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Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 1
Author: chaos

Well, the process of flipping is progressing, but still not quite there yet. I feel like it’ll be complete by tomorrow, though, so I decided to hold off one more day in the hopes of getting that intermediate yoga workout in. In the meantime, I went with yfs:s1. I wanted to continue to work on my breathing, and also wanted to get in some extra downward dog. I’ve modified my hand positioning slightly, and I’m trying to work on that. I still don’t have downward dog to the point where I’d consider it a resting pose, at least not for extended periods of time. I’d like to get it to that point pretty soon… I think it will be critical for advancing with the intermediate yoga practice. Not too much else to say… breathing didn’t go quite as well as I would have liked. I don’t think I had proper focus tonight. I did pick it up a few times during the workout, but couldn’t maintain it. My shoulders were getting pretty fatigued by the end, but I did manage to hold for the entire two minutes. It was somewhat different tonight, though… it felt more like a muscle fatigue from an unfamiliar position than muscle fatigue from trying to hold my weight up. So perhaps I do have the position down now, and just need to build up the necessary support. I need to examine strap positioning in shoulderstand a little more carefully… my biggest problem is that my arms start to tingle after a while. Not sure what that’s all about. For tomorrow night, pretty much definitely a long workout, even if not intermediate yoga. Oh, I did want to mention seeing a new Rodney workout, Advanced Yoga. The picture on the cover is… inspiring, to say the least. And way inaccessible right now, as well. I need to bust out on intermediate yoga so I can get hardcore. *grin* Also saw Yoga Burn, which looks like it might be an advanced Yoga for Strength. Might pick that up at some point relatively soon. I wish I could preview these videos before purchasing them. Then again, I suppose they’re only about what a class might cost, so it’s not like it’s a huge money commitment. Anyway, that’s all for tonight, forward into daylight savings time, and hopefully some earlier workouts in the upcoming days.

Workout: Intermediate Yoga
Author: chaos

Finally got the intermediate yoga workout in today. I have to admit that after all of the anticipation, it was a bit of a disappointment. Really, that was only because I didn’t perform to quite the level that I would have liked. So I guess the problem is just that I let my expectations of my performance exceed what I was capable of. Well, the problem was arguably that I had expectations about the workout at all, but that’s a slightly different matter.
Started off the workout with some decent breath work, although that pretty much got lost when I hit the first warriors. They were a little bit faster that I expected, which was enough to throw me off a little bit. I settled in to my normal breathing pattern without a problem, so it wasn’t a real issue. I felt pretty good about a couple of the more challenging poses, half moon and warrior III. While I didn’t fully complete any of them, I felt that I increased my understanding of how to really expand into those poses, which is a good development. I think because they’re more challenging, it’s easier for me to stay mindful of everything while I’m doing them. Now I just need to expand that back to the rest of the practice. Revolved triangle was a disaster today, though. I could not maintain the balance at all, even trying it with a block. I’m not actually sure the block helped, though… since I’m not used to using one, I think it threw me off as much as anything else. Overall, I think my rotation is okay, although I’d like more, but I have a lot of trouble with the balance in that pose. Something for me to keep working on.
The inverted poses weren’t too bad. I managed to get into one of the handstands, headstand, and part of the armstand that’s kind of like a pre-headstand. I completely missed on one of the handstands, primarily because my shoulders were feeling the fatigue of some of the previous workouts. I tried adjusting my balance in a few of the poses, particularly the handstand, to having my legs away from the wall, but it’s very tricky. I did do better once I started really focusing on my body, and adjusted the balance from within. An interesting point to keep in mind. Overall, though, I learned that I really need to continue working on my strength, as well as eating correctly, to have greater success with these poses.
After that, the workout started to break down a little. I was feeling somewhat tired by that point, and just had a lot of trouble focusing on the workout like I should have been. I tried to be mindful and experiment somewhat with positioning, particularly during some of the twists, but it just didn’t feel very satisfying. I did have a bit of good stretching at the end, but the upward bows and even shoulderstand were a bit weak today. I probably should have eaten a little more earlier in the day, to make sure I’d have enough energy for the workout. Overall, the workout certainly wasn’t a bust, but wasn’t as successful as I would have liked, either. However, it does provide some motivation for continuing to work hard and improve so that the workout will be a success, and that’s not a bad thing.

