BBM Connection

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

I was definitely feeling better today. Not quite back to full health, but getting closer. However, I did push myself a little hard yesterday with both the yoga workout and Stepmania after that, so I decided to go ahead and take it a little easier today. Not too much, though… ended up going with the combination of stamina and strength. It felt pretty good, overall… I had fairly decent focus for the most part, which definitely helped. I was feeling a little bit tired by the end of the strength workout, but not terribly so. It’s possible that I even could have done the flexibility workout, but since the point was for me to take it a little easier tonight, that didn’t seem like a particularly wise idea. Really, I think it would have been a bit much anyway… I think my technique would have started to suffer by the end. Anyway, since I seem to have been getting steadily better over the past couple of days, I’m hoping that I’ll pretty much be back to full strength tomorrow. I’ll most likely try to do pilates abs and hip opening again, if that’s the case, since it’s been a little longer than I like to go since I’ve last done abs. Held off today because the stomach is still a tiny bit off, so hardcore abs seemed less than ideal. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be getting something in tomorrow, so until then…

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Had a difficult time motivating for the workout tonight. Had a difficult time motivating all day, really. I have a very severe need to break out of this long-term slump. Anyway, managed to convince myself to do the workout anyway. It was okay… breathing was pretty good, actual mechanics were decent if not stellar, concentration was somewhat lacking. That’s somewhat to be expected on a low motivation day, I suppose. Anyway, trying to just keep going, hopefully I’ll at least get back to the point of physically wanting the workout every day, and then maybe I’ll be able to get motivation jump started from there. Who knows.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Well, I didn’t get around to doing a workout last night, which isn’t terribly surprising, since I had some serious motivation issues yesterday, at least once the workout was done. I decided that I’d probably rather do abs tomorrow than today, so today I went with py:strength. It went decently… I had fairly good focus again. I’m really hoping that I can keep that focus up, especially when I move back into the longer workouts, which I plan to start on once I get back from Chicago. I’m a little behind on where I want to be on the b-school application process, but that’s not particularly surprising. I might be able to get a little work done on my apps while away, though, so that would move me back up a little. We’ll see what happens. I really just want to be done with the whole process at this point. Anyway. Good workout, held downward dog instead of doing the simple arm balance. That was the only major modification. The knee feels a little… sore, I guess, in general, but not so much injured. I’ll just have to continue working around it until the soreness goes away, I think. Which will probably be a while, but there’s not really any help for it. Hopefully I’ll get a workout in either tomorrow or Sunday (or both), but if not, probably a stretching workout before ultimate on Monday.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from yoga in the past week, not really intentionally. I’m not entirely certain what the problem has been… a certain lack of motivation, unquestionably, but I don’t really know why. In fact, I somewhat felt like doing yoga on many of those days, but couldn’t quite summon the energy to do so. Really, I was still having the same problem today, but I just forced myself to do a workout and hopefully get back into the groove. Went with py:strength… I certainly don’t know that I felt like doing it, but I couldn’t figure out what I might actually feel like, so that’s what happened. Went okay… I feel like I need to get my focus back, start really concentrating. I’m working on improving my eating habits as well… it’s difficult to build strength on an improper diet, at least when lacking in calories is the improper part. Anyway, just a note to say that I’m back in action, and hopefully I’ll regain my consistency here in the upcoming days.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

