BBM Connection

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Getting ready for my last regularly scheduled indoor ultimate game. It’s a little sad to think that I won’t be seeing these people that I’ve spent much of the last year and a half with very often from now on, but that’s the way it goes. It is nice to think that I’ll actually get to stay at home for long periods of time, and not have to drive 800 or so miles every other week.
For today’s workout, I mostly followed the same routine I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. The only real modification was doing the single leg standing forward bends with hands in namaste behind the back. I sequenced that in after the wide angle standing forward bend. I knew I was too keyed up to get a good mental workout in, so I settled for just getting in some good stretching. I should have plenty of time in the next few weeks to get some good mental workouts in, and there was no way that was going to happen today, so it seemed best to just go with it. I think it was pretty successful, at least I’m feeling pretty good about the stretching. I’m guessing that I’ll probably get a shorter workout in tomorrow, maybe abs, since I think I’ll be sleeping for a good portion of the day.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

Well, I ended up being lazy last night. That’s not actually quite true… there was a bit of laziness, but I was planning on doing a workout… I just ended up falling asleep before I got to it. All told, I ended up sleeping for something like 27 hours in a 40 hour span, so it’s not particularly surprising that I didn’t get a workout in. On the plus side, I think I’ve made up for a lot of the deficit of the past few weeks, and will probably be sleeping more normal amounts in the upcoming days.
Anyway, went with the total body workout today. I’m still feeling pretty excited about getting in some really good workouts, and wanted to get to it. Unfortunately, a side effect of spending all that time sleeping was that I didn’t spend all that much time eating. So after a little while, I started to notice that the workout was quite fatiguing, from an energy perspective. I had been planning on doing the whole thing, but wore down quickly enough that I decided to skip ahead to the cooldown section right before doing the warrior III sequence. I was a little disappointed about skipping the backbends, but decided that I’d rather back off for today and be ready to go again tomorrow, than risk injuring myself doing something I didn’t have the energy for. So I’m going to be paying more attention to my diet, and will probably come back with either another long workout tomorrow, or possibly an abs/short workout combo.

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

Well, I was going to say something yesterday about finally having overcome the problem of my hamstrings being constantly sore. But it’s a good thing that I didn’t, because they ended up being quite sore today. There’s just something about the total body workout, even the incomplete version, that really messes with my hamstrings. Maybe it’s just the fact that I never seem to get to that workout the day after a good stretching workout, and I end up pushing my hamstrings too far. I don’t really think that’s it, though… maybe the fact that I don’t get a complete workout in is the problem. Perhaps the rest of the workout would help prevent the soreness, in some way. Whatever the case, I’m determined to overcome the problem, preferably within the month. Since I do intend to continue to press the issue, hopefully I’ll get somewhere with it.
Anyway, today’s workout. Well, I did back off a little because of the soreness. While I’ve mostly committed to more serious workouts, apparently the news hasn’t made it to scheduling. Not to say that I didn’t have the time, but… I need to work more on getting to the workout(s) when I’m actually really in the mood, instead of waiting for a more convenient time or whatever. I’m sure it would help both my focus and my intensity, and it would probably cause me to do more workouts, as well. All in good time, I suppose. So, today. I went back to my tried and true set, running/swimming/all sports. It was decent, but didn’t really give me the stretching I was looking for. In retrospect, perhaps I should have just gone with my free form routine, but I was definitely more in the mood for a directed workout. Anyway, clearly I’m still not quite ready to jump into full force yoga, but I’m getting there, and quickly. Look for more good workouts in the coming days.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

I decided to change my tactics slightly. Instead of going for a lighter workout to stretch out my hamstrings, I decided to do a more complete workout to stretch out my hamstrings. While I don’t know that they’ll feel any better tomorrow, at least I’ll have received the benefit of doing the workout, and I doubt they’ll be any worse off, so why not? It also fits in with my desire to start stepping up the level of my workouts… if I’m able to start consistently handling workouts of an hour or so, I’ll be ready to increase the intensity pretty quickly, I think.
Today’s workout was decent… this workout seems like it’s gotten easier since the first couple of times that I did it. Back then, I had some real problems with making it through the workout, particularly having issues with my shoulders getting very tired near the end of the conditioning section. While I’m still noticing that somewhat, it’s nowhere near as extreme as it was then, and I can easily work through it. I feel like I’m paying more attention to the nuances of the workout, and yet, I want to be more mindful still. While today wasn’t bad, I still would like to improve my focus, and really get involved with the workout. Most of the time, I still feel like I’m on the outside looking in, and that’s not the way it should be. I’m at least getting better with the physical aspects of mindfulness… now I just need to rein in my mind, and things should be going pretty well. I’ve been considering starting up my meditation practice again, now that I have some real time to dedicate to it… maybe I’ll do that tonight. Anyway, I’m looking forward to continuing to push the level of intensity of my workouts, and hopefully start to gain some real insights into my practice.