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

As I expected to do, I went in for a pilates abs workout today. The only somewhat surprising thing is how early in the day I managed to get it in. I figured it was the type of situation where if I didn’t get it in now, I wouldn’t get it in until fairly late, so I just went with it. Hopefully it’ll be the beginning of a good trend of getting my workouts in earlier. The workout went pretty much the same way as last time, where I pretty much did the unmodified version the entire time. The only exception was during the extended single leg kicks or whatever they’re called, the third exercise in the ever-deadly series of five. For the full version, you’re not supposed to use your arms for the last five kicks, but after doing one like that, I knew there’d be no way I could continue on with the double leg raises if I did them all like that, so I followed the modified version. I then struggled through the rest of the series of five, and went on with the rest of the workout. It was better than last time, overall… the rockers went pretty well, a lot better than any other time lately. Overall, I just felt stronger than the last time I did the workout, which certainly feels like a sign of improvement.
After I finished the abs, I wanted to get a bit of stretching in, so I went in for the running and swimming mini-workouts. My hamstrings have had a nearly continuous low-level soreness for the past week or so, so I’ve been trying to get stretching in as much as possible. Today went pretty well for that, I think… I felt pretty good about the initial stretch in the running workout, and then added an extra single leg standing forward bend into the end of the swimming workout, right before transitioning into the reclined cobbler’s pose. That also felt pretty good, and I was consciously making adjustments to the distribution of my weight by the location of the pelvis. The only bad part was my mat was a little slick at that point, and my back foot was attempting to slip when I bent over my right leg. I’ll need to make sure to position myself in drop spots in the future. Anyway, outdoor ultimate season starts tomorrow, so I may go with a free form workout in order to warm up. It’s supposed to be fairly cold, though, so I may also decide to do something a little more extensive, in order to minimize the possibility of injury. Until then…

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Getting ready for the start of the outdoor ultimate season with a light free form workout. I pretty much followed the model that I was using a few months ago. Started out with two simple sun salutations, then did four more, incorporating triangle, side stretch, warrior II, and deep backbend lunge. Followed that up with wide angle standing forward bend, single leg standing forward bend (hands in namaste), and then did reclining single leg stretch. The whole workout was done pretty slowly, although not really slowly. I tried to stay focused on the breath, and did a reasonable job of it, although there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Anyway, just wanted to get a quick note in, about to head off to ultimate.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, ultimate didn’t end up happening yesterday. Apparently it was a little too cold out for most people, so just a few showed up, not enough to play a game. So I ended up just tossing the disc around for a while and getting some sprinting in. Even just doing that was enough to cause me to damage my knee somehow, though. Nothing terribly serious… I suspect that it will quite likely be back to normal by tomorrow. But I decided not to mess around with it, and just went easy tonight with an abs yoga workout. Not a whole lot to say… I need to continue working on my focus. It was okay tonight, but not as good as I would like. I’m also a little unhappy about how late I got around to getting the workout in, but that’s a slightly different issue. Depending on how my knee feels, I may try going to a different ultimate game tomorrow, or I might just lay off. I’ll certainly try to get a decent yoga workout in if I don’t end up playing ultimate, although if the knee is still a problem, that might not happen, either. Until then…

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

Well, my knee was feeling fine today, so I decided to go ahead and head out for ultimate. In preparation, I did my normal routine of mini-workouts, running, swimming, and all sports. Nothing exciting about that, although I did have fairly good focus and integration of breath. After that, I went out and got around two hours of ultimate in. It was pretty good… decent competition. I think I’ll enjoy that game, if it doesn’t get ridiculously crowded. The only negative was that I strained my right quadricep a little, maybe after half an hour or so. I took it a little easier after that, and it was feeling okay by the end. Once I got home, though, it felt like it was stiffening up again, and I was sure that my other muscles probably were as well, so I decided to get in another workout to try and stretch things out. For that, I went with the py:flexibility workout. It didn’t really target my quads quite as much as I might have liked… then again, that may have been a good thing. The nice thing about the workout was that it didn’t take me very long to get warmed up. I was getting pretty tired by the end, though, particularly my shoulders. Not quite sure why that was, but the end of the workout came at about the right time. The only problem being that it’s hard to say what kind of impact it is really going to have on my level of soreness. I doubt it will hurt, anyway, besides perhaps my hamstrings. Anyway, we’ll see what I end up doing tomorrow… I’d kind of like to get in a full workout, but I might take it easy if I’m feeling particularly sore.

