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Workout: Power Yoga: Stamina
Author: chaos

Well, I was hoping to start getting a little more consistent with my workouts this week, but after physical therapy on Wednesday, my left arm ended up being really sore for the rest of the day. It was still moderately sore on Thursday, as well. Yesterday I finished up the physical therapy, and while my arm wasn’t particularly sore, I decided to go ahead and rest it another day. Today, my upper chest was pretty sore from doing inclined pushups, but I’ve been feeling pretty restless about getting back into the yoga workouts, so I decided to just go ahead with a light stamina workout.
Not all that much to say about the workout, other than while light, it was probably a pretty decent choice. I felt like I was getting some work in, but nothing that was really causing strain for my arm or anything. I can’t say that I felt particularly good during the workout, but I didn’t feel particularly bad, either. Just not quite in the groove, I guess. Anyway, I’m going to try to get a workout in tomorrow, quite possibly balanceball abs, and then I should manage to go for at least the next week getting workouts in daily, barring injury.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Balanceball
Author: chaos

Went with the balanceball abs workout today. It went reasonably well, although I had a lot of trouble with the crunch actions at the beginning of the workout. Especially the ones working the obliques. Not quite sure why it was so difficult, but I really wasn’t down with those today. Maybe I’ve just been slacking off too much on abs lately. Anyway, I was a little concerned that I wasn’t going to make it through the workout, but it got easier after that… really, it was just that section that was problematic. Still, it felt like a pretty good workout. I’m going to try to head out early today, to hopefully get a relatively decent amount of sleep tonight. A revolutionary thought, to be sure. I have a sense that I’m not going to be sleeping too terribly much this week, though. Anyway, I plan on doing a free form stretching workout too early in the morning, so we’ll see how that goes.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

The workout felt pretty good this morning. Getting up was pretty hard, as I had trouble falling asleep and only ended up getting around three hours, but once I managed to drag myself out of bed and get on the mat, I suddenly really got into the workout. I started off with the intro to total body, as it makes a pretty decent warmup for the muscles in general, good to get going. Unfortunately, time was a bit of a concern today, so instead of continuing on with the total body workout, I did the next section in the style of the stamina workout. I did the triangle/side angle pair, then the warrior I/warrior II pair. After that I did the deep lunge… I really like the stretch that I get from that, particularly on ultimate days. Then I did the hip stretch from the all sports mini-workout, and finished off with seated forward bend and relaxation pose. I was pretty encouraged by the workout… I felt really into it, in a way that I haven’t felt for a while. Hopefully I can continue that trend, particularly if I manage to avoid injury in the upcoming weeks.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Well, I seem to have contracted some sort of cold. Not terribly surprising… I’ve been exposed to sick people a lot in the last two weeks or so, so it would have been fairly surprising to avoid getting sick entirely. It seems to be a bit of a head cold, so it could be worse. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling particularly much like getting out of bed this morning, but I eventually managed to drag myself up and get a workout in. Given my condition, there wasn’t a whole lot of inspiration… I decided to just go for my classic free form workout. Six sun salutations, incorporating triangle, side angle, warrior I, and warrior II, followed by a little bit of stretching. Certainly nothing terribly exciting, but I did feel quite a bit better after finishing the workout, so I’d have to say that it was worth it. I’m planning on heading in to work, but I may end up cutting the day a little short, if things don’t improve, which I’m not really sure they will. Unfortunately, it seems like the day is probably only going to be downhill from here. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be reasonably recovered by tomorrow, and able to play ultimate.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Since I knew I was sick and needed some extra sleep, I set my alarm a little later today. I was hoping that I’d defy my usual pattern and just get out of bed when the alarm went off, but of course that didn’t happen. However, I had already made the decision that I’d be okay with getting into work a little later today, so I wasn’t overly bothered by this. I did feel that I needed to do a slightly shorter workout since I had taken so much longer than I was expecting to get up, though. This led to a somewhat quicker pace in the workout than I usually take with the free form workout, more up to the speed of the swimming mini-workout, at least in the beginning. I also changed up what I normally do a little, trying to stretch out my hamstrings, since they were feeling a little tender and tight. I started with the normal two sun salutations, then integrated triangle, warrior II, a forward bend over the front leg with the legs in the same position as triangle (from PY:Flexibility), and a deep lunge stretch. I finished off with wide angle seated forward bend, and the seated twist from the all sports mini-workout. I think it might be one of the Mariachi’s poses, or perhaps a variation on one of them. Anyway, it went decently, even though I had to fight a little with keeping my breathing passages clear. Hopefully I’ll manage to get some decent sleep tonight, as I’ve been having trouble falling asleep the last few nights, despite being tired. I’ll quite possibly go for an abs workout tomorrow morning, provided I’m capable of leaving the bed.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes: Mini-workouts
Author: chaos