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

Well, yesterday’s workout didn’t end up loosening my hamstrings quite as much as I was hoping. While they did feel somewhat better today, they were also still noticably sore. So, in order to give them a chance to recover, I decided to go with the abs yoga workout. I have to admit, that felt like a pretty lazy choice, since it really seemed like I should at least do the pilates workout if I was going to just go with abs. But I couldn’t quite work up the motivation for that, so I just stuck with the yoga abs in the end. Pretty standard fare… really, I don’t think there was anything remarkable about the workout at all. I did decide to try and give my hamstrings a light stretch, just to see if that would help the healing a little. So I tacked on the YCfA swimming mini-workout after the abs workout. Not enough to really strain the hamstrings, hopefully enough to help loosen them a little. Well, somewhat unexpectedly, I now plan on traveling again at the end of the week. Just for a day or two, so I suspect that the routine won’t be disrupted all that much… but I plan on playing ultimate, so at least one of the days will be a free form stretching workout, I’m sure. Possibly both, just to simplify travel. Anyway, I hope to get in at least one intermediate yoga before then, and hopefully another total body workout as well.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

I think I’m getting back to having a better connection between body and mind, finally. While I was definitely interested in doing this workout tonight, it took me a while to actually get to it. When I first was in the mood for a workout, I was also feeling somewhat restless, not quite right. Eventually I decided that I really needed to eat some more, and then do the workout a little while after that. So that’s what I did. After eating and waiting a while, I felt much stronger and ready for a workout, so I went ahead with the total body workout.
I think that I finally figured out how I was making my hamstrings so sore. During the early standing forward bends, I think that I was pulling into them, straining my hamstrings. So the soreness was less from later stretching, as I once believed, and more from the early part of the workout. Which would also explain the trend of soreness from some of the other workouts, where the standing forward bend is more prevalent. I laid off doing that tonight, at least after the beginning, so I’ll have to note if my hamstrings are considerably less sore tomorrow. Other than that… the workout went pretty decently. I’m definitely not quite in the shape that I was in during May and June of 2004, since I started getting tired near the end of the second section. Mostly in the arms, but just generally a little tired, too. But I was able to pull through and complete the workout, the only part that was somewhat less complete was the upward bow sequence. I got into all of them, but I came out early each time. And I was definitely feeling some muscle fatigue by then. But, given how long it’s been since I did the full workout, and how light the yoga schedule has been for the last six months or so, it’s not terribly surprising that my stamina has decreased a bit. Hopefully my aggressive plan for the month will get it back to those previous levels, and I’ll be able to maintain it once spring starts and ultimate resumes on a more consistent basis.

Workout: Power Yoga: Stamina
Author: chaos

Well, while my overall goal is to keep getting in the longer workouts as much as possible, sometimes it makes a little more sense to just get in one of the short ones. Since I want to do a workout tomorrow before I leave (preferably intermediate yoga), I decided to just get in a quick workout tonight to keep the continuity. Since I’ve been hitting up the YCfA mini-workouts quite a bit lately, I decided to do something different, and went with the py:stamina workout. It went pretty well… I can tell that I’ve been getting back into the yoga, because I didn’t really even break a sweat during the workout. However, I’m a little more appreciative of it now that I’ve started becoming more aware of the way that my body stretches. Since I’ve been maximizing that a little more, this workout becomes more effective, I think. Really, though, it’s just a general awareness of my body that has been increasing, and knowledge of how to more effectively perform the various poses in order to get more out of the workouts. I did notice that my back was just a little bit tender from yesterday… it’s definitely been a while since I did anything with a lot of backbends. But it was fairly light (I didn’t even notice during the day, just during the workout), so I imagine that it’ll be gone by tomorrow. Well, hoping to do intermediate yoga tomorrow, but I really wanted to watch it again before doing the workout, and since I haven’t gotten to that yet, I’m not sure I’m going to manage that. If I don’t do that… maybe I’ll do total body again, or possibly the full YCfA workout, or maybe I’ll do pilates abs or something. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