Workout: Intermediate Mat Workout
Author: chaos

Had a pretty good pilates workout today. I was expecting whatever workout I did to hurt a little bit, just because I was mildly sore all over today. But this one wasn’t bad at all. As an added bonus, I was doing really well with the workout. I’d say that this was probably my best overall pilates workout, ever. The rockers were pretty easy, the leg circles were decent, and even the teaser wasn’t all that bad. The side kick series still needs work, but even that’s getting better. I think I have some problems with that because my hips either aren’t flexible enough, or just aren’t trained in those motions. It’s probably the latter, since almost all of the pilates moves were difficult when I first learned them. I considered doing a few mini-workouts, but decided just to rest up tonight, and hopefully get a good workout in tomorrow. So until then…

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

I was rather hoping to do an intermediate yoga workout today, but I was still feeling somewhat sore all over, so I decided to hold off on that. However, I really didn’t feel like just doing an easy workout, and wasn’t really in the mood for abs, either. So I decided on YCfA as a good combination of a reasonably extensive workout, and not overly strenuous. It went fairly well, although it did end up being a little more strenuous than I anticipated. Particularly near the end of the conidtioning section, where I was starting to remember how I used to get fatigued right near the end. However, I was able to hold out. It wasn’t all that bad, really, just a little more tiring than I was expecting it to be. If my muscles hadn’t already been a little bit tired and sore, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed.
I don’t think there were any real highlights to the workout… it did go a bit better than last time, though. In particular, I wasn’t having absurd amounts of trouble with the standing balances, particularly tree and eagle. I think in part that’s because I was more mentally focused, and I was really able to… envision the balance better, I guess. It’s a little hard to describe, but when I’m mentally present in the workout, I have a lot more ability to look… inside my body, I guess, and make adjustments to my balance in a way that I’m normally not able to. All part of that mind-body connection idea. Anyway, that’s all for tonight. I’m hoping that I’ll have recovered most of the way by tomorrow, and then I’ll try to get the intermediate yoga workout in again.

Workout: Intermediate Yoga
Author: chaos

Although I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for it, I went ahead and got another intermediate yoga workout in today. I was pretty happy with the opening section… I reviewed the disc the other day, so I had a better idea of what was coming in the workout, as well as what I wanted to do. The opening section went pretty well, although I was unable to do the revolved triangle pose with my right leg forward. I was able to hold it for a little while with my left leg forward, so that was a positive. I was quite pleased with both of my half moon poses… I think studying the workout a little more really solidified my conception of the pose. Warrior III also went quite well, although I did fall out of it on the left side. Overall, though, I’ve been happy with my progress on both of those poses during the last month or so.
Inverted poses were okay. Really, it was about the same as last time… did the initial handstand, didn’t get into the second one, did part of the arm stand, and did the headstand. I couldn’t quite find the balance for headstand today, though, so I wasn’t able to lift my legs away from the wall for any signicant amount of time. The need to develop more shoulder strength is quite obvious, though. I might start trying to work in either a handstand or the arm stand into some of my other workouts, to try and work on that shoulder strength. Or I might just put more emphasis on some of the workouts that have a lot of downward dog, like py:strength and yfs:s1.
I attempted to get my legs into half lotus today for the final section, although without much success. My hips just don’t turn in the appropriate direction, at least not yet. Perhaps one day in the future they will. I had a lot of trouble with upward bow today… wasn’t getting the positioning quite right. Shoulderstand wasn’t bad… I was hoping that by keeping my hands further down on my back, I would avoid the problem where they start tingling, but that wasn’t the case. So there’s still something to work on there.
Well, while I do want to continue building up my shoulder strength, I’m not sure that they don’t need a short break. I’ve been pushing them for a couple of days now, and while they’re not really hurting or anything, they have been getting tired a little easily during the workouts. However, with ultimate coming up on Tuesday, I’m unlikely to do a particularly strenuous workout then. So it’s possible I’ll do something like abs/py:strength tomorrow, or I may just take it easy for a day or two and see how the shoulders are feeling then. For now, I’m planning on going hard tomorrow, and then dialing the intensity back a little for the following three days, and picking it back up for the weekend.