Well, I became somewhat more ill after Wednesday, enough so that I skipped the workout on Thursday entirely. I was feeling somewhat better today after leaving work early on Thursday and getting a decent amount of sleep for the first time this week. Still, feeling a bit lightheaded, and not entirely certain how well ultimate is going to go today. But I’m going to make an attempt, anyway, and see what happens. So in preparation for that, I decided to go with the swimming and running mini-workouts. I hit my thigh on the wall pretty hard on Wednesday, so I was trying to stretch that out a little, in addition to the normal hamstring stretching. I also slept in a little this morning, trying to maximize the rest for the events of the day. Anyway, nothing too exciting to say about the workout, pretty standard. At this point I’m probably going to be focusing more on getting healthy in the next couple of days than on workouts, so I may be either taking the days off or doing light workouts until I’ve fought off this cold.

Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 2
Author: chaos

Well, while I was certainly recovering over the weekend, I wasn’t really entirely well. So while I considered doing a workout yesterday, I eventually decided to just go ahead and take another day to rest up. After the workout tonight, it seems like that was probably a good idea… for some reason, I’ve been quite tired today, although I’ve mostly gotten over the cold symptoms. Just a little bit of congestion remaining, really. Anyway, I was considering doing a free form workout, but I might be doing quite a few of those in the next couple of weeks, so I thought perhaps I should go with something structured. I wasn’t quite sure what, but then I decided that I should start on the process of testing my arm strength, and building it back up, if necessary. Pleasantly, I didn’t have any trouble with the arm at all… if I hadn’t known I broke a bone five weeks ago, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to figure it out from the workout. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the highlight of the workout… the general fatigue that I felt for much of the day continued through the workout. Predictiably, this led to difficulty with the more complicated balances, although the simple ones were fine. I did seem to be a little lightheaded after the opening sequence, but that might have been from standing up too quickly. Anyway, I had some shakiness in half moon and warrior III, and tree pose was a disaster in both directions. But I think those are all attributable to the lingering vestiges of illness, perhaps combined with the lack of practice lately. However, after I get through the next few weeks, I should have at least a solid month to devote to the practice, provided I don’t injure myself again before that. Anyway, good to get a workout in, and I’ll probably try for an abs workout tomorrow, as I attempt to start making the practice regular again.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Well, it seems my plans to get back into a normal routine right away were somewhat sidetracked. This was mostly laziness, although I have been continuing to experience some fatigue over the last few days. Unfortunately, I think that this is probably because I’ve been neglecting my nutrition for most of the last week or so. Arguably, I’ve been neglecting my nutrition for most of the past 10 years or so, but that’s a slightly different matter. Anyway, the end result was that I didn’t motivate up to do a workout either of the previous two days.
However, I do have limits on my yoga related laziness (general laziness is nearly unbounded), so although I was still feeling somewhat fatigued tonight, I knew the time had come to actually get a workout in. I wasn’t quite feeling up to one of the long workouts, but didn’t want to let myself off the hook too easily, either. So I settled on the PY:Strength workout. I felt it would further affirm the complete healing of my arm, as well as being a stepping stone towards the longer workouts. It went okay… I was definitely feeling the effects of the fatigue during the workout, as some of the poses took more effort than usual to do, but it wasn’t too bad, overall. I’m definitely feeling a little more tired than I should after the workout, but again, that’s not unexpected. I think I’m going to head down to the kitchen and try to bring my calorie count for the day up to a somewhat more reasonable level now, and hopefully start chasing this fatigued feeling away.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

