Thursday, August 14, 2008

Bikrams is strength training.



At least for me.I was very happily suprised, when, after my two week layoff from my yoga practice my first day back was seriously strong.Now, conversely, my kb work was weak, go figure.I have definitely noticed when doing back to back yoga days how much weaker I am on day two. Not from an endurance standpoint but from a muscular strength perspective.
I am still at the level where I am fighting for full range of motion in the poses and my own body provides quite a good bit of resistance, making almost everything strength work.So I must rest more after each session as they tend to be higher intensity than volume for me. At least at this stage.
Except for my first standing bow where my left leg was just tired from the warmup and not grooved yet all the poses were solid and I had some prs as well,especially improved was my split leg forward head to knee pose. I couldnt even Start to put weight on the left leg for the first four sessions. today I got all the weight on the leg and halfway down with head to knee. Crazy!
I really could tell as well how tight my external rotation got so quickly. All the rear reaching poses were very hard to get started.But they opened up well and man could I feel how internal and flexed I have been from all the travel and NOT doing yoga.
It felt great to sweat and stretch hard again, although this studio is decidedly less hot that San Jose.This will be my strength day and sundays will be my 'just survive" conditioning day.The third day will be catch as catch can.

Dats it.namaste ya'all.
circles on the floor perhaps the best transverse plane movement of all time .

2 comments:

The Endos & Morenos said...

Hi Rif,

I was wondering if or how CK-FMS changed or enlightened your view on Bikrams.

Mark Reifkind said...

good question.I was just thinking yesterday how so much of bikrams involves virtually every plane of motion and range of motion of every joint and muscle.
But FMS is about motor patterns as much as anything and bikrams wont help that at all.
One can have great ROM and flexibility but if muscle recruitment is wrong or non existent it's like the muscle wasnt there at all.

190 x 1 x 12,210 static hold, 225 static hold, bodyweight squats 3 x 15

 What a freaking great day! This is without a doubt the best group of heavy reps I have ever done! Every set was just about perfect. Plus I ...