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

Got into the balanceball workout for the first time in quite a while today. I was expecting to have some difficulty with it… the last couple of times I remember doing it, I had some problems, especially with the crunches near the beginning. However, either the workout has become much easier, or my abs have gotten much stronger since I last did it. I really didn’t have any problems at all throughout the workout, and I was quite pleased with my form, as well. In fact, there really wasn’t anywhere in the workout where I felt I could have improved my form, which is extremely rare for any workout, if not completely unprecedented. Which is not to say that I couldn’t improve my form… just that I’m not currently aware enough to know how to improve it. Which is kind of a nice thing. I wouldn’t want all my workouts to be like that, certainly, but it’s nice to have the occasional one fall under that category.
Anyway, after I finished off the balanceball workout, I still felt like doing a little more work. I did a quick test to see how downward dog felt, and decided that while I could have tried to press the issue with something like py:strength, it would be a better overall plan to rest up a little today and tomorrow, and then go for something like that on Wednesday. So I decided just to stretch a little with the running and swimming mini-workouts. My right tailbone has been feeling a little tender lately… I think I’ve been being too aggressive in some of my stretching lately. It’s a problem that I’ve had in the past and, most likely, will have again in the future. It doesn’t change things all that much, really just a note so that I tone things down a bit for a couple of weeks. Anyway, decent light stretching, even if it didn’t feel completely adequate. However, I didn’t eat quite as much today as I probably should have, so I didn’t want to push too much. I’ve been having an interesting experience lately… it seems that if I don’t eat enough, I get really tired and just want to nap. I’ve never had that strong of a correlation between eating and anything else my body does, so it’s pretty weird. I’m not entirely certain what to make of it, to be perfectly honest. Is it possible that my body could finally be starting to correlate eating with energy? A scary proposition. Perhaps the greatest sign of advancing age. Well, I might go for a short total body session to warm up for ultimate tomorrow, or perhaps just a free form workout. Until then…

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

Decided to try and get a more complete stretch in before ultimate today. Not that I’ve really had a problem with my free form routine, but since it’s early in the season, and not as warm as it will be later, I’m trying to be a little more careful in hopes of avoiding straining and pulling muscles. So for today, I went with the shortened version of the total body workout. For some reason, I didn’t seem to be in the mood to do it… I was kind of reluctant to go through the first part. But I figured that I’d feel better after I went through it and gotten a good stretch in, so I continued on. After I finished the first part, I skipped to the last… had no motivational problems with that. Kind of odd, but whatever. In the end, I felt that my hamstrings were nicely loosened and ready to play. I did make one modification, I substituted the seated twist from the all sports workout for the regular seated twist of the total body workout. I felt that it would help stretch my hips a little better, and not potentially strain my knees. Anyway, all of the stretching must have been reasonably effective, since I made it through ultimate without even a twinge in the muscles. Afterwards, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t tighten up too much, so I did a light cooldown, mostly in the style of the all sports workout. I did it free form, and took it a little bit slower than the actual workout, but the pose sequence was very similar. After all that, I’m feeling pretty good, but a little worn down. Hard to say what I’ll do tomorrow… it’ll probably depend on how I’m feeling. I’m thinking abs pilates and py:strength, but that might be a bit ambitious. I guess we’ll see then.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga, Intermediate Mat Workout
Author: chaos

I was feeling a little unmotivated about getting the workout in today, and decided that my initial thoughts for workouts were probably a little too aggressive. I considered just doing one of the two workouts, but really didn’t feel like doing either of them. In the end, I decided to do a pilates workout and abs yoga, as opposed to the other way around.
I started out with the pilates workout. It was pretty similar to last time, although not quite as good. Actually, I’m not sure what was really not as good about it… I guess that I just didn’t feel like the workout was quite as tight as last time, although a few of the exercises seemed better. I don’t think the side kicks went as well, though, which was a little disappointing. Anyway, after that I rolled into the abs yoga workout. It was definitely a little tougher than normal, following the pilates workout. While this pilates workout isn’t quite as intense as the abs pilates workout, it still gives the abs a decent workout. At one point I really thought I wasn’t going to make it through the workout, but then I had a bit of a break in effort, and recovered enough to finish up. I think it’s only the second or third time that I’ve done the abs workout after I did the other workout… definitely makes it hurt a little more. I’m not sure whether or not that’s a good thing. For tomorrow, I’ll probably do some free form before ultimate, although I might do py:flexibility or some mini-workouts if I’m so inspired.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Went with a free form workout before ultimate. Pretty standard sequence of two sun salutations, four more incorporating triangle, side stretch, warrior II, and backbend lunge, followed up with wide angle standing forward bend, then the all sports twist, seated forward bend, reclined cobbler’s pose, and relaxation pose. I didn’t seem to be quite in the mood for a workout again today… not quite sure what the story is. Fortunately, it’s easy to work through that on ultimate days, since not stretching out is akin to muscle suicide. Nothing special about the workout, although I did try to really extend into the stretches to maximize the benefit. Ultimate was fun, didn’t work too hard, although I did lay out a few times. Everything still seems to be in good condition, but it’ll be difficult to be certain of that until tomorrow. If anything, it’d probably be my right shoulder that would have problems, but since that’s my throwing arm, it would be a bit problematic. But it feels fine now, so I think it should be fine. It was pretty warm out today, and since there were a good number of subs, I don’t particularly feel the need for extra stretching. So I’m just going to take today as a light day for yoga, and hopefully be a little more motivated for a good workout tomorrow.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

