BBM Connection

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I’m starting my attempt to have better sleeping habits this week. I might even try to throw in some improvements in my eating habits, while I’m getting all crazy. In practice, this will mean that my nights won’t be quite as late, and hopefully, my mornings will be a little earlier as well. I think that it should go fairly well, overall, and I also think that I’ll be much happier overall getting a decent amount of sleep. Or at least, an amount of sleep above minimal.
I actually forgot my abs disc over at a friend’s house last week, so I did a self directed session tonight. I was actually pretty happy with it, overall, except for briefly forgetting what part I was in. But it wasn’t a part that I really associate with the meat of the workout, so whatever. I do like to try and get in as close to the actual as possible, but I’m certainly not going to beat myself up over minor slips. Anyway, in support of that effort to have better habits, I’m going to head off to bed now. Until tomorrow…

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Finally got back to this workout. Also managed to drag fellow author mlee into it. Although perhaps drag isn’t really the right word… he went willingly, if without full knowledge. Not that full knowledge would really have been possible. Anyway, I thought it went fairly well. Probably not my best strength session, definitely not my worst. Especially at the beginning of the workout, I felt like I was doing a better job with extending my spine without straining my hamstrings. I noticed this in particular because I started out by tightening the hamstrings, like I normally do, and then relaxed them and figured out how to length and extend in a different way. Which is probably the way I should have been doing it all a long. Oh well. Slow learner, I guess. Anyway, it’s possible that I’m even going to make workouts with mlee a roughly weekly event, so we’ll see how that goes. Not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow night… probably nothing too long, but I might avoid abs for tomorrow, just to get more actual workouts in. But perhaps I’ll do pilates or something. Until then…

Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 2
Author: chaos

The yoga for strength sessions have been extremely infrequent in the last few months. I’m not really sure why that is… I suppose it’s because the faster paced workouts feel like they take less time. I suppose they do take less time than session 1, but not session 2. I guess I was also worried about the jumping that occurs during the workout shaking the house, but that doesn’t seem to actually be a problem.
The physical aspects of the session didn’t go all that well. Half moon was okay but not good, warrior III was very shaky on both sides, and tree pose once again was poor. I’m noticing that I seem to have particular problems lately with the poses that require me to balance on one leg. Perhaps because I’ve been slacking off so much on non-abs workouts, my ability to balance has been deteriorating. Perhaps it’s mostly the extra cushioned surface that I’m doing the workouts on. Maybe it’s a combination thereof.
The workout wasn’t a complete loss, though. Well, I suppose it’s never a complete loss, although it occasionally feels like it. Anyway, the mental aspects were okay. In a sense. I feel like I continue to gain understanding lately. Like realizing that part of my problem with warrior III in the past was that my legs were starting wider than hip distance apart. And realizing that I’ve gotten much better at understanding the subtle directions that are thrown into the workout. Not that I’m particularly good at following them, necessarily, but at least I understand them now. Hopefully the ability to execute will come in time.
I suppose I should try to get to sleep. I’ve been failing to get my desired six hours of sleep a night thus far this week, but if I manage to fall asleep quickly, I might manage tonight. I have a feeling that I’m going to be lying awake for a long time, but I suppose I have to give it a try. I’ll probably go for something abs related tomorrow, but I might do something else depending on how I feel and how much time I have or am willing to spend.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Pilates
Author: chaos

Had a pretty good workout tonight. Well, it hurt a lot, but I think it was pretty effective overall. Tonight was the first time I really felt like I’ve held form pretty much throughout. It was tough going at times, particularly the end of the “series of five”, but I managed to struggle through, not just doing it halfway, but actually keeping up. Although it’s somewhat difficult to say if that’s really accurate, because I might have better form on some of the workouts if I wasn’t always doing them while tired. So perhaps there is still better form to be had. At any rate, there wasn’t a large degradation of form at any point. Additionally, I feel that my rockers are getting better, as I’m more able to actually balance now, both at the start and between reps. The thing that probably still gives me the most trouble overall are the circle motions, since my legs and hips really don’t like flexing in those manners all that much. Not in a painful way, just in that they don’t have much flexibility or familiarity with those types of motion. Still, I do feel that I continue to improve overall, and that my days of rest between abs workouts are quite beneficial at this time. For now, I should probably get to bed soon, and maybe be just a little short on my theoretical six hours of sleep. I’ll probably lie awake again for a while tonight, but hopefully not too long. It’s fairly likely that I’ll drive tomorrow before working out, and may end up not getting the workout in as a result, but if that’s what happens, then so be it. I’m certainly not adverse to taking one day a week off, especially if it lends overall stability to my practice.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

