving, and making the workout more challenging because it’s more complete. Or, possibly, and perhaps the most likely, a combination of the two. I definitely felt like I was doing a better job today of keeping track of everything, making sure my face and neck stayed relaxed while working on my abdominals. Certainly not perfect, by any means, but I think as long as I stay focused I’ll get there. The boat poses near the end of the workout are really killer, though. However, I’m feeling pretty good overall, and looking to get back to the other workouts again tomorrow, quite possibly with Total Body.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I was originally planning on getting in a couple of good workouts these last couple of days. Unfortunately, I seem to have come down with a head cold of some variety. It’s made the last few days somewhat unpleasant overall, and made workouts that would involve having the head inverted seem somewhat unwise. Thus, as much as I would have liked to get some workouts in under normal circumstances, I decided that waiting and resting was probably the better option.
At any rate, I felt ready to go with another abs workout today. Still not feeling all that great, but since the workout doesn’t involve hardly any inverting of the head, it seemed like it would be a fairly safe workout to partake of. It went pretty well… in fact, it was the first time that the workout hasn’t seemed harder than the last time. It felt like I was much more able to maintain concentration on keeping my neck and face relaxed while doing the poses, and the poses themselves seemed easier. Hopefully this means that the muscle is starting to build, and fairly soon the workout will become fairly routine, if not necessarily easy. At any rate, I’m hoping to be recovered from this cold soon, and will resume other workouts as soon as that happens.