I’m still having trouble with my motivation. Although after the workout tonight, I’m feeling a little bit better. So maybe it’ll get a little better from now on. Anyway, tonight’s workout was fairly decent. My shoulders seem to be feeling a little stronger… I didn’t notice any strain today from the downward dogs. It seems like… I don’t know. Like the biggest problem I’m having now is that the muscles in my shoulder bunch up in the pose, and perhaps they’re just not used to it. It’ll require more testing to find out how true this is, but perhaps I’m finally getting it. The rest of the workout felt pretty good, too, except for the arm balances. I didn’t quite hit any of those today. I didn’t position my arms low enough for crane pose, so I had trouble holding it. Simple arm balance wasn’t too bad… I think I positioned my arms too wide for that, but only slightly. Still, overall, I can’t complain too much. For whatever reason, I’m feeling much better after the workout than I was before, which is pretty much a success itself. Hopefully that will continue, and I’ll get in a full workout tomorrow.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Unfortunately, motivation has not returned like I was hoping it would. I went with a short free form workout just to keep the routine in line. I went pretty basic… two sun salutations, four more with triangle, side stretch, warrior I, and warrior II, cobbler’s pose, seated forward bend, and relaxation pose. My hamstrings were extremely tight at the beginning of the workout… they had loosened up fairly well by the end. Not quite sure why they were so tight. Anyway, hopefully I’ll break out of this slump here in the next day or so, and get a good workout in.

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

Still having problems motivating. However, I think part of that was due to tax season procrastination, so since that’s finally done, maybe I can get on with the rest of my life now. I’d like to think that, anyway. For today, just kept the string alive for one more day with a set of mini-workouts. I feel bad about even calling the last couple of days workouts, they’ve been so light. I guess these are just off-days. Anyway, running, swimming, and all sports, like usual. Only thing of note was a brief observation about downward dog… if my hands are well positioned, it seems pretty easy. If they’re not, or if they’re slipping while I do the pose, it becomes difficult fairly quickly. Other than that… hamstrings not particularly tight today, which is a plus. I don’t think there was anything else of note, pretty much routine. I’m going to try to at least get in yfs:s1 tomorrow… we’ll see how that goes.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

Can’t seem to break the motivation slump here. Instead of the planned (and somewhat desired) yfs:s1 workout, I ended up just going with a flexibility workout. Which isn’t terrible, I suppose, but really isn’t what I’m looking for right at the moment. Anyway. The workout went fine, although that right tailbone area is still sore. I’m not quite sure how long it’s going to take to heal. I think it is getting better, though, and I’m trying not to push it too much. We’ll see how that goes. My hamstrings were somewhat tight to start, but they loosened up reasonably well. I think my legs were thrown off from not stretching out after ultimate on Thursday, so I think that I’ll try and make sure to get at least light stretching in from now on after ultimate. At least until it gets much warmer out, and my legs are more used to being beaten upon for two hours. At least I have ultimate tomorrow, which should get my yoga schedule back on track a little bit, for a few days.

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

Went back to the mini-workouts for my pre-ultimate workout today. At least when I play ultimate on a day, I don’t feel badly about not getting in a harder workout. I’m hoping eventually I’ll want to do both, but for now I’m fairly satisfied with just getting good stretches in. Today I just did the usual sequence for warmup. It went pretty well… I was definitely feeling pretty good about my level of being stretched by the end. Almost an ideal level, I’d say. After ultimate was done, I did all sports again for a little post-game stretching. Hmmm… I think my only real complaint about this sequence is that there isn’t a backbend lunge in it. Other than that, some pretty good stretching… a lot of my current free form workout is modeled after parts of this set. Anyway, I’m really going to try and get a good workout in tomorrow, and try to break out of this slump I’ve been in.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Cannot break free of this mental lethargy. That’s not even quite the right descriptor for it, but it’ll have to do for now. The point being that I’m not managing to summon any motivation at the moment. For much of anything, which is somewhat problematic. Anyway, I continued to fail and get decent workouts in with a yoga abs workout. Actually, it’s not that the workouts haven’t been decent, they’re just not really sufficient. I should be working at them much harder than I have been for the past week. Anyway. The workout itself was fine, perhaps even a little bit better than average for this workout. Perhaps the despair over failing to produce anything isn’t all bad… it does seem to make me want to get a little bit more out of what I have been doing. I’ll probably go with the mini-workout set again tomorrow before ultimate, since I really haven’t been up for doing my own sequencing lately, and it’s actually a reasonably decent workout for warming up. So until then…