Workout: Intermediate Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I indeed go to the intermediate yoga workout today. Unfortunately, I failed to eat enough earlier in the day, and realized fairly soon after starting that I was fatiguing fairly quickly. Part of this may have been related to the total body workout the other night… my shoulders started to get tired really quickly, which I suspect is partly due to the lack of decent workouts in the last few months. But I just started to tire quickly in general, which was a sign of insufficient energy. It was rather foolish of me… I knew that I hadn’t eaten enough, but I did want to try and get the workout in. Anyway, I ended up making it through the sun salutations section, although I was getting quite tired by the end. Regrettably, I skipped over the inverted poses section, which was the section that I really wanted to do. I just didn’t feel that I could make a decent go of it with my energy levels where they were, though. I skipped into the cooldown section, where I made an attempt at everything except for the upward bows. I started to position for the first one, and then realized that I really didn’t have the energy for it. Overall, this told me that I really need to start paying a lot of attention to my diet, to make sure that I have enough energy to do these workouts. I’m sure that in doing that, I’ll improve my general energy level and response to the day, as well. Anyway, today’s workout was a bit of a bust, but I’ll just take it relatively easy the next day or two, and come back at it once I return home.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Just another quick workout today before ultimate. Went with my new free form standard, basically a simple substitution of the deep lunge backbend in place of warrior I, warrior II coming before the lunge. I decided to skip on doing the single leg forward bend with hands in namaste behind the back, as I felt like that might be a little too much today. Not quite sure why, that’s just how I felt. Anyway, I’m pretty excited about getting to play some ultimate, hopefully I’ll avoid injury. That’s my new hope for every time I play ultimate, I think… hoping to avoid injury. At least once I don’t have the walls to deal with, the chances will be less. Anyway, heading off for now, probably get in a light abs workout tomorrow and then back home to more complete workouts again.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I planned on doing an abs workout today, and since I forgot to bring my mat along on the trip, this worked out pretty well. My only real regret is that I probably would have rather done the pilates abs workout, but since it’s been a little while since I did that one, I couldn’t remember how much space I needed, and in what configuration. Since my space was somewhat limited, and I knew that I’d be fine doing the yoga abs workout in the space, I just decided to go with that. Nothing much to report… the workout felt pretty good, nothing special. I am looking forward to doing the pilates abs workout more often now, perhaps even to the point where it will become my default abs workout. We’ll see how that goes. I’m not really sure how much ab work I’m planning on getting in, so it may not be as big of a deal as it seems. Anyway, going home later today, so I’ll probably be getting back to the longer workouts tomorrow, unless I play ultimate, in which case I definitely plan on hitting a long workout on Monday.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

Well, my original plan was to either get in a short workout and play ultimate, or get in a long workout. I ended up being lazy and deciding not to drive out to play ultimate, so I figured I’d then end up getting a longer workout in. I did not, however, factor in that I would end up taking a long nap later in the day. I’m really not certain what that was about… I really shouldn’t have been all that tired. I mean, I did go short on sleep while traveling, but not by all that much. So I don’t really know what was up with the extra sleep. Anyway, that combined with a corresponding lack of eating a whole lot made me decide to go with a shorter workout after all. Because I wanted to test my theory on whether I knew how to keep my hamstrings from being sore (or at least, as sore), I decided to go with py:flexibility.
I felt it was a pretty good workout… well, in the sense of being fairly involved with the workout, anyway. It actually seemed pretty easy overall, which isn’t all that surprising… it’s never been one of the most difficult workouts, and as I more commonly do the longer workouts, it’s just going to seem easier. I actually don’t anticipate that I’ll be doing it terribly often as a solo workout in the future… possibly as a warmup for ultimate. Hmmm. Once ultimate starts up again, I’ll have to figure out what I want to do with the yoga workouts… I suspect that short workouts will seem insufficient by then, even with the extra activity. Maybe I’ll do a stretching workout in front of the playing, and an abs workout or another stretching workout later. Perhaps by then I’ll just do full workouts later. I’ll find out then, I guess. Well, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to know whether I avoided making my hamstrings sore, but I’m feeling pretty good about the new method, so hopefully it’s going to work for me. I’ll definitely try for something longer tomorrow, quite possibly YCfA.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