I ended up being pretty exhausted last night, and decided that bed was the best option at that time. I still wanted to get a workout in, though, and I ended up deciding to do so this afternoon. It was decent… I think I’m getting better about remembering not to overextend my hamstrings, particularly early in the workout, before they’re warmed up. They did seem moderately stiff today to start… I think that it’s just a “morning” thing. Yoga is often recommended to be done in the morning, so I wonder if there are any benefits associated with stretching while the muscles are still stiff from sleeping. Something to look into, perhaps.

Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 1
Author: chaos

Had (what I felt to be) a really good workout tonight. I have no idea why, but I felt a lot more in touch with my body than usual during the workout. Particularly during the vinyasa sequence, where I could really feel the motions as I went through them. Kind of hard to explain, I guess. It wasn’t really like the epiphany I had a number of months ago, but it was related. A greater understanding of what I was actually doing, how I was breathing, and all that. That alone made the workout worthwhile.
The physical aspects went pretty well, too. Largely because of the increased understanding and communication with the body, I believe. It seemed like I could have really done a lot of stuff where I pulled too hard, or tried to torque too much, or things like that, but instead I let my body tell me how far it could go, and worked with that. So that was a somewhat novel, but pleasant experience. I did feel fairly tight again, particularly at the beginning of the workout. Not as tight as earlier today, but still. Don’t really know what to make of that.
Anyway, I feel that my practice is being rejuvenated somewhat. Perhaps bringing the yoga for strength workouts back into the rotation is a sign of this, or perhaps that’s what is causing me to feel there’s a rejuvenation. Perhaps it’s simply because I’ve had a number of good workouts in the last week or so. In any case, I’m going to try to keep up with it, and hopefully maintain this slightly elevated level of practice, and continue to build on it.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Balanceball
Author: chaos

Well, perhaps they haven’t really been abandoned, but it is starting to feel like it. It’s been a fair while since I’ve done this workout, although admittedly there are better reasons for this workout to be absent than any of the others. Namely, lack of access to a ball. The result, anyway, has been not getting this workout into the abs rotation. Which I don’t think is that big of a deal, particularly with the pilates workout having increased time, but it does target a slightly different area. I did notice that today, that it really felt like it was working the deep abdominal area more than the other workouts. I also felt like my form and understanding were a lot better today. Whether this was because of the general increase in understanding that I’ve been experiencing lately, or if it’s related to my increased understanding of pilates, I’m not sure. Either way, I definitely felt more in touch with the workout than I have in the past, and could really target the areas that it was working. Something like that. This workout ended up taking the place of the workout that I normally would have done last night, so I’m going to try and get another workout in later tonight. We’ll see if that happens, though. I’d really like to get total body in one of these days, perhaps even tonight.

Workout: Power Yoga: Stamina
Author: chaos

I really felt like I should be getting in a workout tonight, but I really wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed like I had run through pretty much all of my options (except total body) recently, and I really didn’t feel like any of them. I definitely wasn’t up for more abs, as my abs are still feeling some of the effects from the balanceball workout earlier. So I eventually decided that I’d just do the minimum workout, and went with stamina. It was a little disappointing, actually… I think my recent return to the slower workouts is helping me realize just how rushed this set of power workouts is. I think I’m probably going to start getting away from them again, and going to partial runs of PY:Total Body when I want to do the power yoga type workouts. We’ll see if I actually get to that or not, or if I just continue as I have been. Anyway, still hoping to get a full total body workout in soon, but I may settle for a partial sometime before that happens. Wait and see, I suppose.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Pilates
Author: chaos

Took a few days off, more or less intentionally. Actually got a decent amount of sleep last night, for a change. So I went for the pilates challenge this morning. It wasn’t a bad workout, by any means, but didn’t really match the last couple. I think part of that was doing it after waking up… my body really doesn’t seem to function as well at that time. And my hips seemed to be really stiff. I have no idea why my hips (and maybe thighs) would get so stiff while sleeping, but I’m thinking that might be where the stiffness is primarily concentrated in the morning. Kind of weird. Overall, though, it was still pretty good. I had some problems with my rolling balances, though, although I had figured it out by the end. So that could just be a morning/memory issue. Anyway, I’ll probably try to pick it back up over the weekend, and hopefully actually get a full total body workout in during that time.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: Kristi

Today I finally did yoga again, and boy are my abs happy.