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

As anticipated, I went with the normal routine of mini-workouts for my pre-ultimate workout. Everything went fine with that, no problems. Well, my right tailbone type area continues to be a little tender… I may have to try modifying a little further to really avoid straining it at all for the next week or so, and see if it gets back to normal. I think triangle is the biggest offender I’ve done lately, but it’s in almost every workout. So that was the stretching workout. Later, near the end of playing ultimate, I noticed that my legs were starting to feel a bit tight, possibly from working as hard as they had been. So after the game finished, I went through a short workout on the field to stretch them out. Mostly, just held standing forward bend for a little bit, then did a quick all sports sequence. That seemed to help a lot, and they don’t feel like they’ve tightened up since then. So I’m pretty happy with that. I may go in for another workout later tonight, although the way I’ve been going lately, that’s probably not all that likely. Still, my legs probably would be happier if I did, so perhaps I’ll manage. We’ll see what happens. If not, perhaps I’ll finally pick the ball back up tomorrow, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

I went for a run for the first time in a very long time today. I’m fairly certain I haven’t run since before leaving North Carolina, which puts it around three years ago or so. I’m not certain that I’m going to stick with it… we’ll see what happens. The idea is to help me get into better shape for ultimate. I was actually surprised at how well I did… I did an estimated 1.5 to 2 miles without stopping. Not at the greatest pace, but not that bad, either. Of course, since I don’t know for sure either how long the run was or how long it took, perhaps my perceptions are off. But I’m fairly confident about the distance, at least, and I’m sure the pace wasn’t that bad, at least until the very end, where it got pretty slow. That actually had more to do with my legs than my breathing, though… they were feeling somewhat sore from yesterday, and I think they were just starting to give up at that point. Altogether, it was a reasonably satisfying run.
As for today’s workouts, they weren’t quite as satisfying, relatively. Before I went on the run, I did the running mini-workout to stretch out. I have to admit that it seemed pretty effective, or at least my muscles weren’t tightening up while I was running. I intended to come back home and do a workout after that, but I unfortunately managed to lock myself out of the house. So I ended up walking around for a while to cool down, and then doing some light stretching while I waited to get back in. After that I was hungry, so I delayed the workout for a while. Eventually, I decided to go with the full YCfA workout. I didn’t end up doing the entire workout… I probably only made it though about half of the conditioning section, before I decided not to abuse my legs too much. I’m not sure how my shoulders would have felt about the rest of it, either… for some reason, I was pretty sore today, over most of my body. I guess I did more than I thought at ultimate yesterday. The summary of this being that the workout ended up being somewhat lighter than was originally anticipating. At the moment, the plan is to get up early and go play ultimate in the morning, but we’ll see if that happens. If not, I may go for a run during the day, or I may get a solid workout in. Or, I may end up slacking off. It’s hard to say right now, so I guess I’ll just play it by ear.

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

Went with a quick set to stretch before ultimate today. I was running a little late (or so I thought), so I only did the running and swimming workouts. I figured I could do a little additional stretching once I got there, if necessary. However, as it turned out, no one really showed up. We ended up with four people, and played a few games of double disc court. I hadn’t played before, but since it’s a game of accuracy and catching, I ended up being pretty good at it. It was kind of disappointing that there was no ultimate, since it was a beautiful morning for it (and I even got up to go!), but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I did a touch of light stretching afterwards, but I’m about to head out for a walk, so I’ll probably do a more comprehensive workout later tonight sometime.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I never ended up getting another workout in yesterday. The walk ended up being somewhat longer than expected, eventually coming in at six to eight miles. Between that and getting up early, I took a short nap after returning from the walk. After that, we were having dinner with some friends, so I got ready for that, we went out, and ended up not getting home until quite late. It had been a fairly full day by that point, and I ended up going to sleep shortly thereafter. Woke up today and was fairly sore. My shoulders weren’t as bad, but my legs were somewhat worse, unsurprisingly. My calves were actually quite sore, which was a little surprising, since they rarely are. Anyway, procrastinated doing a workout until late (again), and then just ended up doing an abs workout. Really, not at all how I should have handled the situtation, but that’s what happens without motivation. I feel like I’m letting my extracurriculars keep me from a satisfying yoga practice, and that’s somewhat true, but it’s really just an excuse. In reality, I’ve just been very unmotivated for the last two weeks, and that’s been the thing keeping me from a good practice. For now, just continuing to trudge through, with hopes of coming around sometime very soon.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

