Over the past seven days, taking advantage of vacation time from work, I've tried to balance my yoga practice with daily trips to the gym to get in aerobic exercise so that I can increase my stamina and to burn off some of the pounds gained over the Holidays. I've included 30 minutes of stationary bicycle and another 30 minutes of either jogging/walking or elliptical trainer. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue this routine through the weekend. Next week, I am probably going to have to cut back the gym time to 30 minutes because I'll be back at work and unable to spend so much time on conditioning. The other objective is to get back into jogging and running, which I dropped after my knee injury. Running really helped my hips.
I've also tried to combine vinyasa with hatha, yin and restorative yoga, trying to cultivate more relaxing undertows in yoga to counteract the muscle activation in the flow. I wanted to acquire awareness and suppleness as well as muscle strength. In the past I've tended to harden around a partial flexibility in certain poses so that I could not deepen the postures. I don't know if I've succeeded. Last night, Susan Bowen led a hot vinyasa flow class at Thrive Yoga that really tested my physical edge. I had to stop repeatedly to catch my breath and my mat had puddles of sweat. I don't think she aimed to have an exceptionally difficult session, but the sequencing hit me where I feel the most vulnerability now, in the hips where I seem to be accessing a different combination of muscles.
At my age, the drop off in conditioning is unexpectedly sharp. For most of the last quarter of 2009, I could only grab practice sessions a few times a week, with no routine, and I even lost entire weeks because of family matters or travel. I do not have a home practice that can maintain a kind of physical and flexible foundation. Now I am paying the price. It's not something you can reverse in a week or two. I had been hoping to use my vacation time but weather and family matters kept me getting into a routine until this week. I also can't discount that my conditioning may also be a result of the lack of physical exercise following my knee injury, convalescence and recovery two years ago. It's only been a year since I really got back to yoga, and I've been treating myself gingerly over that time.
I have to find a way to create a full home practice, with active, yin and nidra yoga, as well as pranayama and meditation, while not being anal-obsessive about the whole routine. Understanding this need and taking action is probably what differentiates a beginner from an intermediate practitioner. It's not being able to achieve a certain level of difficulty in postures; that can depend just on hereditary traits or athleticism.
Labels: class, conditioning, running
For the first time since the Kest workshop two weeks ago, I took a Vinyasa 2/3 with Susan Bowen at Thrive Yoga. I got my butt kicked. I had taken one Hatha yoga class on Sunday and another on Tuesday, along with some aerobic work at the fitness room in the hotel during my brother's funeral. That frequency and intensity of class was not going to maintain my aerobic conditioning unless I combined it with some running or work in the gym on the stationary bike or elliptical trainer. But even that is not going to allow me to keep up with Susan's class. She did a Brian Kest routine on us -- she went through a long sequence on one side of the body that worked deeper and deeper into the hips. I was lost half way through. Then, she had us do the other side, just as deeply. I could not sustain Warrior III at the end of the sequence.
I really enjoy my Hatha yoga classes, and I get really deep into them, as I see them as a kind of remedial yoga practice that allows me to relearn my poses, focusing on alignment and ease. Thrive Yoga has teachers who can really open the way into poses. It may be the strong Anusara influence. I am trying to gain access to my hips, my psoas, my shoulders and rhomboids, areas that were densely tensed muscles or fibers that I could not even feel, much less activate. If we're wizzing by the asanas without a chance to settle in, that defeats my intention. I've seen some "yogis" pick up their mats and leave if the practice does not have enough pace, lots of vinyasas and challenging poses.
I love my Hatha yoga classes, but that's not going to substitute the more physically challenging classes that I can get on the weekends, and Thursday evenings. It wouldn't hurt if I could fit in more home practice as well, but that's another story.
On the good side, I must say that I have been fairly consistent sitting in meditation for 15-20 minutes in the evening, and grabbing shorter sessions during the day. I am constantly amazed by the rush, a refreshing rinse of my mindset, that I get by just taking a few moment of mindfulness; I say to myself, "Boy, I needed that".
Labels: class, conditioning, meditation
I missed vinyasa class tonight because of a heavy workload and a boss who's traveling tomorrow. When I got home, I had a choice: either watch the Trudie Styler DVD to write the review or go running. I choose running. I put in nearly two miles at a slow trod.
I used to run a lot until my knee injury and surgery. A few weeks ago, at the gym working on the stationary bike and elliptical trainer, I felt an impulse and jumped on the treadmill just to see what it was like, maybe just a quick walking pace. I did not feel anything bad. I stepped up the speed. At the end of 15 minutes, I was trotting along without any pain or complications. The following day, I felt no adverse consequences. I started jogging again, gingerly, at the gym and at a high school track near my house, first with a mile, then, adding a quarter of a mile gradually, until I am up to two miles now.
