Be Happy Be Bendy

I walked into work this morning and chit chatted for a bit when my boss turned to me and said;

“Did you take some happy pills this morning?”

I replied, “I’ve just come from yoga”

He laughed and said “You always come to work happy when you’ve been to yoga”

I realized he’s right – I do!

But here’s the thing, this morning I woke up sore, my shoulders are tight, I feel like my traps are the size of Thors, actually did he have big traps? Let’s make that the dude who carried the big Trident, those things must weight a tonne! Anyway I digress, in a nutshell I was sore.

I trained at Ludus and went through the motions, I worked up a sweat (good) but the session was heavy on the upper bodywork and as I mentioned previously (twice in fact), I’m sore, so I was looking forward to heading to Yoga class and having a really good stretch.

Well stupidly I always seem to somewhat conveniently forget how hard yoga is! (Even when it’s an impromptu session on the lawn with the kidlet).

At the beginning of a class the teacher always states “If you get tired, or it’s too much and you need a break, drop down into child’s pose and have a breather”. Suffice to say if I wasn’t giggling while falling out of a balance pose I was investigating the many subtle nuances of the child’s pose. 😉

I know I’ve said this over and over again BUT I really must make a concerted effort to get to yoga class on a (more) regular basis!

I mean after all it’s good for me – right?

But then again broccoli is good for me and I have a hate/hate relationship with broccoli, so being “good for me” isn’t really going to cut it as a reason to get me to suffer through holding a crescent pose for 150 breathes (ok ok it was 20 breathes, but it seemed like 150 at the time).

I want to know HOW yoga is going to help me to lift more, do more and be more.

Well Julia, since you asked here 5 reasons why ALL of us need to put down the kb, barbell or dumbbell, take off our shoes and get onto a mat – quick smart!

You’ll get more mobile and more flexible (you’ll be able to lift more weight)

We all know (or we should know) that we need to spend more time stretching our muscles and mobilizing our joints. But most of us would much rather lift heavy stuff, swing on bars or attempt to get our first muscle up, wouldn’t we? Honestly who has time to do all that flexibility work when there are “more important” skills to master. But, improving your mobility and flexibility will increase your movement efficiency benefiting your lifts exponentially.

You’ll get stronger (you’ll be able to lift (and hold) yourself off the ground)

Yoga improves your bodyweight strength – period. I’ve noticed many girls at the box can lift WAY more than I can in all the Olympic lifts, but they lack any real bodyweight strength which is evident when any wod contains push ups. Yoga puts you into positions that you would otherwise neglect in day-to-day training (because after all lifting heavy weights is much more fun) 😉

You’ll become more aware (you’ll know where shit is)

Practicing yoga barefoot without the aid of a mirror requires extraordinary control. Yoga requires that you listen to your body and control each individual muscle simultaneously to sustain postures without any visual aid. This increases your body awareness (eg you’ll know where each limb is in space), which will increase your performance on balancing moves such as a handstand or compound movements such as the squat – in other words you will know when you are below parallel. 😉

You’ll learn how to breathe (you’ll recover quicker)

Yoga places a big emphasis on breathing and instructs you on how to breathe using your diaphragm. Being aware of your breathing during training sessions can help you focus, settle and recover quicker.

You’ll be a happier person (you’ll be more attractive to the opposite sex) 😉

Even when you fall out of every balance pose on offer, or you last 2 breathes instead of the prescribed 20 breathes that you were supposed to hold the dreaded crescent pose you will ALWAYS leave a yoga class feeling better than when you walked in.

So there you have it. Now .. who is joining me at the studio?

Till next time