I think my motivation is starting to return, slowly. I was having trouble working on my essays, so I decided to rearrange my normal sequence of events somewhat, and get the workout in earlier in the day. This way I don’t have to worry about getting it in later, and can hopefully concentrate on writing instead. Decided to go with py:strength again. Not too bad… I hadn’t healed quite as much as I thought, in terms of soreness. Which is to say, there was a bit of soreness, but nothing important… I was just under the impression I had fully recovered. Had a little bit of trouble with my right big toe, since the nail was trimmed a little too close last night. Just a minor annoyance, really. Anyway… provided I get some work done on my essays tonight, I might try for a hip-opening workout in addition to an abs workout tomorrow. We’ll see if I actually do that, or end up settling for just one of the two.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Still having trouble getting things done. They are getting done, just at a much slower pace than I’d like. Correspondingly, still having trouble committing to other things, like workouts. Decided not to totally slack off today, and went for the py:strength workout. I know that I’m not really pushing myself with these workouts, but at least I’m hopefully maintaining, and perhaps building a little. I think I have recovered most of the strength that I lost during the ultimate season. Pretty much all of my injuries seem to be healed, except my right pinkie, and the left knee/tendon problem. That doesn’t bother me, really, but I can still feel that it’s there. I think the pinkie is healing, but it’s a very slow process. I’m not really sure what to do about it, other than leave it alone. I don’t really think anything else is effective at this point… whatever the problem is, it just has to heal, and taping the finger doesn’t really seem to help that any… probably because taping and removing the tape aggravates things slightly. So I’m just trying to avoid hitting it and otherwise aggravating it, and hoping it improves. I need to start doing the hip-opening sequence again, now that my ankle seems to have recovered. I think I’ve made some improvements, but I need to keep working on it. Lots of stuff to get done… I need to learn to manage my time better. I just haven’t managed it for so long, it’s difficult. Anyway. Possibly hip-opening tomorrow, or maybe abs, or possibly both if I manage to get a lot of work done in the next day. Unlikely, but possible.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Slacked off a little bit yesterday, although there were some mitigating circumstances that contributed to said slacking. Still, not wanting to make that a habit, I decided to get an early workout in today. I think I’ll try to get another workout in later tonight, but we’ll see what happens. Anyway, it was an okay workout. The bird was being annoying for some reason, which made concentrating somewhat more difficult. My various injuries were a little annoying, but nothing that I couldn’t work through. For now, things to do, and all that good (or not so good) stuff. I’m going to try to go with morning workouts the next couple of days, especially if I do get another workout in tonight, but we’ll see how that goes.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

As somewhat expected, decided not to go with a long workout today. Part of that was just that I was feeling lazy, I think, which I’m not overly happy about. Although my ankle was a little unhappy today during the workout, so perhaps it’s just as well. I think I tweaked the ankle somehow in the last day or two, which I don’t distinctly remember doing, but do have a vague impression of. Annoying. I want to start getting back to the hip opening workout, but would really rather have my ankle at full strength before I start doing that again. I also want to start playing Stepmania regularly, but the same thing applies. Oh well. Today’s workout was fairly decent. I still want to figure out pendulum pose one of these days, but other than that, the workout has been going well. For tomorrow, I think I might try out the Yoga Burn disc that I got a while back. I’ll have to watch it first, though, so we’ll see if I actually get around to doing that before tomorrow. If not… I’m not sure. Maybe YfS:s2, or something. Until then…

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Started in on my plans to get to more advanced workouts with another strength workout today. Obviously, it’s not an advanced workout in itself, just helping me gain the strength necessary to do those workouts. I think strength and flexibility are going to be the dominant themes of the upcoming months. Anyway, it was a pretty decent workout. I’m starting to really concentrate on form in these workouts, in a way that I’m not sure that I ever have before. Subtle stuff, mostly, but it makes a lot of difference. The only downside of this workout was that I was working around some neck soreness caused by my rather large collision with the ground yesterday. It took me a while this morning to realize what the soreness was from… I initially was just thinking it was from sleeping awkwardly, but then remembered that the impact could quite likely have caused it. It actually feels quite similiar to the time that I slid into the wall with my head when playing indoors. So I imagine it’ll go away tomorrow, or Sunday at the latest. Sticking with short workouts for the next few days, I’ll have some more free time by the middle of next week, at the latest.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Went back to py:strength today. I’m starting to get pretty pumped up about the upcoming off season, and I’m looking forward to getting some serious yoga conditioning in. With that in mind, I’m trying to rebuild my muscles up to where they were at the beginning of the season, so I can start working on more advanced workouts as quickly as possible. Obviously I’ll have to wait for some things to finish healing, particularly my finger, but I can start laying a lot of the ground work now for those future workouts. Although perhaps the offseason won’t be quite as off as I was originally supposing… there’s some talk now of a Saturday late morning game, so I might be drawn out a few more times. It’s probably not going to be a high priority, though, since I really don’t like playing in the cold very much, and I do want to get some serious yoga work in, thus I don’t want to risk injury. We’ll see what happens… I’m not even completely convinced they’re going to get enough people out to make a real go of it. I’m sure I’ll probably go most of the time, just because I’m unable to resist the call of nearby ultimate. Maybe if I get involved in some other things, I’ll be less tempted.
Anyway, totally wandered off the subject of tonight’s workout. It was pretty good… I was staying pretty focused, felt like I was targeting the muscles pretty well, and keeping close track on injuries to make sure I didn’t aggravate them. Although my shoulders felt a little tired near the beginning, I worked through that and they didn’t feel as tired by the end, strangely enough. The workout was also far less tiring than the last time I did it, showing progress in both strength and endurance since then. I’ve been shying away from longer workouts recently, because I’ve been trying to rest up my ankle, but it’s been feeling quite a bit better the last few days, so I may attempt total body tomorrow, or I may just go for an abs workout or something. Until then…