When I was recovering from my surgery, I focused on getting back to yoga because the discipline had a ripple effect throughout my life. I ruled out running because I did not want to overstress my knees. But running had never been the cause of my injury: it was actually yoga, an over-agressive moment when I put too much weight over my bent knee.
What pushed me back to running was my yoga practice: I've been doing one or two sessions a week of hatha yoga with Marylou McNamara at Thrive. She's trained as a Anusara teacher so she works a lot on alignment — long, repeated holds of fairly simple poses (lunge, Warrior I, II, III). I feel that I am able to access key muscles in my shoulders, back, core, and hips for the first time, and her instruction helps me focus on those areas. But a hatha class does not get much into aerobic conditioning, and I've noticed in the vinyasa classes that I've been getting winded. If I was going to continue going hatha yoga classes, I needed to add some aerobic exercise, either at the gym, the yoga studio or elsewhere.
So that's why I started running again. My short-term goal is to get ready for the Brian Kest weekend workshop at Thrive coming up on October 23-25. He teaches an Ashtanga, power yoga style that's going to test my limits over four two-hour sessions. I knew I had to step up conditioning.
Labels: conditioning, knee, running, yoga
I was doing a mental inventory of how my practice went this week, composed of two evening vinyasa classes with Dana Cohen at Thrive Yoga. If my yogic intention for the year is "listening with my whole body," my body was screaming "Why are you torturing me tonight!" I felt an almost combative resistance in my shoulders that made Warrior I and II a real struggle. But I could also sense that my breathing offered a depth that promised to counterbalance the weight of my heavy muscles and bones. Surfing the web at lunchtime today, I came across a November article in my hometown WashingtonPost.com Yoga Can Give You Strength, Balance, Flexibility. Isn't That Enough?. Somehow, I had missed it. It helped put things in perspective:
My own sense, buttressed in talks with Willow Street owner Suzie Hurley and others, is that regular participation in yoga, regardless of the style or level, is going to produce at least two surefire benefits: It will identify and help strengthen weak points in your body, and it will help reawaken muscles that tend to be underused in even active people.
Howard Schneider, one of the Washington Post's Misfit columnists, gives an excellent rundown of the relevance of yoga and other mindful disciplines to fitness. Of course, it helps that he has Suzie Hurley as a reference authority. I appreciated that he did not dip into the standard clichés about yoga (even good writers seem to recur to the pretzel metaphor all too easily).
By the way, Dana Cohen is an inspired teacher. I really enjoy her classes, which usually end with her signing a gospel or chanting a kirtan. She has been teaching at Thrive on an off-and-on basis for the past year -- Rockville is her family's home, but she seems to lead a nomadic life that leads her to the West Coast, India and beyond. Catch her while she's in town by checking the Thrive Yoga online schedule. She also gives Thai yoga massages. The easiest way to contact her is giving Thrive a call.
Labels: class, conditioning, news
I went to Thrive again this evening, after giving myself 48 hours to recover from my first yoga session in four months. Tonight's class was with Elizabeth Pope, a new teacher for me, who joined the studio after I hurt my knee. She's been exposed to a range of teachers, from Kasthaub Desikachar to Ana Forrest. It was a good solid class for all levels so I modified most of the poses to concentrate on my knees. Where I really felt it was in my shoulder and upper arms: all the chararungas in the vinyasas were punishing me for wimping out during my convalescence and not maintaining my core strength. Elizabeth confirmed this conclusion by making us do multiple sets of abdominal exercises that left me barely able to lift my head and neck off the ground. I sweated profusely and had to take child's pose on several occasions because my conditioning has lagged far more than it should have, especially in the last few weeks when I was struggling with resistance to going to the gym and the studio.
Labels: balance, class, conditioning, core, injury, teachers
In my previous blog entry, I said that I was "back in stride." I take that back. Yesterday, I went running at midday and barely got through an abbreviated 2.5 mile route on the Mall. Admittedly, the sun was strong and the temperature was several notches above what I've been running in. I was drained by the time I got back. In the evening, I had a commitment to take in a vinyasa one class with my daughter at Flow Yoga Center. Once again, I was really fatigued by the class. I got home, ate a quick, light dinner and then went to bed and slept for eight hours.
I have done this "running and yoga in the same day" thing before and been fine, just what would be expected in terms of physical fatigue. I've even had to calm myself down after a double sesison because my yoga practice frequently restored my energy levels and made me more alert.
