Balance, Balance, Balance... Oh yeah, and Group X and Yogis

I talked all about cardio the other day, so I won't go on and on about that again today.  If you've been reading along so far, you know what I'm doing and what my goal is.

Whether it's varying up workouts to cause muscle confusion ("confusion" leads to the muscles growing and getting bigger), I also like to do other "side things" while I'm at the gym. 

In all my on and off years of haunting gyms from the Deep South to the West Coast, I never committed myself to any group exercise classes until about a year ago.  That was spin/cycling, and here I am a certified spin instructor a year later!  I also go to Les Mills classes on occasion, usually Body Pump, though I've tried Body Attack a couple of times ("Attack" is a GREAT endorphin release!!).

A few months ago, I decided to try yoga.  I had been wanting to try it for years, but for whatever reason or another, I never got around to it.  I was perhaps intimidated, had heard the stories about people who accidentally fart in class (hey, it happens), and was maybe afraid of what would happen if I wasn't "as good" as the "other people" there.  I think seeing yoga illustrations of scorpion poses and thinking that was what you had to master on your first try could have been another factor that kept me away.  Oh, and isn't yoga kind of a "woman thing"?

None of that is true.  Well, except for the farting part, I hear, but so far, I haven't really seen nor heard it for myself.  Oh yeah, and there is a higher percentage of women who do it, but it also has its male practitioners.  I am very proud and unashamed to say I am among them now.  Yes, there are also quite a few other male yogis in Monroe, Louisiana as well.

Your yoga practice is all about you.  It's not a competition with the person next to you; not about doing an eagle pose (one of my favorites, by the way) better than someone else.  It's about you and your own personal journey on the mat.  And it all begins with your breath and your breathing.

I felt such a sense of inner peace and balance after leaving my first class.  It was almost as if I was walking on a cloud.  I started finding ways to arrange my schedule so I could go to at least one class per week.  No, you won't bulk up and look like an Olympic gymnast, but you will notice your body becoming more toned in ways that other methods of working out have failed to make certain changes.  At least I did.  I noticed changes in my abs (they were poking out more) and thorax that I hadn't seen in a long time.  Of course, that was one of the things that kept me going back.

One yoga class a week is still my goal, though sometimes lately, it's only been once every two or three weeks.  It's also an interesting practice to read about.  If you study closely enough, you can also find ways to do your own modified practice at home, when you're really crunched for time and can't make a class.

Yes, women make up the majority of yogis in the western world today, but it all started with men in pre-historic times near and around modern-day India.  Out of that grew many, many forms and practices.  It is all too much to explain here.  There is a ton of information on the internet and in libraries to read about it.

You've probably heard the stories of football players who take ballet to improve their coordination and agility.  Well, allow me to draw a parallel.  As much as I love going to the gym and working out, I usually HATE doing lunges on leg day.  Some days not so much, but there is always that thin line between love and hate.  Doing yoga helped me improve my balance and my flexibility on certain exercises like lunges.

Oh, and did I mention that yoga is good to have in your life if you have a job that sometimes stresses you out.  It's also a great practice for those of us who have trouble shutting off all the daily crap that clutters our brains.

Anyway, as the weekend wraps up, I did legs yesterday, and "crazy arms" today.  My legs and my arms are a big target of my "bulking" strategy, so I'm working hard to try and make them bigger.  They've been bigger in years past, but they always deflate very easily when I'm not working out as often as I should be. 

"Crazy Arms" is what I've nicknamed a circuit arm training I lifted off the MusclePharm page.  On top of my other workouts, I cycle this one in every eight days.  It is a doozy, and I will leave an illustration of it below (snapped off a computer screen--my apologies for the fuzzy resolution). 

I always try to make sure I've had a "leg" or a "run day" and not anything upper body/arms the day before "crazy arms."  I challenge you to try it out and see if your arms don't feel like Jell-O by the time it's over!