I’ve noticed that I have a much greater tendency to do the workout that I was originally planning on doing if I state that I plan on doing that workout the day before. Well, a greater tendency, anyway. Perhaps after I establish an expectation, and put it down in writing, I feel more compelled to follow it, even if I’m the only one who knows. Notably, I don’t always follow that guideline, but I will pretty regularly.
Anyway, YCfA workout tonight. My hamstrings were not sore from yesterday’s workout, so I may have finally figured it out. Only took me a little over 3 years. Again, better late than never, as they say. I don’t know that I really have that much to say about the workout… I am slightly confused as to how it used to be such a problem for me. I guess I can see how some of the stuff I’m doing fatigues my shoulders somewhat, but it’s hard to imagine getting to the point where they’re difficult to even hold up. Progress, I suppose. I really think my understanding has been increasing quite a bit in the last few weeks, in this workout as well as the others. I think the most obvious effect of this is to increase the amount that my hips need to flex. I think I’ve tended to avoid getting into the poses in certain ways, because my hips didn’t actually flex in those directions. However, I’m very slowly increasing the flexibility there, and I think it’s opening up my poses more fully. I don’t know. It’s always a little hard to say for sure… I get these ideas, but then sometimes forget them, and sometimes they aren’t right. Time will tell, I suppose. Not really sure what I’ll do tomorrow… maybe try for a pilates abs workout, and possibly a short workout to go with it.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Well, my original intent was to do a pilates abs workout, and then possibly throw in another workout. Then as it got later, I was becoming lazy, so I was just going to do the abs workout. But I had forgotten that I packed that disc for the trip, and thus it wasn’t lying around in the usual location. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite sure where it had been unpacked to (actually, I think it’s still packed), and since I didn’t want to disturb slumber, I decided to alter my workout plan. So I decided to give py:strength a go.
The workout was okay… a little more strenuous in terms of energy left at the end than I thought it would be, but pretty easy, overall. I think once I’ve really gotten going with the workouts again, I’ll probably be doing this as part of a pair, or sometimes maybe even the entire disc at once as a single workout. Not much to report… pendulum pose continues to baffle me, so I really need to study the source material again. I just have a hard time believing that this pose that’s on a few beginners’ discs should be that much of a problem for me. It’s not like I can’t support my body weight with my arms, either, although it’s not as easy as I’d like it to be. Anyway. Other than that, I had a bit of trouble getting into crane, but was fine once I got in. Overall, I was a little sore from yesterday, but not all that much. I think that while I have definitely made improvements to my technique for standing forward bend, I don’t necessarily follow that as well once I’ve gotten tired. So when my endurance gets back into proper shape, I should be good to go there.
I’ve noticed that I’ve been a little bit “off” ever since returning from the last trip. I feel kind of like it’s a vacation, but not really. I guess I just have a sense of waiting for something, a change of status quo, perhaps. The problem with that is that there is no real change forthcoming at this time. So I need to get my mind aligned with this, and get going on stuff. I actually had an easier time when I was first done with working… I think I had prepared myself for the change, and then this trip threw me off a bit. Admittedly, I had a couple of days off when I was first done, and slept quite a bit, which probably helped. But there are other factors… my eating hasn’t been all that great since returning. I have no schedule to speak of… when I first returned I slept quite a bit, but I at least had a schedule. I had started a meditation practice, but that’s been off the last couple of days, too. Actually, I think I’m going to try and go to bed early tonight (for certain values of “early”), and resync my sleeping a little. Hopefully get going with a schedule, and start to pull my eating and everything else into place. I still have about three weeks before outdoor ultimate starts in earnest, and I need to start maximizing my time so that I don’t feel pressured when I add that back into my schedule.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Pilates, Yoga Conditioning for Athletes: Mini-workouts
Author: chaos

Well, I finally made my return to pilates abs today. And, as expected, it hurt. I started out by following the full workout, and mostly did that, except for the series of five. I followed the full version for the first exercise, then followed the modification for the rest. Even that wasn’t enough… I died during the bicycle. After recovering a little bit while the video went on through the rest of the bicycle, though, I was able to complete the workout, again following the full version. Overall, I’m not too unhappy… while my abs were certainly hurting, it wasn’t as bad as I feared it might be, and I seem to have retained most of the knowledge of how to execute the poses. So if I do start making this my primary abs workout, I should be able to run through the full version pretty well in… about a month or so, I’d say.
After I finished the abs workout, I really wanted to call it done for the night. However, I’ve been trying to stop letting myself off the hook for things I planned on doing and then bail on or do a lighter version, so I went ahead and got in a few of the YCfA mini-workouts. Swimming and running, to be exact, in that order. Normally I do them in the other order, but running feels like more of a cool-down than swimming, and since I wasn’t planning on finishing with all sports, that order seemed more appropriate today. My knees have been aching a little bit the last few days, particularly in sitting cross-legged pose, so I’m trying to lay off of them for a bit. They just feel a little stiff, but I’ve been pushing them quite a bit lately, so I figure I’ll try to take it a little easier for a few days in terms of poses that really extend them. That’ll probably require a few modifications to workouts, but that’s okay. Hopefully I’ll still manage to find ways to keep extending the hips, though, and working on that flexibility. Anyway, I might try for the Intermediate Yoga workout tomorrow, but we’ll see… could be a busy day of working, so perhaps not. Until then…

Workout: Intermediate Mat Workout
Author: chaos

Well, I didn’t really feel like doing a long workout tonight. Really, I wasn’t quite sure what I felt like doing. Something a little bit different from the norm. Since I have been doing a little bit of work on the blog (unfortunately, a little more than I intended), I was also reading through some of my old entries. I noticed that it had been quite a while since I last did the intermediate mat workout for pilates, and since I had been thinking recently that perhaps I should reintegrate pilates into the rotation, this seemed like a decent time to do that.
My only concern going in to the workout was that I’d have trouble due to having done the pilates abs workout yesterday. Surprisingly, I seem to have mostly recovered from that… the only part of the workout that felt really difficult today due to that was the double leg raise, and that’s always difficult. I think that I had better form for it today than I usually do, probably because I wasn’t as tired as I normally am. Actually, I felt I improved my form today on a few things. Unfortunately, teaser wasn’t one of them. That was also probably a victim of fatigue from yesterday, although to be honest, I’ve yet to ever do the teaser particularly well. Of course, it’s always later in the workout, which may be the primary contributing factor to that. I felt I did a little bit better with the side kick section, which is always a little difficult for me. Anyway, it was a pretty decent workout, and hopefully I’ll start getting to it a little more often in the future.

