BBM Connection

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Had a very difficult time getting to this workout today. I’m not really certain why… just couldn’t summon the motivation for some reason. A bit frustrating, to be certain. I’ve been in a bit of an odd mood all day, though. Did some Stepmania early today… just felt like doing it then. No idea why. That wasn’t bad. Was going to do the yoga in the early afternoon, but just couldn’t quite make myself get to it. I’d like to say that I spent the time doing other productive things, but I really didn’t. I’ve been in a bit of an overall slump again the last week or so, and I need to climb back out again. Just get some stuff, keep moving on. Hopefully after spending much of today in being moody and full of angst, I’ll be able to move on tomorrow. Not that I really think it’s likely, but I can always hope.
So, the workout. It went surprisingly well, considering I felt fairly tired throughout most of it. I waited too long between eating and getting to the workout, so my energy levels were pretty low. I’m not entirely certain this was a bad thing, or at least not a completely bad thing… it meant I was trying to be more efficient in my movements, and yet still get the same results. Whether or not I was successful is an exercise left to… someone with more energy than I. No idea what I’m going to do tomorrow… still feeling a little drained right now, so I don’t feel like I’ll be up to anything. I’m certain by tomorrow I will though, so I guess I’ll just find out then.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Trying to get back to my normal yoga schedule with this workout. I suppose I have, somewhat, since it’s currently “night”, at least in terms of my sleeping. I’d like to get back to the point where I am largely doing my workouts at night, but that’ll probably be a few more days still, at least. It would help if it were a little less cold at night, although I think it’s supposed to be the next couple of nights. Anyway, thought about doing the yoga burn workout, but decided instead to get some stretching in with the YCfA workout. This workout doesn’t seem overly challenging most of the time lately, which is fine, and yet it still provides solid work, and requires a good amount of effort to finish. It also works nicely on my flexibility, at least now that I’m aware of it. A solid workout, altogether. I suppose I’m not really making a whole lot of sense, but that’s because I’m pretty tired, so I think I’ll call it a “day” and go get some sleep. I’ll probably make another attempt to resync the schedule a little tonight, probably with abs and something.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Ended up deciding to go with YCfA today. I was really in the mood for a full workout, so decided to hold off on abs for yet another day. The workout went pretty well overall, and had a couple of high points. When I was doing warrior I to the left, I somehow managed to get my back leg situated such that it felt like that was exactly the way I was supposed to be holding it. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever had that feeling before on warrior I. I’m not actually sure I yet have the hip flexibility to achieve that feeling on the right. Anyway, later on in the stretching section I had some really good stretches in the hips and groin area. I don’t know that it was better than ever before, but certainly some of the best stretching I’ve had in those areas. Perhaps all my working out lately is helping me become more flexible. I think for tomorrow I’m going to go ahead with the abs workout, even if I feel like doing another full workout, just to make sure I get it in at some point. Although really, the point of abs is to build abdominal strength for other exercises, so if I feel more like doing those… well, whatever. I’ll do something tomorrow, almost certainly. So until then…

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Had another surprisingly good workout today. I’m not quite sure why I’m being caught so off-guard by having these good long workouts… probably because when I’ve started doing long workouts after a long break in the past, I’ve had difficulty with them. I’m not sure if the current success can be attributed to better cardio fitness or what, but I’m not complaining. I did get a little bit tired during a few points in the workout, or at least my muscles got fatigued, but I was able to keep going with little difficulty. Given this trend of success, it’s pretty likely that I’ll be trying out the intermediate yoga workout again pretty soon, maybe even by the end of the week. We’ll see how sore I am from this workout tomorrow… that might be a determining factor in how soon I actually attempt it. Trying to stay on top of things in terms of eating healthy and everything, although I find it terribly annoying to have to do. Still, that’s part of life, so I guess I’m going to have to continue dealing with it. I’m going to try and motivate to do the pilates abs workout tomorrow, but we’ll see if that actually happens or not.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Well, in the interest of not being a complete slacker, I went for the full YCfA workout today. Although I have to note that this workout is far more about stretching than anything else, it’s still a full length workout. I did everything except for tree pose and eagle pose, wanting to take it easy on the ankle. Relatively speaking, anyway. Workout wasn’t too bad, had reasonable if not great focus. My legs did get a little tired in the middle section… but I’m still working on it. I’m starting to really pay more attention to the subtle directions. Not always able to execute fully, but I’m working on it. Heading off for a few days. Hopefully it’ll help me pull myself together here. I really don’t think it can make things worse. If I get out of this month alive, it’ll be a miracle. Blah. Anyway. Things to do, people to see, all that. Planning on playing a little indoor ultimate tomorrow, so that should be rocking. Hopefully I won’t hurt my ankle again. All for now… stretching workout planned for tomorrow, and then probably abs yoga Thursday morning.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