I do have an inflamed throat that may be a sign of another sinus infection, which would explain some of the fatigue since the infection would drag on my energy levels. Just confirms that I need to listen to my body and follow its signals.
Labels: class, conditioning, running, Stephanie
Proof that I was actually in Spain (Segovia in this case), not at a meditation retreat in Nepal. My wife can take credit for this photograph.
This weekend I went to Susan Bowen's vinyasa class on Saturday and Sunday. I also put in an hour on the elliptical trainer and the treadmill at the gym so I feel that I have gotten back up to speed on my yoga and conditioning after my vacation break. It may be a while before I am up to full strength because I still feel the fatigue in my shoulders from lots of planks, Four-Limbed Staff Pose (Chaturanga Dandasana), and Upward-Facing Dogs (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana). On Saturday, it was a student's birthday so Susan made us do 40 vinyasas to honor her.
This 10-day process to get back into my exercise routine drives home a simple lesson: the mature adult's body takes a long time to adapt to more rigorous and skilled endeavors. I started running nine months ago, but seriously only less than six months ago. I should lower my own expectations about what I can achieve, both in the short and the long term. Instead of thinking about having lost training time due to my break, I should look at the two weeks as an opportunity for my body to relax and chill out. Although I can run three miles, it does not mean that I need to do it, especially given the wear and tear on my muscles after years of inactivity. I need to incorporate ample recovery time so that I don't stress my body too much. Hints of shins splits are a clear warning in that respect. It's not like I'm on a training schedule for a half-marathon (or any competition, for that matter).
I think it's been providential that I got into yoga before running. My gradual learning of yoga allowed me to ramp up the physical demands on my body gradually while enhancing my body awareness. Yoga's emphasis on breathing gives me a value instrument for measuring exertion while jogging. I've been using the ChiRunning technique of Danny Dyer to give me a training method in keeping with my yoga approach. I've actually had to teach my legs and core how to run, and that's included some minor pain as muscle groups have found new uses.
Labels: breathing, class, conditioning, photos, running
If you ever need an intellectual motivation to get you off your butt and into an active program of exercise, read Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
"The prescription ... varies from varies from person to person, but the research consistently shows that the more fit you are, the more resilient your brain becomes and the better it functions both cognitively and psychologically." (p. 247)
To cut to the chase, his formula calls for 30-60 minutes of aerobic exercise, usually running or equivalent intensity exercise, six times a week. On two days, he recommends five short sprints (30 seconds max) injected into a normal session (the max intervals seem to trigger the body's optimization). Strength-training helps maintain or build muscle and bone mass, which can be affected by the aging process. Ratey also suggests that yoga, tai chi, martial arts or other similar activities be added to improve balance and flexibility, as well as body awareness and concentration. Obviously, it takes time, discipline and effort to work up to the condition of being able to sustain aerobic exercise for such long periods, but you will be rewarded.
Exercise has an impact on the brain's neuroplasticity, creating new neurons as the building blocks. Ratey covered stress, anxiety, depression, attention deficit disorder, addiction, hormonal change (menopause in women) and aging in separate chapters. Far and away the best thing you can do for your brain power, mental health and physical well-being is an active daily exercise regime.
Ratey gets down to the complex, inter-related chemical processes and components that create and balance the neurotransmitters that fire up the brain within the human body. Ratey's conclusions are not new. There has been a steady drumbeat of stories in newspapers, magazines and on the web about how physical exercise can radically improve mental performance, ward off illnesses and aging and overcome mental disorders, like depression. He emphasized that it's necessary to engage in physical exercise every day, both to make it a consistent habit and to make the body respond appropriately.
Ratey is a researcher and neuro-psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School who earned a reputation working on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). More information is available on his website and his blog, which links to news stories and features about his new book.
Labels: brain_science, conditioning, health, reading, running
While traveling in Spain, I was not able to fit in much exercise or yoga practices. The week before leaving and all the prep work required that I ease off on my practice and running. So it's been about three weeks since I've really pushed my body out of its comfort zone. Today, I went out at lunch time to run on the Mall on my own. I felt good for the first 15 minutes, but then I began to notice how hard it was becoming, a queasy feeling in my stomach, a heaviness in my legs and a tightness in my breath. The sun was bearing down like a klieg light and I relished every spot of shade along the route. Although the heat had backed off its 100-degree-plus peak of the preceding days in Washington, it was still more than what I had been used to in Spain, which had been consistently chilly. After two miles, I had to pull up and just walk the remaining mile back to the office. My stamina was just not there, because of the heat, the lack of exercise, just the fatigue of travel, or all of the above.