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Did a strength workout for the first time since… May. It appears to be workout resurrection week here. Anyway, injury had a lot to do with the lack of this workout, particularly during June and July, and laziness took care of the rest in August and September. That’s not entirely true, since certainly when I’ve done workouts I haven’t selected this one, and that’s been because I thought whatever workout I did select was more appropriate for the time. At any rate, it’s been a long time since I went for the strength workout. I wasn’t even certain about going for it today, partly because my ankle has been a little tender this weekend, and I wasn’t too sure how happy it would be with all the upward dogs in the workout, and partly because I’m concerned about how sore I’m going to be tomorrow. However, I obviously decided that the benefits, in this case the need to start getting in strength training again, outweighed the detriments, so I went for it. It went reasonably well… my ankle wasn’t particularly pleased, and it was fairly tiring, but both those things were expected. My nutrition hasn’t been so hot lately, again, and I was starting to feel hungry before the workout, so I figured that I’d be even a little more tired than I would have otherwise. But, I made it through, perhaps not quite as easily as I’d have liked, but I’m actually pretty satisfied, overall. I’ll definitely need to be getting to this workout more often this month, as I try to get ready for a quick jump into serious yoga workouts next month. Anyway, that’s all for now… probably an abs workout later, or possibly pilates.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

My original plan for tonight was to go with an abs pilates workout. However, my stomach has been a bit unhappy ever since dinner, so it didn’t seem like an abs workout was the greatest of all possible plans. Instead, I decided to continue my focus on strength training, and went for the py:strength workout. It went reasonably well… I’ve probably had better editions of this workout, but I’ve certainly had worse. The only thing of real note tonight was an experimentation with my hand position for pushup pose and downward dog. I’ve tended to have a fairly wide hand positioning in the past, at least the recent past. Tonight I experimented a bit with having a more narrow position, only about as wide as my shoulders. It certainly made pushup pose feel a little bit more challenging. However, I did notice that it was hurting my wrists a little, on the outside half. I think the perhaps having the wrists slightly narrower than I have been, but slightly wider than shoulder width, is going to work out the best. Anyway, after the workout I considered doing an abs yoga workout, since my stomach seemed to be doing a little better, but decided just to hold off until tomorrow, when I’ll hopefully get the abs pilates workout in, since I’d rather do that one. So that’s the planned workout for tomorrow, most likely with something else, but I’m not sure what yet.

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: 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: 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: 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: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