Workout: Power Yoga: Stamina
Author: chaos

I have to confess that I really just did this workout in order to keep the daily workout thing going. For whatever reason, I wasn’t particularly in the mood to be doing yoga. I really think I need to start to develop some sort of schedule, just to make sure I get the workouts in at a decent time. Actually, I was thinking about doing intermediate yoga tonight, but it ended up getting late, and that workout still involves a bit of thumping at this point, so I decided to hold off yet again. I really do want to get it in sometime soon, though. Anyway, I was feeling pretty uninspired about the workout. I thought about doing a free form workout, and originally started that way, but it didn’t feel right. In the end, I decided upon a simple py:stamina workout.
I think the biggest thing I got out of the workout is that there really isn’t much reason for me to do it, at least not by itself. I can do all of the same exercises in my free form workout, and I’ll do them more completely. About the only thing that I’m really missing are the backbends. Perhaps because I was feeling a little bit detached from the process, I was analyzing the video a little more. It seems like Rodney was trying to cram in an introduction to a whole lot of poses, while still maintaining a short workout. It ends up making the whole thing feel rushed. And just too light for the amount of movement… I didn’t even break a sweat, although the relatively cool room temperature undoubtedly contributed to that. Anyway, we’ll see if I remember about this workout, but if I do, I’m unlikely to return to it as a solo workout in the future… I see it more in combination with either strength or flexibility (or both), or potentially an abs yoga routine on a light workout day.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

I’ve been pretty happy with my awareness levels during my workouts lately. I definitely feel like I’ve been paying better attention to how my body feels, not so much in general but in particular areas of note. For instance, when doing extended triangle pose, I don’t pay all that much attention to whether I’m looking at the top hand with one eye or both, but instead I focus on the placement of my feet, the distribution of my weight, and the rotation of the hip within the socket. I also try and pay attention to the little details mentioned in the workout, although that’s admittedly still a work in progress. Mostly I just try and stay aware of my muscles, and try to be responsive to them. I think this awareness has been very beneficial to my workouts… the most noticeable effect being a greater awareness of my hamstrings, and a corresponding lack of soreness due to the workouts.
Tonight’s workout was pretty good. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt I’ve really completed the entirety of the workout. Of course, I haven’t done this workout all that much in the past nine months or so, so that’s not saying as much as it might otherwise be. I felt really good in the beginning, though, and didn’t get at all tired during the first section. Really, I wouldn’t say that I got tired at all, although my muscles started to feel a little weary eventually, particularly during the upward bows. I still think that I might be doing something slightly wrong there… then again, maybe it’s just not that easy of a pose. Even so, I managed to work my way through those as well, and then finish out with a pretty decent session of stretching and relaxing. The relaxing could probably use a little work, but that’s certainly nothing new. Anyway, I’m pretty happy with today’s workout… I’d like to start getting my workouts in a little earlier, but I need to get going on some sort of consistent schedule to do that. I’m guessing that I’ll probably go with something lighter tomorrow, although I may try to do abs and something. There’s also an outside chance of a full YCfA session, but that’s a little less likely. Until then…

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Pilates, Yoga Conditioning for Athletes: Mini-workouts
Author: chaos

I definitely think my overall motivation levels are increasing. I briefly considered being lazy and just doing an abs yoga workout, but decided that if I really want to get good at the pilates abs workout, I just have to keep doing it. Probably not as frequently as I was doing the abs yoga workout when I first got it, but often enough to really get the workout down. Anyway, so I went with the pilates workout. The beginning went a little better than last time… I wasn’t even feeling at all tired by the time I hit the series of five. Because of that, I attempted to stick with the full workout line throughout. That somewhat worked… I made it through those parts, but then died on the double leg raise. But I stopped pretty quickly on those, after just two, so after resting through the next three, I finished off the last five and then finished out the workout. The rest of the workout didn’t really do as well, though… in particular, I had a lot more trouble with the open leg rockers than last time. The rockers are still somewhat erratic for me, though, so it’s hard to say that it’s definitely related. Anyway, I think it was a slight progress overall, but only slight.
After I finished that off, I went in for some YCfA mini-workouts. My hamstrings were a touch sore from yesterday, but nowhere near the levels they used to be after a total body workout. I really am quite pleased with my new understanding of standing forward bend… not only does it keep me from being sore, but it also makes the transition up and down from mountain pose seem much more controlled. I feel a lot more steady with that than I used to, particularly when I’m starting to get tired. Anyway, did running, swimming, and all sports today. It seems kind of funny, since I’ve called two of those three a workout in the past, but tonight it seemed like I still could have done more. However, I definitely don’t want to get too carried away, and besides, it’s not like I won’t do another workout tomorrow. Not too sure what I’m going to do… I may take a slightly easier day, and just do yoga for energy or perhaps one of the yoga for strength workouts.