While I wouldn’t say that I pushed myself in the workout today, it is the first day in about two weeks that I haven’t waited until the last possible minute to do my yoga workout. Which, for the moment, I’m going to take as a positive sign. I might have even gone for an abs workout in addition to the strength workout, if I hadn’t just done one last night. Perhaps not all hope is lost. I do seem to be recovering from the malaise that has plagued me for the past week or two, at least a little bit. I’m not terribly certain that I’m out of the woods… well, actually, I’m fairly certain I’m not… but I might be getting there. Wednesday’s workout selection (and timing) will probably be telling in that regard.
As for tonight’s workout, nothing too special. I was feeling a little stiff in general, but not particularly sore today, which was a definite improvement. That right tailbone area is still feeling a bit sore, which is a little annoying. You’d think that it would have pretty much recovered by now, with all the rest I’ve been giving it. Pendulum pose was a failure, as usual, but crane and simple arm balance were both decent. I was shortening up my downward dog a little, mainly because I was having trouble with my hands slipping, but I’m not sure that it’s not an improvement in form. At least, it feels more like a resting pose when I do that. Something to consider, anyway. Not sure what I’ll do for the ultimate warmup tomorrow… it’s supposed to be relatively cool out, which means that muscles will be colder and there probably won’t be as many subs. So I’m going to want a good stretch beforehand. Maybe I’ll do the light version of total body or something. Anyway, until then…

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body, Yoga Conditioning for Athletes: Mini-workouts
Author: chaos

Had double trouble today with both a cold day and hamstring muscles that didn’t seem to want to stretch out. I’m not quite certain what the problem was that they didn’t want to stretch, but even after going through the shortened total body workout, they didn’t feel like they were really properly stretched out. On the plus side, I did notice that if I take a wide stance with the warrior poses (particularly warrior II), I get a pretty good stretch of the groin. So that makes up for not getting in a backbend lunge.
Went out to ultimate, and as expected, it was cold. It took us a while, but we eventually got 7 on 7, so that was good. And we had a full length field today, which was very nice. However, near the end of the game, everything was starting to feel frozen, particularly hands and forearms, but I could feel that my muscles weren’t really thrilled with the state of affairs, either. So after I got home, I went in for my mini-workout trifecta. Even so, my muscles aren’t feeling particularly well stretched, but I don’t want to push them too much, either. Obviously, I’ll be taking the rest of the night off, and hopefully resting them will allow them to recover quickly. If not, it might be a light workout tomorrow, or possibly abs or something like that. I’m really hoping for them to be recovered by Thursday, especially since it’s supposed to be cold again then, too.

Workout: Yoga for Strength: session 2
Author: chaos

Still having a lot of trouble with motivation. I think part of the problem is waiting too long to do the workout… I start to get tired, and then don’t do workouts like I should. I’m going to try and start getting workouts in earlier in the day, and see if that helps me break out of the slump. Anyway, YfS:s2 today. It was okay… I’m starting to have some serious problems with that right tailbone, though. The first triangle pose to the right was pretty harsh. I’m going to have to figure out how to get that healed, possibly even take a few days off (although I’m reluctant to do that right now, for obvious reasons). Other than that, things were okay. Half moon pose went pretty well, tree pose was fine, and warrior III was okay, although I wasn’t holding it as long as the video. Part of the problem there was that my hamstrings didn’t feel like they’d been stretched out enough. While they weren’t nearly as bad as I feared they might be, they were still a little sore all day. So was the groin area, which was a bit surprising. I had noticed that it felt a bit tight last night, and tried to stretch it out, but apparently didn’t manage to fully avoid the stiffness. I’ll probably go in for the mini-workouts yet again for my pre-ultimate stretch tomorrow… hard to say what I’ll do afterwards, it’ll probably depend on how I feel.