During the summer, it's going to become more difficult to run at lunch time, due to Washington's heat and humidity during the summer. I enjoy getting the sweat going, but I've never tried to do anything like jogging under the midday sun in muggy Foggy Bottom. I know that one of my running mates and switched over to a gym in the morning. In any case, I need to work my way back into full operating strength gradually and accept the pace that my body dictates.
Labels: conditioning, running
Today, I did not do my usual Sunday routine of meditation and vinyasa at Thrive Yoga in the morning. I took a special master Ashtanga class that Devon Roe offers, usually on a monthly basis at Thrive (next time is in August or September). Devon studied with Beryl Bender Birch and teaches in several yoga shops in the DC area, mainly in Virginia. It's two hours and focuses on the primary series. There were only four students in the class so it was a chance to focus on the asanas and get hands on corrections.
I have taken a few Ashtanga classes or workshops in the past so it was not completely foreign to me. For that matter, the whole vinyasa trend is strongly influenced by Ashtanga. I was surprised that I could handle the class physically, that I did not have to fall down in child's pose in order to recover my breath, recoup my strength and steel my will (except for one brief time in downdog, but that does not count). After the whole thing was over, I did not spent two hours collapsed on my couch at home because I have developed stamina, thanks to my running and practice. In other words, I did not feel intimidated by the difficulty of poses, I just knew that some of them were beyond my reach.
If it were a strict Ashtanga class, I would never have gotten beyond the first pose that requires anything approaching half-lotus: hips and hamstrings are still too tight to allow me to fold. Then, there are still issues with behind the back binds because of stiff shoulders and my inability to rotate my should joints more than a few degrees. The other major flaw is core strength, especially in the lower abs: I still don't have enough strength to lift my legs off the ground when seated in staff pose, for instance, or when sitting cross legged.
My biggest surprise was that when I was in shoulder stand and plow poses, I was able to breathe smoothly. In the past, my stomach (and probably other organs, like liver, kidneys and intestines) pressed down on my diaphragm and made me feel as if I was suffocating. I suspect that I've gotten rid of some belly (omentum) fat. That changes lifts a burden off me in the inversion phase of my yoga practice because I don't have to fight off the panic feeling of suffocation and can concentrate on balance and breath.
Labels: class, conditioning, core, hips, practice, shoulders
Last weekend I walked into Metro Run and Walk and asked to be fitted for some running shoes (as opposed to walking into a discount shoe store and walking out with a pair that seemed to fit me comfortably). After watching me walk and job around the store a bit and asking me about how much I had been running, the young sales woman told me that I showed signs of some serious overpronation and needed as much support as any running shoe could give without adding orthopedic supports. In other words, when I run, my planted foot rolls inward and flattens out the arch, which in turn puts a lot of stress on the lower leg muscles and knees. In the end, I paid a pretty penny for a pair of Brooks Beasts (appropriate name). I figured that if it kept me from getting shin splints or other injuries, it was money well spent.
Once home, I examined my feet more closely and came to the conclusion that I am heading in the direction of having flat feet. If in my early stages of learning yoga, I complained about having stiff ankles and feet, I now have gone the other direction of not having tensile strength in the arches to hold up under the stress of running. I guess this news is just another sign of aging -- the body parts will wear out over time and no amount of restorative practices of yoga will return them to their youthful flexibility.
This condition does not mean I will stop running. I will just be more careful, concentrate on keeping good form and listen closely to what my body tells me. I am going to do some exercises meant to deal with fallen arches and see what happens. I am told that it's really hard to reverse overpronation.
Labels: conditioning, health, running
Last night, I went to the gym, instead of the yoga studio, and ran for about four miles on the tread mill. It was my first time running since December 22 so I felt as if I was making up for lost time. This morning, I could feel the soreness in my thighs, hips and shoulders and sensed that I had lost form in such a short time.
I guess this precarious status of conditioning is due to my age since I am fighting against the natural tendency of the human body to lose muscular strength. Or it may be that it just takes a long while to rebuild strength and flexibility after letting it slide so far. It's a sobering thought, one that I've mentioned before, and reminds me that it's probably not wise to take time off from my yoga practice or my conditioning work.
Of course, who am I trying to kid? I've only been running for the past three months, and have had several extended breaks due to travel and work commitments so it's not as if I were training for a marathon. It's not even long enough to draw any conclusions about what my body is capable of. I should understand by now that any meaningful change in body, mind or spirit has to be measured against a much longer stretch of time.