Workout: Yoga for Energy
Author: chaos

Decided to try out the Yoga for Energy workout again today. I’ve done it once before, a long time ago… I obviously didn’t remember much about it, or I might have been a little more hesitant in tackling it tonight. Hmmm. I just read my entry about it, and it probably wasn’t as informative as it could have been. Anyway, the first section was pretty simple, a little bit of a warmup, nothing more. Actually, that’s not entirely true. It did have a leg stretch in it, which I wasn’t sure I quite liked, particularly since the hamstrings hadn’t been warmed up at all at that point. Anyway, the second section was a weird side to side flow of poses. Not that weird, really… it’s very similar to the flow Rodney uses in his introduction to the Yoga for Strength video. But none of the other workouts I’ve done have ever done the sequence in that manner. Anyway, it was all familiar poses, although the timing was a little too fast for someone not familiar with the particular sequence. Unless I do this workout again soon, I’m definitely going to want to watch it before the next time I do it, so I have a better idea of what’s coming. The third section was a little more familiar in terms of sequencing, it basically did a normal sun salutation style sequencing. It still seemed a little bit fast, and the three upward bows at the end were a surprise. But overall, I was pretty comfortable with that section. The fourth section was forward bending. I think there was a brief backbend at the end, but everything else was a forward bend of one type or another. A lot of them were crosslegged forward bends, but there was a normal seated forward bend, wide angle seated forward bend, one-legged seated forward bend, and a few half lotus seated forward bends. I didn’t attempt those as such, because I have grown rather fond of having my knees attached to my body properly. I was studying the position at one point, and have to admit that I don’t quite comprehend how it works. My legs just don’t move like that, as far as I can tell. The last section was just relaxation pose, with a little bit of meditation, perhaps. I think I’ll probably go watch the video again sometime soon, and see if I can pick up some pointers, but I’m not sure that I’ll necessary do the workout again any time soon. It might be right for a special type of mood, but it just didn’t feel like enough of a workout to get me excited about it. I’m still trying to migrate my workouts to a slightly earlier schedule, but it’s a slow process. I may make a concerted effort tomorrow, though, and try to get intermediate yoga in.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I was originally thinking about getting a long workout in today, but I haven’t felt particularly great all day. Haven’t felt overly ill, either. Just enough to make me not particularly motivated to do much of anything, really. Anyway, decided to just do a short workout, and ended up going with the abs yoga. Pretty decent… while I could feel some of the work that I’ve been doing in the pilates workout, it didn’t interfere with the workout today. If anything, it enhanced it a little, because it was a little easier to tell when the muscles were active. I think that my form was pretty good today… I’ve been working on my form for everything lately, so that’s not really a surprise. After the workout, I considered going in for a short stretch of some type, since a 20 minute workout no longer feels sufficient. But I decided to go ahead and give my hamstrings the day off. While they’ve been doing pretty well, they are a little bit tender today, and I haven’t given them a day of rest in a while. So I decided to just go ahead and do that, and see if they recover fully for tomorrow. Still working on getting in earlier workouts… I’m sure I’ll get there eventually. I’ll probably go for either the full YCfA workout tomorrow, or intermediate yoga, depending on when I get to it.

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

Well, I originally planned on getting in a long workout today, but it ended up getting to be later than I planned, and so I just went with a short workout to keep the continuity. It wasn’t a bad workout, but nothing special, either. I’ve been a little bit frustrated the last few days… I don’t feel that I’m managing my time as well as I could be, so that’s been a source of personal annoyance. Hopefully I’ll manage to break out of it fairly soon, and start developing my practice more fully again. I will again try to get a long workout in tomorrow (and will probably continue trying to do so until I actually manage to do so).

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

I have had a number of pretty good workouts in the last few weeks. This was not one of them. My head just really wasn’t in the workout, for some reason. It started out okay, actually. I was fairly well in it until about halfway through. Then, for some reason, I just lost the connection. I wouldn’t say that the workout disintegrated from there, but it certainly went downhill.
Sometimes I feel like yoga is some sort of competition or something. Of course, since I’m the only one competing, that’s even more ridiculous than it would otherwise be. Still, that is how it feels at times. I guess that’s why sometimes I feel like I’m losing… which is, again, ridiculous. I don’t know. Tonight has become one of those nights where it doesn’t feel like my head is one quite right. Which isn’t really what I mean, but whatever. Blah. Okay, anyway, summary is that the workout was fairly mediocre, hopefully will get a better one in tomorrow.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Yet another day of low motivation. Had very little motivation to do anything, really, including get out of bed. I’m really not sure what the problem is… I do know that I need to snap out of it, though, and soon. This lethargy has been with me for a week or two now, and it’s definitely not making me very happy. It’s just very difficult to get anything done right now, including yoga workouts. I almost just skipped the workout today. But because I know how much easier it is to justify skipping more days once I start skipping any, I finally forced myself to get in the workout. However, I did a pretty minimal workout, just abs yoga. That was my concession to the lethargy. As far as it went, the workout was decent. I hadn’t really motivated to eat much all day, and so was fighting some hunger. But the focus wasn’t too bad, and the physical elements were pretty decent. A little surprising, really. Anyway, hopefully I’ll get going here in the next day or two, and regain some motivation, which will let me get some better workouts in.