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

Went once again with the mini-workouts for ultimate stretching purposes. I felt a little bit better about them today than I did on Tuesday, although I still feel like I could have gotten a little more stretching in. The sore tailbone problem is making it a little more difficult to stretch the right hamstring out as much as I’d like. Overall, though, fairly decent stretch.
Ultimate was pretty good, not quite as cold as Tuesday, but still somewhat less than ideal. I didn’t play my best game, particularly on offense, although I did have a number of decent defensive stops. Near the end of the night, my legs started trying to cramp up a little, particularly my lower calves. I’m guessing that was probably mostly due to the cold. Although… now that I think about it, it could be lack of a Gatorade-type beverage. I’m not certain how much difference that really makes, but it does occur to me that I’ve been having the most trouble this week, when I haven’t taken one with me. So now I have two possible factors. Well, more, really, but those are probably two of the more likely ones.
Anyway, did a little bit of stretching on the field after ultimate, mostly just a couple of triangle poses and a bit of lunging. Once I got home, I went into a free form workout, fairly light, but a little more complete. Did a few sun salutations, triangle, warrior II, then followed the end of the all sports workout. The one pose that I’ve really been appreciating from that the last couple of weeks is the reclined leg stretch, actually. It felt really good both times I did it today. Actually, in retrospect, it seems like the free form workout was mostly following the all sports mini-workout, with a few extra sun salutations and a warrior II thrown in. Not that that’s a bad thing. I think I’ll try to get a workout in somewhat earlier tomorrow, presuming I can even move, of course.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

I was feeling a bit sore after ultimate yesterday. Not as bad as Wednesday, for the most part, but there were a few points. The most disturbing one was that the outer half of my wrists (as viewed with palms down) hurt after ultimate. In a way, I’m glad that both wrists hurt… I’d have been more concerned if only the right wrist did. They felt fine today, but I have noticed them being a little tender near the end of some workouts lately, so I planned to give them a rest today and just do an abs workout. My original thought was to do a pilates abs workout, but since I didn’t get to the workout until late (again), I decided to go with the yoga abs workout. Actually, I still wanted to do the pilates workout, but I wanted to meditate after the workout, and I felt that the yoga abs workout would be a much better lead-in to the meditation. So I ended up doing that. The workout went pretty well… I had good focus tonight. The meditation afterwards didn’t go particularly well, but at this point, just getting myself to sit down and try it is helpful. If I can make it a habit, I know that I can eventually start getting the benefits of meditation. The interesting thing about the workout was that I felt dissatisfied afterwards. Not with the workout itself, which was pretty decent, but with the effort expended. It didn’t feel like I had done enough. That’s the first time since I started having motivational difficulties that I’ve felt that way after the workout, and I’m hopeful that this means I’m finally coming out of the slump, and am ready to get back to serious workouts.

Workout: Power Yoga: Flexibility
Author: chaos

Well, I haven’t quite made it back to the point of getting in serious workouts, but I think I’m still progressing in that direction. I’m still trying to balance resting up a little with recovering my previous level of dedication… resting is still winning, but more in the slacking off way. Like today, I intended to get a better workout in, but waited until late again. I still feel like I’m undergoing a mental shift, though, and have hopes for improvements soon. Part of the problem right at the moment is that I bruised my left heel slightly playing ultimate on Thursday, and am trying hard to take it easy so that I’m ready to go again on Tuesday. Still, it’s a little frustrating. Anyway, I felt pretty good about tonight’s workout, overall. I was getting into it quite a bit, especially at the beginning… but really, I felt pretty connected to the workout throughout. I did note that I think my experience would have been even better if I were going into the workout already warm, like if I had done stamina and/or strength beforehand, but that’s not terribly surprising. I’ve also been trying to take it easy on my wrists, to see if I can get away from them hurting occasionally after workouts. Anyway, I’m going to try for a long workout tomorrow, probably not intermediate yoga, but possibly total body.

Workout: Power Yoga: Total Body
Author: chaos

After a few weeks of lameness and excuses, I finally managed to get a decent workout in tonight. While I’m still trying to let a couple of my minor aches heal, I think it was good for me to push myself a little more than I have been lately. Hopefully not to the point of retarding any healing, but at least to the point of getting a full workout. I was pretty pleased with the workout tonight… I was mentally involved, and really trying to focus on my mechanics. While it was pretty tiring, I think that it helped me gain a little bit of insight into some of the poses, particularly the warrior poses. I’m not sure that my legs are quite ready for what I learned, but I may be underestimating them. While they were tired, they did make it through the workout without much trouble. I’ve also adjusted my upward bow a little… after checking out the pose description, I decided that I was probably letting my legs turn outward at times, and that’s when I was having problems with the pose. So today I skipped the middle one, and focused on making sure that my legs didn’t turn outward. That seemed to work pretty well… my lower back didn’t hurt, and the pose seemed a little bit easier overall. So hopefully proper attention to detail will solve my periodic issues with doing that pose. The stretches felt pretty good, I took it easy on the wide leg seated forward bend, in order to not strain the tailbone any more than I already had. I can’t wait until that gets back to normal. Anyway, a pretty good workout today… I think I’ll probably go for something like abs pilates tomorrow, or maybe balanceball, and possibly something else as well. Until then…