I had a really hard time getting to this workout tonight. I was short on sleep last night, and had a fairly busy day, by my usual standards. Well, busy in terms of getting things done. One of those rare days during which I accomplish many of the tasks that have been gathering for months. That’s usually fairly fatiguing, at least mentally. Anyway, I’m guessing it was some combination of these factors that were causing me to feel so tired this evening. I nearly talked myself out of doing a workout at all, but in the end I managed to convince myself that it was necessary.
I have to say that I’m fairly happy that I did manage to convince myself. My hamstrings were feeling sore again, and I knew that I should stretch them, but being tired was clouding my judgment. Anyway, the stretches ended up feeling pretty good, at least while they were happening. And I felt really flexible, which was a little odd, but certainly appreciated. As I expected, the strength stuff felt pretty easy, especially after yesterday’s workout. I did notice that I wasn’t quite able to do the floating jump at first, but then I managed to get a pretty good float for my last one. Which is quite odd, really… usually it deteriorates as I get tired. I think I had forgotten how to do it, somewhat, and just happened to remember at the end, but since I wasn’t particularly tired, I could still do it. That’s my current theory. For now, I’m going to take a quick shower and possibly rest a little bit before making an airport collection run, and hopefully crashing after returning from that.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Ended up taking yesterday off, due to much sleeping and very sore hamstrings. I wasn’t surprised at the soreness… one day I’ll be able to stretch as much as I did on Friday and not be sore the next day, but I’m certainly not there yet. Anyway, just decided to go ahead and take the day off, probably my last for a while, barring injury or oversleeping. I was originally planning on a balanceball workout today, but decided that I’m going to need all the energy I can muster for the next week and a half, and just went with a simple yoga abs workout, instead. It wasn’t bad… I’ve certainly had better, but then again, I’ve had much worse, too. My hamstrings are still somewhat sore, but they did get a little bit of stretching, and hopefully will be mostly recovered by tomorrow morning. I’m planning on one of my fairly standard light workouts in the morning, getting ready for ultimate. It should be enough to get rid of any lingering soreness, and hopefully prepare me for the rigors of my final week or so of indoor ultimate.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Ugh. In a not particularly unexpected turn of events, I had a difficult time getting to sleep last night. I eventually managed to get around 3 hours of sleep, which is really about the best I could have anticipated. Well, I tried for 4.5 or so, but that wasn’t terribly likely. Anyway, I managed to haul myself out of bed without too much difficulty, and get into the workout.
I modified the standard free form workout a little… I decided to do a little more in terms of stretching, or at least I felt like it gave a little more in terms of stretching. Started normally, two sun salutation sequences, two more incorporating triangle and side angle, then started modifying. Did a warrior II sequence, then went for a backbend lunge. Went from the backbend lunge to wide angle standing forward bend. Had a bit of transition trouble coming out of that… I’ll need to work on my sequencing a little bit. Anyway, did the all sports twist, finished off with reclining twist and relaxation pose. I was fairly happy about the stretching I was getting, so no real complaints about the workout, overall. Hopefully I’ll manage to run through the week this time without interruption… as long as I don’t get injured, I think I’ll be able to manage.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes: Mini-workouts
Author: chaos

Another day that it was difficult to get up. Another hour or three really would have helped, but I was eventually forced to make do. I wasn’t really in the mood for an abs workout, and wanted to do a directed workout so that it would be time limited. I figured some light stretching would be good, and so went for running and swimming. I’ve been feeling a little more in touch with the poses lately… that continued today, which is really about all I have to say about the workout. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to make a lot of progress next month, as long as I continue this awareness of self. I’m planning another free form workout way too early tomorrow morning, so as long as I don’t oversleep a lot, I should be getting some more good stretching in then.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