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

Something a little different today… decided to hold of on a regular full length workout, and instead do a few from the py:complete workout disc. I wasn’t really in the mood to do the strength workout, so I went with stamina and flexibility. I’m fairly impressed with the amount that my stamina has increased in the past few weeks, despite a less rigorous schedule than I had originally envisioned. I went through the two workouts without any trouble, hardly even breaking a sweat. My biggest problem is that I need to clean my mat… it’s getting a little bit slippery. Which makes it hard to hold downward dog, sometimes, because my hands keep slipping. Other than that, things went pretty well. Tree pose was fine today… it’s been a little odd lately. Sometimes I have no problem with it, sometimes I really can’t do it at all. Doesn’t make much sense, especially since that was one of my better poses, way back when I started. Anyway. Still hoping to find a regular schedule one of these days, but I’ll probably have to wait a little longer. So until next time…

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

I’ve been doing some reading through the archives. Various points in time… if I started out with a particular section I wanted to explore, I’ve forgotten what it was. I always find the overall study to be interesting, even if most of the individual entries aren’t. I guess that as a group entries tend to capture a general trend of thought, wherever I was mentally at the time. So it’s nice to be able to go back and see what I was thinking then, and compare it to where I am now. Outside of that, I’ve been considering the state of the last week or two… I’m still very much stuck in a rut, but I’m really hoping for a breakthrough this week. For that matter, I really need a breakthrough this week, so I’m pulling for one pretty strongly.
I’ve really been waiting too long to get workouts in this past week. I have no idea what I’m waiting for… a written invitation, maybe. Not sure what I’m being invited to, though. At any rate, it hasn’t been doing my motivation to get better workouts in any favors. I often don’t get to the workout until I’m starting to feel tired, and really only get to it then because I have to, or I won’t get to it at all. Clearly, this needs to end. Maybe I need to go back to doing workouts when I first wake up. I didn’t really mind that, and it certainly worked better than what I’m currently doing. Then again, I almost always did relatively light workouts after waking up, so it might not work as well if I’m trying to get the longer workouts in. I’ve also had a problem with waking up pretty hungry lately, which doesn’t motivate one to do yoga, either.
Anyway, just went in for my normal triple threat mini-workouts today. Running, swimming, and all sports. My hamstrings were actually feeling moderately sore the whole day, which was somewhat surprising. Perhaps I’m not as much past that problem as I previously thought. After reading through my old entries, though, I think it’s mostly a matter of focus… my focus hasn’t been good the last week, so it’s not surprising that I would suffer some lapses in technique. I’m going to try and get some decent rest, and begin pulling my life together when I wake up. I need to get back to my meditation attempts as well, because self improvement certainly isn’t coming easily, and that might help quite a bit.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Pilates, Yoga Conditioning for Athletes: Mini-workouts
Author: chaos

Pretty much managed the full workout tonight. Not that I’m up at the proper level for the full workout, or anything like that. But I at least managed to struggle through the entire thing, which may be the first time that I’ve been able to do that. I say that like it’s not a big deal, but I’m actually pretty happy about it. It may be that I’m starting to have enough desire to really push through to the next level in my workouts. Such a difficult mental balance at times… not straining, and yet working as hard as possible. I think that’s something that I largely lost at some point… the desire to push myself to the utmost, to give everything I have in pursuit of my goal. The only time I really see that now is in ultimate… which, not uncoincidentally, is pretty much the only time that I lose myself in the moment. Hmmm. I think there’s a very valuable lesson there… now I just have to figure out how to apply it.
Anyway, it was a decent workout, if not outstanding. Rockers were better today, although not perfect. I think I’m arching too much in the double leg raise, but that’s something I just need to keep working on. Teaser was better today, although that’s probably the pose I’m furtherest from actually doing well. But it was miserable the last time I did it, so this was an improvement. After I finished off the abs, I wanted to get a little bit of stretching in, so I threw on the swimming mini-workout. I tried to take that fairly easy, stretching my hamstrings a little but not getting too intense. They’ve been sore for the last couple days, and I’m hoping to get them to recover fairly soon here. Like, tomorrow would be nice. Anyway, I’m hoping that I’ve gained some new focus, and will try to run with that in the next couple of days.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