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

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

I was originally considering doing a stamina workout tonight, but when the time came, I really didn’t feel that it was the correct workout for me. While I hadn’t done strength since before I injured my shoulder, back in early September, I was a little bit hesitant, but felt that I had made enough progress that I would be able to handle it. I thought that I might have to modify it a little, but was pretty sure that I’d be able to do most if not all of it.
It went pretty well. I wouldn’t say it was the model workout, but I did have pretty decent focus throughout much of the workout. It’s one of the things that I’ve really noticed my various injuries have done for me, they’ve forced me to focus more closely on my body, which has kept me closer to the workouts. I really need to learn that focus, so that I can do it without the aid of injuries, which I’d rather avoid, overall. Anyway, I really had no trouble with the workout at all, except a bit of slight residual twinging in my left shoulder as I rotated it at various times. I think that I’ll have that for a little while, but I don’t actually think it’s a problem at all. Other than that… pendulum pose was pretty much a flop, but that’s not surprising. Crane pose wasn’t as good as it usually is, which was a bit disappointing, but then again, I’ve only done it a few times in the past half year or so. Simple arm balance was actually quite good… I think I wanted to make sure that I could support myself with my arms, and since I hadn’t done terribly well with the first two poses, I made up for it with the third. All of this brings to my attention that my body has recovered from its various injuries, and that I really need to start stepping up my workouts again. It’s going to be tough, especially in the coming month, but with a little dedication I think I can start getting my practice into a more fulfilling place again. I especially hope to try the intermediate workout at least once before vacation ends, and possibly twice if the first time goes reasonably well. So depending on how I feel tomorrow, that could happen either then or Friday. I may interject an abs workout in sometime soon as well, just to keep in practice.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

I didn’t quite feel up to doing a long workout this evening, but I still wanted a bit of a challenge, so I went with py:strength. Given my experience Saturday night, I figured it certainly wouldn’t hurt to build up a little more strength in the shoulder area, which is probably the muscle group most targeted by this workout. So it seemed like a good choice of workout to go with. Certainly it wasn’t bad in the sense of doing what I just talked about… in fact, I’d say it was one of the best choices in that respect. However, I feel in retrospect that a workout emphasizing the shoulders a little less might have been a wiser choice. Whatever I did to my left shoulder last week is still causing me problems, and I think the shoulder-heavy workouts I’ve been doing in the last few days haven’t been helping the matter any. I was definitely noticing it twinging a little more often tonight than I have any of the other nights, so I think it’s both gotten a little more sensitive and was used a little more tonight. I don’t think it’s a major problem, by any means, but it’s probably best if I try to use it a little more minimally in the next couple of days, and see if I can promote some healing in the area.
Anyway, tonight’s workout actually went fairly well, ignoring the shoulder issue. I was pretty happy with most of my forms, although pendulum eluded me, as usual. Crane was really good, though, and I was also pretty happy with the raised leg lunges, although I’m a little concerned that my back is too high for them. I’ll need to get a visual on that to verify one way or the other. Near the end of the workout I noticed that I was starting to get a little sloppy, and focused on making precise movements for the rest of the workout, which was good. Meditation practice has been continuing… it doesn’t seem like I’ve gotten any better, but I imagine it’s going to be a somewhat long process, so I just have to stick with it for now and hopefully I’ll begin to see at least a slight improvement in the next few weeks. There’s a good chance that I’ll do an abs workout again tomorrow, possibly even pilates if I’m really motivated.

Workout: Power Yoga: Strength
Author: chaos

Still working on gearing up for the intermediate yoga video. However, I wasn’t really sure what that meant in terms of a workout tonight. My hamstrings were still a little sore from total body two days ago, although doing a lot of walking today helped loosen them up, I think. At least somewhat. Anyway, through a more or less random selection process, I ended up deciding to go ahead and bust out on py:strength. I’ve been avoiding this entire video in general, due to the fact that overall it’s one of the more aggressive workouts in terms of knee torquing potential. Being quite sensitive to that at the moment, I’ve studiously avoided taking the chance on that being an issue. But with the gradual recovery of the knee, it didn’t seem like this workout should be too much of a stretch, so I went ahead and tried it out.
And it went fairly well, overall. I was again fairly attentive to the nuances of poses and such, and so had a fairly successful workout in that regard. I caught myself slumping a little bit at one point in the middle of the workout, and picked myself back out of that right away. That also helped me stay more aware of my posture and energy level through the rest of the workout, so I held pretty steady in those areas. I’d say the total package was pretty good. I definitely did get a reasonable workout, and yet I was by no means worn out by the end, which is as it should be given the level of the workout. I also maintained pretty good posture throughout, which I don’t think I’ve tended to do very well with this workout in the past. Hopefully I can keep this trend rolling with a good workout tomorrow morning, although if I’m tired enough I might skip on the morning workout and just catch another late evening one instead.