Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Hot Yoga - an update

"Don't call me Yogi"

When I signed up to try yoga to help with my recovery I had no idea what I was in for. Most of the athletes that I train with who do yoga go to a studio about 2o minutes away from me but there is another studio much closer. Both studios offer a one week newbie rate of about $25 for unlimited classes. I signed up for the one week special at the studio closer to my house.

I wanted to try a variety of classes so I went Thursday morning, Saturday morning, Monday night and Wednesday morning. I had four different instructors and found each brought something a little different to the class. The magic word I found from the instructors was "modification." With modifications, instructors offer variations on a pose. Some instructors seem to bias the variations if the pose is too hard while others seem to focus on variations if the pose is too easy (I don't have that problem). This is really instructor dependent.

But I wanted to be sure that I was giving it a complete chance so I signed up for a week at the second yogatarium. This place offers more classes at more different times. They have classes at that I could potentially go to before work and late night classes too. While both of the places have the temperature in the room above 100 degrees, the second one seem to have a much higher humidity so the volume of sweat was much higher. The second place also did not believe in blocks or straps to help the people who can't do much yoga well (like yours truly).

So far I've done classes with 6 different instructors. I've had 4 female and 2 male instructors and found that the instructors gender really doesn't matter. I don't mind the temperature but it takes some getting used to when the sweat drops off you like the beats of a metronome. Yoga doesn't seem to hurt me (except for my pride when I feel like a spaz) and it may even help me a little as I do feel looser afterwards.

I've decided to take the plunge and signed up for a one month unlimited plan at the first place (closer but with fewer classes). My goal is to try to go at least twice a week - one night after work and one early class on either Saturday or Sunday (based on the weekend cycling schedule). Once I get the gym setup at work I may decide to try their yoga class instead (not Bikram hot yoga but they have classes of some other flavor). Fortunately (or unfortunately based on how you look at it) the time that I used to spend running is now filled with yoga.
Still hoping for a miracle cure but reality is starting to set in.

5 comments:

Julie said...

Oh, I love it!! You are really motivated to do Yoga and I think that is great:) Way to take the plunge and sign up for the month!! You will be an expert in no time:)

Unknown said...

You are becoming quite the Yoga dude!

You know what, when I was doing P90X I did the yoga x and it was hard. At first I made fun of it but then when I did it yoga owned me. After a few months I became serious about my yoga and my strength and flexibility increased dramatically. I am able to maintain a pretty aggressive position while in aero on my TT and I really believe this is because of my work with Yoga.

Bring it man and kick some bikram butt!

Al's CL Reviews said...

I used to do Yoga Tapes (so awhile back), Am and PM Yoga. I had to stop the AM yoga, because twice before work when I did it I fell back asleep while on the floor.

Unknown said...

I went through a sting of doing yoga when I was recovering from injury and I really do think it helped. Go for it!!

Kathleen said...

I keep telling myself that I need to get to some yoga classes. I give you much credit for trying out the different classes. I don't know how you stand the 100 degrees. Not only would I be soaked but I would probably slip and slide all over the place.