Labels: conditioning, practice
I joined with my workmates running on the Mall at lunch hour. The four of us did about five miles in an hour, including warm-up and cool-off. Because of travel, work obligations and bad weather, we had not followed through on our two-days a week commitment. It's been three weeks since I ran so I was a bit hesitant about how much I could tackle, but I got through without undue duress. There was certainly nothing left in the tank in the final stretch. We noticed that there are fewer runners on the Mall in December than November. I had four layers of clothing on to ward off the cold — the wind on the Mall can be brutal.
Post data: the day after, I can say that my thighs and arms/shoulders are sore and stiff. I slept like a log last night. I've allowed myself to talk myself out of doing yoga and running too often recently because rational excuses are available during the holidays.
Labels: conditioning, running
My running group at work has kept on schedule, putting in 4.5 miles on Tuesday and 5.5 miles today. I have not had to deal with any aftereffects that might make life difficult. i had no severely sore muscles or stiffness that prevent me from getting around. I did feel really tired last Friday and Saturday, probably because I had depleted all my energy reserves. I've felt it most in my upper thighs, groin and hips, which probably take the most wear and tear in the run, but that's probably where I need the most work.
It's a lot more enjoyable running with friends, than going solo. It makes the time go by real fast.
The weather is finally starting to turn chilly in Washington, DC.The group says that it's going to keep going through the cold months. I am going to have to equip myself for the conditions.
Labels: conditioning
New York Times Exercise on the Brain is an op-ed piece by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang, who know what they're talking about. The article looks at the computer software programs that claim to delay aging mental abilities, especially memory. The NY Times has a news article, Calisthenics for the Older Mind, on the Home Computer that deals with this type of progam. Aamodt and Wang play down their significance, but point in another direction:
"One form of training, however, has been shown to maintain and improve brain health — physical exercise. In humans, exercise improves what scientists call 'executive function,' the set of abilities that allows you to select behavior that's appropriate to the situation, inhibit inappropriate behavior and focus on the job at hand in spite of distractions. Executive function includes basic functions like processing speed, response speed and working memory, the type used to remember a house number while walking from the car to a party."
I am going jogging at lunch time with some colleagues from work. I am a bit hesitant to exposing my white calves and running habits (or slow times) to others, but it will be a nice change of pace.
Postdata: I ran for about 60 minutes with three friends from my office. We covered six miles on the Mall, running from near the Vietnam Memorial to the Capitol Building and back, and the walk of three blocks from and to our office building, in effect, our warm-up/cool-off period. I surprised myself. I ran for twice the distance as I do in my maximum workout. Once I got warmed up, I glided along at a nice clip without overexerting myself. Towards the end, I could tell that all the bounce had gone out of my legs. We are planning to continue with the CICAD Road Runners Club Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunch time. We'll see how long we can keep it up.
Labels: conditioning, health, news
My weight has fluctuated between 191 and 196 pounds, depending when I weigh myself and whether I've abused dessert at dinner time, for most of the year. I've tried not to obsess about it, but I know that I could make things easier on me in a number of ways if I carried around fewer pounds. This week, the lower end of my weight range dropped consistently below 190 for the first time in years. My waist has hit 36 inches (on a good day), but I've been there before (briefly). It's amazing how the body is not a static container-vehicle. It will change and shift as we exert mental and physical efforts. It will change and shift without us doing anything. Thanks to my new running routine, I've now got cute, thin ankles.
Labels: conditioning, core
I've started jogging three times a week to improve my physical conditioning. It's been almost a decade since the last time I tried running. I stopped because I developed shin splints and never got up the energy to go running again. Since taking up yoga, I've looked down my nose at running as repetitive torture of my joints and hamstrings, but I've changed my mind. It's just so convenient to put on my running shoes, plug in my MP3 player and head to the Rockville High School track and jog alone -- or go to the gym if the weather is bad. I know I need to fit in 30-40 minutes of physical exercise on my off-days for yoga.
I've been jogging about 2 miles, plus another miles for warm-up and cooling off, for the past two weeks. I was surprised that I was able to manage that distance with ease, though I was not pushing myself, just jogging. So far, no sore joints. In my yoga class yesterday, extended and repeated holds in chair (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/493) pose finally made me collapse into child's pose. I did not have any stamina in my thighs. I had depleted my reserves by jogging during the week -- not that there were lots of reserves under normal conditions. That's precisely why I started running, because I wanted to gain strength in my legs and hips.
At this stage, I'm being very gentle with myself, warming up thoroughly, stretching before and after, keeping the pace under control and concentrating on form. The running certainly makes me appreciate the stretching in yoga.
Labels: conditioning, practice