In a fairly unusual occurrence for a Tuesday night, I had trouble getting to sleep last night. Unfortunately, this meant that I ended up getting less than 2 hours of sleep. I think it was closer to an hour and a half, but it was broken up somewhat, so it’s hard to say for sure. This is going to cause great anguish in the afternoon, I think, but I digress.
For the workout, I continued with the modification to my standard free form workout that I did on Monday. I made a few small additions… I threw in the extended leg standing forward bend from py:flexibility between the warrior II sequence and the backbend lunge sequence, and I threw in a seated forward bend before the reclined cobbler’s pose. I may or may not have done the reclined cobbler’s pose last time… I don’t actually remember. I also didn’t do the reclining twist this time. Anyway, I liked some of the stretching I was doing, although I think I may try doing the extended leg standing forward bend with hands in namaste behind the back next time. Hopefully over the weekend I’ll give myself enough time to do one of my long workouts… I’m actually favoring YCfA at the moment. I just have this impression of having gotten a lot of good stretching work in the last time I did the full workout, and I’ve really been in the mood for that this past week or two. Anyway, I’ll probably hit up abs tomorrow, so as not to slack off on those too much.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Well, I at least managed to get some more sleep last night. Not really a sufficient amount, but an improvement over what I had been getting. I still ended up staying in bed somewhat longer than I was originally planning on, but it didn’t really end up mattering. I went with the same free form workout that I did on Monday, just to keep the time down a little bit. It went pretty well, stretches felt good, etc. My hamstrings haven’t been terribly sore the last few workouts, which is nice. Will probably be playing DDR later today after ultimate, so hopefully my stretching will be adequate. I’m hoping to get a more complete workout in tomorrow, possibly even an hour long workout.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I originally planned on getting up a few hours earlier today, but then again, I originally planned on going to sleep maybe five or so hours before I did, so it’s not surprising that there was a little bit of give there. Anyway, I had somewhere I wanted to be, but I didn’t want to skip the workout again, so I just went with the yoga abs routine. It was actually a little difficult, surprisingly… or at least, I noticed it more than I really expected to. I suppose I really haven’t been doing abs all that much recently… that’ll probably change soon, as I try to get longer workouts in, and probably start doubling up abs with something else for the shorter workouts. Nothing much else to report, I’m almost certainly going to do a long workout tomorrow, probably the full YCfA.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Finally managed to get the long workout in. Also, perhaps not uncoincidentally, managed to get a good amount of sleep last night. I’ve been anticipating getting a long workout in all week, and was originally considering doing both this workout and the total body workout over the weekend. Due to my lack of sleep and other plans, I only ended up getting to this one, but I think that I’ll soon be moving to a model of averaging an hour of working out on most days, so it’s not all that bad. Not a whole lot of highlights to this workout… I continue to focus on improving my overall flexibility, and also continue to maintain awareness of my body, particularly when flexibility is involved. I think that’s going to be a focus over the next month, as well as working on my mental awareness and focus, and trying to expand my repertoire of poses, primarily through the intermediate yoga workout. For the next couple of days, probably back to short stretching workouts, and possibly an abs workout on Tuesday morning.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

I again failed to get up in the morning in order to get the workout in. Fortunately, it’s been a slow day at work thus far, and so I was able to leave for ultimate a little early, and get the workout in there. Went with the same workout that I did Monday and Friday of last week. Probably shortened it a little bit, since I was time constrained, so I moved through the poses a little bit faster than I normally would, and didn’t transition back to mountain pose after every unique pose sequence. So it ended up being slightly more like the py:stamina workout in terms of transitioning through the poses, with my selection of poses for the free form. As of right now, tomorrow is the last day that I’ll actually have to get up early for a while, so it’s likely that there’ll be a movement towards evening workouts, at least for a while. As always, updates as events warrant.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Still tired, but managed to get up without too much trouble this morning. The fact that the end of the commuting grind is here helped inspire me, I think. Or maybe just the fact that I needed to be in by a certain time, and wanted to get the workout in. Whatever the case, I rolled out of bed (or off the futon, as the case is), and got into the abs workout.
It went decently. My abs felt a little stronger than the other day, although I’m unwilling to speculate on why that might be. The right side of my neck is a little sore today… I made a diving catch at ultimate yesterday, and ended up sliding headfirst into the wall, so I suspect it’s from that. It’s not too bad, although it was somewhat noticable during the opening crunch sequence. I think it will probably be fine tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest. Anyway, I’m going to head off and get to the end of this thing, whatever it is, exactly. Probably a short workout tomorrow before ultimate, and then longer workouts starting early next week or over the weekend.