This required finding my abs dvd, which I finally did last week I think. Today I have the day completely off, so I decided to go for it.

It went well, though because I haven’t done it for so long, I had a hard time remembering what he was talking about and had to look up a lot more. I think I’ve decided that total body workout is the only one that has to be done in the morning, so I’m ready to start doing yoga more frequently.

We’ll see if that happens. There is a lot of knitting to be done, after all.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

There was another dearth of motivation in the past week. It was a bit of a toss up, really… some days I wasn’t motivated, other days I didn’t leave myself time. Whatever the reason, though, it’s been almost a week since my last workout. I’m fairly annoyed with myself about that… it really shouldn’t be that hard to get the workout in consistently. It’s mostly about the lack of mental discipline right now.
Anyway. Today’s workout was definitely more difficult than I would have expected, given that I’ve had nearly a week of rest. My only real explanation is that I was hungry, and therefore some small amount of stomach rumbling was being confused for abs pain. And, of course, working out in the morning is never one of my strong suits, so that was probably a factor as well. Anyway, I’m hoping that this will mark the end of this period of slacking off, and I’ll get some good workouts in during the next week.

Workout: Power Yoga: Stamina
Author: chaos

Managed to get a stamina workout in this morning. I can’t say that I’m particularly pleased with doing the morning workouts, but it’s better than not doing them at all. It wasn’t too bad, really… I didn’t experience the stiffness that I’ve felt during some of the morning workouts. I think that’s partly because I’ve learned to extend in a different way. Which, overall, is probably a good thing. The pace of the workout didn’t seem quite as frenetic as it usually does, but I think that’s largely because I’m anticipatory of some of the movements, and already heading into them before he actually says them. Anyway, I fully intend to do an evening workout tonight, so hopefully that will get me back to the late schedule.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Due to some unexpected events, I actually didn’t manage to get in a workout last night. The anticipated video display device ended up not being available. In the end, I think that was okay, because I then managed to get a lot more sleep than I was expecting. Which certainly isn’t a bad thing for me. Anyway, when I got up this morning, I didn’t quite have enough time to do one of the video workouts (well, I did, but I figured setup time would negate the extra time), so I decided just to do some general warm up and create my own vinyasa sequence. In the end, I think it was fairly similar to the PY:Stamina workout, sequenced a little differently and done more slowly. I also incorporated a few elements of the flexibility workout, but that was mostly it. It felt pretty good, although I strangely didn’t breathe as well as I would have liked during it. I need to learn to be able to sequence and maintain breathing at the same time, I think.
After the workout, I went out to play ultimate for the first time in over two years. It went more or less as I expected… most of my skills in terms of handling are the same, I’m still fast and can jump, and I’m still not in the type of cardio shape necessary to play a hard game of ultimate for more than, say, five minutes. So the rest of the time I was pretty much playing in bursts, and getting fairly killed on defense. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll be able to play a few more times in the next couple of months, and I should get a little better. Really, I think if I were still doing as much yoga as I was in June or July, I’d have been much better off. Oh well. It was still a lot of fun, even if I did lightly skin both my knees. When they talk about people that never learn, I’m one of them. Anyway, not entirely certain what the workout schedule will look like for the next week or so, but I’m hoping to stay pretty steady throughout. So until next time…

Workout: Free Form
Author: Your Insatiable One

Since I started yoga again, I have been using a workout based around sun salutations. Currently, it’s four (2 x left leg, 2 x right leg) modified sun salutations + stretching/relaxing exercises at the end. The deviations from the orthodox version include a leg extension from downward dog that returns to a downward dog, a leg exercise - warrior I, warrior II, triangle pose, extended side angle pose - afterwards and another downward dog following that up. Recently, I’ve been working in warrrior I -> warrior III and triangle pose -> half moon pose into this workout, but it is very much a work in progress. Overall though, I do lilke the workout - it seems to hit the right balance of taxing the muscles and restorative elements. I probably will need to increase the intensity and/or lengthen the work out once I get more comfortable with it.