For the first time in a very long time, did one of my hour long workouts today. It’s been nice that I’ve actually been following a plan for the last few days… not so much for the plan, but the fact that I’m following one. While I still haven’t achieved the same level of motivation that I’ve had at times in the past, I’m definitely getting back towards the workout a day mentality.
A little surprisingly, my hips really weren’t sore after yesterday’s workout. I still decided to go with the full YCfA workout over the total body workout, mainly because I believe the YCfA workout is easier, and I felt I wasn’t yet ready for total body. And it would appear that I was right… while the workout went pretty well, for the most part, I had to drop out of both warrior I and warrior II early because my legs were fatigued. Which, I have to admit, seems a little strange… I’m using my legs all the time. But I guess not so much for endurance, so… I suppose I just have to continue acknowledging the fact that the conditioning is different for yoga and for ultimate, and not expect good conditioning in the one to translate to the other. However, with that exception, I got through the rest of the workout without trouble, so that was fairly promising. I’ll probably try to start stepping up with more full length workouts, hopefully at least two a week, although they might both end up being on the weekends. I’ll continue to play that one by ear. Anyway, the plan remains to get an abs workout in tonight, quite likely to challenge myself with the pilates abs workout.

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

Had the quick transition last night, having played ultimate in the evening, driven to Chicago, and then playing ultimate again at noon today. I suppose the turnaround time for the ultimate will be an hour or so less on Thursday and Friday, but I think the driving makes up for it. Went pretty simple for the warmup, just running and all sports. Had another pretty good day, a lot of good defense. It helped that everyone else seemed to be wearing out a lot more than I was. Perhaps because I’m used to playing two hours at a time, now. Anyway, came back with a new scrape on the hip, which is rather unpleasant, but just a flesh would, and a slight strain of the right groin/inner thigh muscle. I felt that I could do something about that, so I thought for a while and decided to go with the first and last sections of the full YCfA workout. I was pretty happy with it… definitely felt like I got some good stretching in. I must have been more tired than I realized, though, because I fell asleep for a little bit at the end of the workout. Somehow, I don’t think I was staying mindful. Anyway, nothing too serious, so with another good stretch I should be ready to go for tomorrow evening.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Tried to go in for the full YCfA workout today. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure I was really in the mood for a full workout, but it seemed like I should go for it, anyway. Things started off okay, and although I still wasn’t really getting into it, I did appreciate stretching out somewhat. That was fine until I hit the first lunge sequence. Then I realized that I really had wrenched my left shoulder a bit playing ultimate on Thursday, and that I wasn’t just imagining it. Since I was feeling a bit out of sorts with the workout anyway, I decided to just skip the middle section and protect the shoulder. I didn’t even particularly feel like doing the rest of the workout either, but didn’t want to take it that easy, so I went through with it. I think a bit of my problem over the last couple of days has been diet… My schedule has been somewhat off, so I haven’t been eating as regularly as I was for a while, and I think it’s affecting my energy levels somewhat. I think the solution is to reestablish a slightly more normal schedule, and eat my meals regularly again. Hopefully that’s something I’ll be doing in the next couple of days, since now I have injuries to heal in addition to my normal nutritional needs. I’m probably going to take it easy on the shoulder, at least for tomorrow… I might do an abs workout or something, possibly balanceball, since I haven’t done that in quite a while.

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
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: 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: 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: 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: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

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

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Went with the full YCfA workout today. It’s been a long time since I did the full workout, in large part because I was quite worried about how a lot of the twists would affect my knee. Even now, a number of the poses were on the edge, warning of danger more than actually being a problem, but the line is fairly thin. However, I managed to carefully manuever my leg into position when necessary, and made it through the full workout.
It was an okay workout, overall. I think a lot of the stretching was good. I remembered that I really liked the narrative for this workout. Very descriptive and informative. I also remembered that this workout always seemed difficult to complete, although I was never quite sure why. I think it’s largely because the second section opens with all the leg bends, and that tires out my legs. Although I seem to recall that the problem before was that my shoulders would get tired, so I’m not quite sure what’s up with that. Anyway, it felt like my legs were going to give out near the end of the second section, and I was thinking about skipping ahead to the next section, but then it turned out I was already at the end of the second session. Still, I’m not quite sure why I was using so much leg strength throughout that section. Whatever. My concentration wasn’t that great, although I did have a few moments of good focus. I’ll definitely be working on improving that. So, provided I’m feeling up to it, I think I’m going to try out the new intermediate workout tomorrow. I don’t expect it to go all that well, but one has to start sometime, and now seems like a pretty good time. So until then…

