Monday, August 10, 2009

Bikram Practice.

It's been a week since I made my last class but that's the way it went this week. It's always interesting when I've had time off from my yoga practice whether it will make the next practice I do make easier because I've had more rest and recovery or harder because I've lost heat conditioning, flexibility and a certain degree of mental toughness SO necessary to sit in that freaking hot box for ninety minutes trying to "kill yourself" as the head guy likes to say.
I get it and it appeals to a large part of my personality but sometimes it's all I can do is focus on my breathing and not getting pissed about how hard it is with so few joints that work right.
Of course there was a woman in class today with just one leg so that put things in perspective real quick.She didnt look like she was having fun either but she was there.
AS was Tracy( if you see me in yoga Tracy is there somewhere too,lol) and even when she has a bad day it seems like a stellar practice to me.I'd surely take it instead of what I can do now.

SO todays comeback was one of those when the rest really helped and I was strong. I needed to do a class today and that always helps. Didnt want to do one but needed to. To get the poisons out and getting enough O2 in. Nothing like that small hot room and those 26 there's no way I'm gonna sit one out' poses to get that happening.And when the mind is motivated pain and pressure have new meanings and one finds new energies to push when normally you would just quit or , at the very least, hold way back.
I never know how tight and flexed my lower back is until I have to put both arms overhead in Half Moon pose; in which I can barely get my elbows locked out not to mention my elbows to my ears, not to mentions actually bending a more than a few inches to either side. But hey I'm taller when I leave then when I go in and that ain't bad,lol.
And opening up my lower back requires I open up my lower abs and obliques as well and then the whole things lifts up and I realize just how flexed things can get just doing nothing special. Like fighting gravity all day.
That becomes the real fight for all of us sooner or later and it's good to get the practice in as a habit asap. JMHO.
SO I stretched and sweated my tight ass out and breathed more in ninety minutes than I have since my last snatch vo2 workout and thats good too. Two yogas, two bells and two rifga sessions a week: my program minimum.
So despite one critics admonition about how I can write so much about a stupid yoga class just let me say this; there's a lot more going on in there than meets the eye. A lot. whether one realizes it or not.
ANd just sweating is good too.
datsit. snatch vo2 tomorrow 36:36. can't wait :))

2 comments:

Diana said...

"fighting gravity all day".....yeah, I'm there!
That Bikram is some serious shit, can't take the heat.

Mark Reifkind said...

what? a triathlete that can't take the heat? c'mon, that could be the best thing for your triathlon training you could do that won't injure you more. and I'm not kidding.
I truly beleive the better one's heat tolerance the fitter they are, no matter what their other fitness parameters say.

and yes fighting gravity all day( and losing, for most) is what messes people up more than just about anything I've seen.

155 x 3 x 5, 160 x 3 x 5, 20 kg swings 5 x 8/8, floor pushups 40, 35

 Thought about going back to 5x5 for a hot second then my left shoulder  reminded me why I stopped doing them before. It doesn't seem to...