For now, I’m not going to any classes. Things are too uncertain financially and time-wise to commit to such an endeavour at this point. I do hope that I’ll be able to do so during the new year.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

As I somewhat anticipated, I didn’t get a workout in anytime yesterday. It was a pretty busy day overall, and I was quite sore from playing ultimate the day before. I was actually still pretty sore this morning, but I decided to go ahead and get a workout in to see if that would help loosen my muscles. I don’t know if it was overly successful, although I’m sure it didn’t hurt matters any. Nothing of note to report, really, just another standard flexibility workout. Not sure how late I’ll be out tonight, although I suspect not too late. Depending on what happens, I might try to get the workout in tonight or possibly tomorrow morning, although I would like to get back to the evening schedule. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Another morning abs session. This is the second time that I’ve had more difficulty with the session than I think I should be having. I’m not certain what the problem is… I definitely think hunger was less of a factor this time. Of course, it didn’t seem as hard as last time, but still more than it should have been. Not having done any other abs workouts in that time, it’s difficult to say if it’s a distinctly abs problem or not. If it is, then I have to figure out why it’s happening, and how to fix it. If it’s just a morning thing, perhaps I just have to avoid doing the abs workouts in the morning. I should have a little more time for workouts this week, and will hopefully switch to an evening schedule, so I’ll probably be able to collect a bit more data in the next few days.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

Well, I really didn’t intend on doing this particular workout tonight, at least not the entire thing. I guess things just happen that way sometimes. Anyway, it was a decent if not great workout. It was definitely good to get back to this workout after a two month absence. I felt like I was working a bit too hard on my warrior poses, but that’s almost to be expected. I don’t know. Not a lot of strong impressions right now, and I should really get to sleep, so I think I’ll cut this short. I do definitely feel like I had a strong workout tonight, as opposed to a lot of the ones I’ve had recently. Hopefully I’ll get back into the habit of getting this workout in on a regular basis.

Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 1
Author: chaos

Well, despite the fact that I certainly had time to do many workouts the last few days, I apparently didn’t have the motivation to do them. Not entirely sure why that is… perhaps it was a matter of not being ready when I felt like it, and not feeling like it when I had the time. Something like that, anyway.
Decent session 1 workout today, though. It’s always interesting to me how one can continue to pick up on subtle details in the workout even after having done the workout dozens of times. Today I took particular notice of the detail to raise the lower ribs towards the back. My interpretation of this is that it helps provide proper form for downward dog by causing one to lift up towards the back and get full extension. That’s what I think as of now, anyway. I’ll perhaps try to get another workout in later tonight, depending on how I feel after driving. I would like to do an evening abs workout, to see if I’ve been losing strength, or just adversely affected by doing morning workouts.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Managed to convince myself to do the abs yoga workout tonight. It went well, about what I’d expect from having many days off from abs. I don’t know that there was anything particularly special about the workout, just that I felt pretty good in movements and strength. It does lead me to tentatively conclude that the problems I experienced during my last couple of abs workouts were related to the fact that I was doing morning workouts. It seems that while my body doesn’t care for morning workouts of any sort, it makes abs work in the morning particularly unpleasant. Which, now that I consider it, is really odd, because Rodney recommends doing the abs workout in the morning. It could be a side effect of my not eating enough in the evening, though, such that my stomach is in a state of protest while I’m trying to exercise muscles adjacent to it. Whatever the case, I’ll probably try to limit abs work to evening sessions for the time being, at least until my eating habits improve, or at least stabilize somewhat.

Workout: Yoga for Energy
Author: chaos

I was in the mood to try something a little bit different tonight, so I decided to give the yoga for energy workout a try. It’s actually on the video owned by fellow author mlee (although, admittedly, you wouldn’t necessarily know he’s an author if I didn’t keep bringing it up), so I have had relatively little opportunity to do it before. Although I typically like to watch videos like this at least once before trying them, I just decided to go ahead and dive in tonight, for some reason. It went reasonably well… going into the workout, I knew that it should be in five sections, and that the auditory cues would be fairly minimal. Both of these things were true, the auditory cues being perhaps more minimal than ideal. Of course, I don’t believe the workout is really intended to be done ideally the first couple of times you do it, so perhaps once you’re a little more familiar with the routine, the reduced instruction helps you focus. Most of the poses were familiar, the only completely new one to me being the revolved triangle pose. I didn’t quite get that one, as the video was moving quickly enough that I was having a bit of trouble keeping up at that point, due to my unfamiliarity. Everything else I had done before, although I couldn’t do half-lotus forward bends, of course. I was a little surprised to have three upward bows during the course of the workout, but those all went well enough, as well as the half moon poses and warrior III poses. Overall, it seems like it was a fairly satisfactory workout, if not terribly aerobic. I’m sure I’ll be getting back to it again at some point, probably in the next few months while I still have relatively ready access to it.