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Went for another full YCfA workout today. This one was a little tougher than most of my recent workouts… I’m not entirely certain why, but my muscles were just a little off today. I think it’s the tension that I’m having trouble letting go of. I’m not very good at releasing things mentally… it’s one of the problems that I hope meditation will help with, once I get a solid practice.
Other than the odd muscle tension, though, it went fairly well. Especially for the first half of the workout, I was able to focus almost entirely on the workout without getting distracted. I’m not quite sure how that worked… I think I was trying to pay so much attention to the subtle details of the workout and really focusing on my form that I didn’t have the opportunity to really be distracted. Unfortunately, I pretty much lost that in the cooldown phase, where I was having a lot of trouble keeping focused on the workout. So that wasn’t very good. Workout notes physically… my right hamstring is definitely still tighter than my left, but it at least seems to be healed in terms of having been pulled. My shoulders were getting very tired by the end… I don’t know what exactly causes that with this workout, but it happens fairly often. Anyway. The tension issue should be resolved by Monday night, one way or another, so hopefully I can get back to having better focus on my workouts soon.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

It seems I still have occasional motivation issues. It’s not really that I don’t want to get the workout in, it’s just that I don’t actually want to have to go through the workout. Unfortunately, that’s not really all that possible. On the good side, I still went with this full length workout, even though I wasn’t much feeling like it, just because I had originally planned on getting a long workout in.
The workout wasn’t bad. I felt like I was paying attention to all the minor instructions and tips again. I also felt like it had a few too many poses that endangered my knee. I modified where necessary, but I was still closer to the edge on some of the poses than is probably ideal. I’ve also been noticing my hamstring again in the last workout or two, after the general soreness went away. It’s pretty much back to the state that it was in before I pulled it, where it felt a little bit stiff. That’s not particularly ideal, with ultimate coming up again, but I’m hoping that the more thorough stretching of this workout will have helped the matter somewhat, and that it will seem better tomorrow.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Had a pretty good workout today. Finally, I was actually in the mood for a particular workout, and unsurprisingly, things went well when I actually did that workout. Now if I could only figure out why I’m in certain moods on certain days, and learn to direct that…
Anyway, it’s been a little while since I did the full workout. While it certainly hasn’t become easy in the meantime, today’s workout did seem a little bit easier than it has on previous occasions when I’ve tackled it. That may be as simple as me being more ready for it, mentally, than when I’ve done it before. In fact, it probably is. Whatever the case, though, I was feeling very aware of the workout and in tune with my body today. I have been noticing that I’ve had a little bit of trouble with my warrior I pose lately… I think I’m arching my back in a way that compresses it a bit, at times? I’m not entirely certain. It could just be something I’m noticing because I haven’t been doing backbends enough, and don’t have as much flexibility in the lower back as I should. I also sometimes notice the same thing doing the deep forward lunges with the backbend, which is a very similar motion, so it might be that particular combination of backbend and being slightly off-center. Something I’ll keep noting and working on. The only negative of the workout is that I put more pressure on my right knee than was probably ideal… I really wish I had any idea of what the problem is. I’ll have to be sure and notice how it responds in the next couple of days, and see if that gives me any clues as to what the most effective treatment might be.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Went in for the full YCfA workout today. Well, not exactly the full workout. That was the original plan, more or less, but then decided to skip over most of the middle section. So the workout ended up consisting mostly of stretching, a little warming up, and more stretching. Not that it’s a bad thing… I admit that I had no real inspiration for any workout today, so a bunch of stretching was probably just as good as anything. Still, it feels like I’ve been slacking off a little bit these last few days, taking it a little too easy. I don’t know. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like I’ve been eating too much the last few days, like it has on some other occasions recently, so that’s a bit of a balance, I suppose. Maybe one of these days I’ll manage to align all of the elements, but I’m not going to hold my breath until that happens.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Author: chaos

Another morning workout. This one also went pretty well. I was in the mood for a good long workout today, so I was pretty much choosing between this and total body. Both had their points, but I felt that this one would be slightly more beneficial overall, so I went with that. I’m still underestimating the overall difficulty of the workout, though… sometime in the middle I’m always getting to the point where it requires real effort to keep going. I’m not entirely certain why that is… maybe the workout just really is harder than my mental impression of it. Whatever the case, it is really good for stretching, and it gives me more of a workout than I’m expecting, too.
So last night I did something kind of stupid. I was sitting around in simple cross-legged pose, and decided to see how my half lotus position was doing. And it was actually surprisingly good. I could only hold it for a few seconds, but it looked like a legitimate half lotus. Then I tried to do it with my left leg on top. As I lifted the leg up, I got a fairly loud “pop” from the outside part of the knee. It didn’t really hurt at the time or anything, but it seemed overall not very good. And sure enough, when I woke up this morning it was distinctly painful. I didn’t really notice until one of the earliest exercises, when I put my left leg over my right. I knew better than to push on it, but it was still definitely a noticable pain. I avoided doing anything much to it for the rest of the workout, being careful to support it a little better than normal. I’m hoping that I’ve just inflamed the area slightly, and it will heal in a few days, but I’m not too sure that’s the case. At least this time I should be a lot better about not pushing it, so it should heal relatively quickly, regardless. At least as compared to the last knee problem. Anyway, hopefully I won’t pay for my testing my limits with a regression, but I suppose if I have I’ll at least know better next time.