I was rather hoping to get a long workout in tonight, but I have some work that needs to get done, so I settled for the most intense of the short workouts, py:strength. Really, it isn’t overly intense, although it seemed like it today. I wasn’t particularly pleased with my focus during the workout, as my mind was tangenting off, as it is wont to do when I’m trying to squeeze a workout in. In order to avoid that, I either need much better mental discipline than I have now, or much better time management, so I’m not concerned about the time I’m working out. Or both, more ideally. I also was not pleased with my body control, particularly near the end of the workout. I wasn’t exactly tired, but I wasn’t taking the time to stabilize myself properly. Of course, that’s partly the fault of the workout, which I have said in the past moves too quickly between poses. Except for downward dog, for the most part, which I was noticing today. It did give me some time to work on that… I remembered something I either read or heard about pressing down with the inside of the hands in order to fully extend the elbows. That seemed to help, although I don’t usually have much trouble holding downward dog, anyway. But I’m really trying to work on my form, and I think that’s an improvement. Crane pose went really well, although I did touch down for a second in the middle of it. Simple arm balance also went quite well. Pendulum still didn’t go very well, but I’m continuing to think about it. That’s definitely one of the best things about reading through the archives, I become a lot more aware of things again, at least for a short while. Anyway, going to wrap this up and get on to some work, hopefully I’ll get stuff done and have more time for a workout tomorrow.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

Had a pretty satisfying workout tonight. I haven’t really gotten as much work done as I need to, but I’ll be getting to that shortly. I had been thinking about a total body workout for a few days, and despite the fact that it was a bit longer than I wanted to take this evening, I decided to just go for it. I’m pretty happy that I did… it was a mental and physical success, the former being the more important part here. I was largely able to block out the thought of work, and just concentrate on what I was doing. I also started remembering some things, like the idea of truly integrating the breath and movement. I didn’t remember that until a little later in the workout, and was having some trouble with it at times, but I’m going to try and remember to keep working on it.
The physical aspects were pretty good, too. Being mentally present really allows me to examine how my body feels during the workout, and make adjustments. So I think the workout was more fulfilling that way. But I also managed to show some mental toughness, as well… I thought about skipping warrior III, because I was feeling tired, but I decided that I was just being lazy, and that I was perfectly capable of getting through it. And not only was I capable, I actually did it pretty well. I think I was a little more physically tired than I might have been because I was working on really doing poses to the best of my ability. It’s a little more tiring now, but I think that it’ll pay dividends in the future. Then later in the workout, I was considering skipping the upward bows, but went through with them as well. My reward was that I really liked the positioning for one of them, the first one, I think. It just felt right, a lot more so than I can ever remember the pose feeling. So that was cool. Tried to keep things calm during the stretches, not overextend on things, but I won’t know how I did until tomorrow. At the same time, though, I also tried to really understand what my body was telling me, and adjust to fully extend and lengthen the body. Overall, I’m quite pleased with the workout, and look forward to having more strong workouts in the near future.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

My schedule has been pretty messed up lately, and because of that, and the good workout I had yesterday, I decided to just take it easy today with a light abs workout. I’m hoping that by getting the workout in a little earlier than I have been the past week or two, I’ll be able to switch around my schedule a bit and start getting to my workouts earlier in the evening. We’ll see how that goes.
I went into tonight’s workout with the idea of trying to work on my integration of breath and movement. It wasn’t perfectly successful, but there was some success. I’m not sure if it was because of that, or because of other workouts in the last couple of days, but my abs were definitely feeling it at the end. Which is a good thing, I think… hopefully it means that I’m still improving them, still building. My hamstrings are feeling a bit tender today, but still better than they used to feel the day after a total body workout. I did push them fairly hard in the stretches last night, so I’m not particularly surprised. Anyway, I’m going to make an effort to get to the workout somewhat earlier in the day tomorrow, and hopefully get intermediate yoga in.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

Well, I didn’t get quite as much shifting in today as I was hoping to, so I decided to go with another light workout, and try again to get to the intermediate yoga tomorrow. So I just picked up a nice flexibility workout. The main goal for tonight was to try and continue to work on integrating breath and motion. I’m not sure that this workout is really suited for that, at least not while learning… the quick transitions make it hard to focus as much on things like that. Perhaps I should have gone with one of the yoga for strength workouts, so as to have more time. Something I’ll be considering, at any rate. Anyway, things went pretty well in the beginning, but it started falling apart in the middle somewhere, and I found myself getting behind in the breath a little, which is never good. It was actually tiring me out a little bit because of that. But I made it through, and I intend to continue working on it in the upcoming workouts, although perhaps not as much the intermediate yoga workout, once I finally get to it. That’s pretty much all for now… I plan on getting a long workout in tomorrow, even if it doesn’t end up being intermediate yoga.