Hi all! I am thinking of adding a yoga workout to my schedule, but can only fit in one session per week at a class at my health club/gym. Did my first session yesterday - proved I am inflexible, and have no balance or coordination, but overall I enjoyed it! Its an hour session straight after work, after which I have an hour to grab a banana/energy bar, and head on over to my Tri club swim session, which is a mix of drills, sprints and longer intervals.
Questions:
-Anyone have any feedback, positive or negative, from adding yoga to their schedule?
-Is once a week going to be of any benefit at all (teacher seems to think so, but then she would I guess!)
-Any problems with swimming in the same evening as yoga-ing?
Ive heard a lot about yoga improving flexibility, strength, ect for triathletes, also my GF can attend the same session (I get the usual grief about training means spending time away from her blah blah blah), it doesnt cost anything over my normal monthly membership that I would have anyway, and the ladies there are pretty saucy…
I’ve added yoga to my off-season workouts before. I liked it a lot. Be aware that there are several different flavors of yoga, so find one that suits your particular needs.
Going only once a week certainly cannot hurt you. The question would be what do you want to get out of it? Having said that, yoga is pretty straight forward in that once you understand the poses you can do them anywhere. You do not necessarily need to go to a class to get the benefits from yoga. Also, you can buy one of the myriad of videos out there and use that to augment your practice.
Again, I liked it as an off-season activity. I recommend that you stick with it.
Anyone have any feedback, positive or negative, from adding yoga to their schedule?
definetly helps me out, my body has some issues and if I don’t do yoga I’m in trouble.
-Is once a week going to be of any benefit at all (teacher seems to think so, but then she would I guess!) Any yoga will be helpful, but I would try to get more than once a week in. I’m a big believer in going to organized classes, but maybe ask your instructor to reccommend a video and do it at least one other time a week, include the gf for brownie points
-Any problems with swimming in the same evening as yoga-ing?
I don’t see why unless you are doing a very strenous form of yoga. I would dare say it may help you smooth things out swimming as you will be “warmed up”
Congratulations on making time for yoga. It is an amazing opportunity to gain flexibility, develop body awareness, chill out but focus at the same time, and even meditate. If you are weak, you may even gain strength.
Is once a week good enough? Well yes and no. It depends on where you are in your journey into yoga. When I started out, I was chasing this girl, and I went to a class with her maybe once a month. It was a great experience every time I went, but I wasn’t ready to make it part of my life. Then once a month became once a week, and my appreciation for yoga grew. But not until this year when I committed to three times a week did I blossom as a yoga student. I can see myself doing yoga daily, but I haven’t made the time for that yet. We are all works in progess, and the cool thing is that there’s nothing wrong with letting the pace of development take care of itself. All you have to do is enjoy the journey.
And yes the ladies are saucy! Yoga tends to mold their bodies into trim lithe strong works of art. Gotta love it.
I’m pretty big into yoga and I would say to try to do it 2-3 times a week. I think once a week isn’t enough to get the full benefit of it. It won’t hurt you, but you won’t see the full benefits of it. Speaking of, I haven’t been to a yoga class in almost 2 months now. Life has just gotten in the way.
Anyways, congrats on trying out yoga. It does a lot for your mind as well as your body.
I added it. I dig it. I’d do more if I could but I probably only average once a week. I might be the most inflexible person on the planet, so even just once a week has shown improvements. Has helped tremendously with my occasional lower back pain as well. Highly recommended.
matt-great news that you’re doing this. yes, once a week will help, and then stretch in short sessions throughout your day, do some poses on your own when you get up in the morning and at night. doesn’t have to take long and you don’t need a formatted class for this. the class will help, but the real improvements will come from the little stretches during the rest of the week.
i believe in stretching and in yoga. it is good for working out and healing all of the shit we do to ourselves. i’ve been told by several physical thereapists that most running injuries are due to inflexability (which then creates imbalances). yoga can prevent and cure most of that stuff. not to mention make your body work better over all.
it should be a good warm up to swimming. stretch a little post swimming. it could improve your reach and ability to lengthen out.
i used to hate yoga–because i was such a little stress ball. all in a bundle, my muscles were. i’m still not perfect and have a long way to go–but yoga is responsible for a lot of the reason why i’m running again. it is good good good!!!
As our yoga instructor would point out, you don’t have to only do it once a week for an hour in class - the class teaches you what to do and how to do it, empowering you to incorporate the principles on your own. So from that point of view, sure the class is well worth it to help you learn how to stretch properly, breath better, and bring more balance to your musculo-skeletal system. Coached yoga once a week, self directed yoga or yoga-influenced activity wherever/whenever…
As to having your GF in the same class while you’re ogling all the bendy women, that might not be as good for your health. Of course the overt ogling can really mess up your yoga postures so as long as you just keep your eyes pointed where they are supposed to be for yoga purposes and let the view come to you, maybe it will all work out and you won’t get called on it. Seriously, it’s something you can probably enjoy quite a bit with her.
As far as swimming, yoga isn’t necessarily passive and you might be a bit tired sometimes, so take that into account during your swim and don’t let the fatigue force you into stroke decay and practicing bad habits but in general it shouldn’t be a problem.
