A Runner Trying Yoga (true story)

Yoga is part 2 in a 2 step program to try and be a better human.  Part 1 was lifting heavy sh!t and was detailed a couple of months ago.  I've been pretty committed to the swim/bike/run stuff over the years, but the, um, uniqueness of 2020 and 2021 has presented the opportunity to embrace those things that we all know we should do but often never get around to.

Yoga is something that my wife Amanda has done forever.  As a matter of fact, way back in 2012 when I got up off the couch and started running?  Amanda had months earlier started getting out of bed early to do yoga.  She was the first one in our family to commit to improving her health with exercise.  At the time she tried to get me to join her and I resisted.  I'd rather stay in bed than get up early to exercise or whatever yoga was.  Amanda repeatedly asked very nicely over the months, but I was intransigent.  I appreciated what she was doing for herself, and I appreciated what she wanted to do for me, but at the end of the day motivation to change my life had to come from within...or at least I had to be made to think it did 😀Her prompting during these months helped me to be ready to change when cornered by her and the kids by the idea that the little ones would be able to beat me in a 5k.

I guess you could say that I'm a slow learner.  A very slow learner.  I saw how much better yoga made Amanda feel almost a decade ago, but I never gave it a try until the beginning of January 2021. Apparently my stubbornness requires a pandemic to make me change when it comes to some things.  Sorry about that everyone.  My bad.

Usually when I try something new I spend tons of time googling and reading all of the articles that I can find.  I like to pick apart a new thing from a lot of angles and build a mental framework to fit the new thing with all of the old things.  Trying yoga was different.  I have an expert in the family.  Amanda knows what she's doing.  I've got some thoughts, but for the most part I just asked if I could join her in the morning for her regular sessions doing whatever she thought was appropriate for both of us.

Video 1

I know yoga is hard.  I didn't think Amanda would try to crush my confidence on the first attempt by coming up with a video that presented impossible poses for me, but... apparently she thinks I am in need of geriatric care.  Since I complain about aches and pains (related to training!) she thought "Yoga for Chronic Pain" sounded like exactly what I needed.  I'm sure this is a great video for some people, but the accommodations included within were for people that can't get out of a chair.  I can get out of a chair, I just might groan when I do.  lol.  Ultimately, it may be that Amanda thought very little of my abilities (justified) or it could have been a test of sorts, but the first video was so relaxing and effortless that the hardest part was staying awake.

Video 2

The next time around she came up with something harder.  A lot harder.  It would be easy for anyone that had been training like her, but it was rough on me.  I loved it.  I couldn't do many (any?) of the poses, but I could do something kinda, sorta similar often enough that it felt like something I could do if I stuck with it.  It was perfect.

She humored me and agreed that every time we did yoga together, which was 4-6 times a week, we were going to do this same video, "Morning Yoga".  We would do it over and over and over and over again.  It probably drove her crazy, but she was patient with me.  I used to say that if I could ever learn to swim that I'd suddenly develop the ability to also dance.  It didn't work.  Now I'm thinking that if I ever get good at yoga, maybe I'll suddenly know how to dance. 😂 

I needed the repetition.  It might not be the traditional way to learn yoga but until I knew what was coming next and had some confidence in what each pose *should* look like I wasn't going to be confident in what I was trying to do.  I learn this stuff at a very slow pace.  Give me 20 numbers to memorize?  No problem, 5 seconds and I've got them locked in.  Show me 3 poses in a row?  Yeah, I'm going to need to see and try that a few dozen times before I'm going to remember.  Thanks.  Yep, my brain weird worky.

The 7th time we did the same video I got the courage to try a standing lunge for the first time.  I didn't fall over, but darn it was close.  It shouldn't be this hard, but it is.  Physical therapy exercises can get pretty intense and while they are sometimes similar the transitions involved, and the overall context of yoga is harder in a different way.  Right or wrong, ok, mostly wrong, I could now attempt each pose in the video but was still constantly uncomfortable trying to remember what came next and how the transitions were supposed to go.  Unfortunately for Amanda we would be continuing to repeat the same video for a while longer.

Video 3

One week later after having done the same video 14 times I finally acquiesced and let Amanda show me something new.  It was great.  It had similar poses, but also different ones.  I got to learn that sitting cross legged like a kid on the floor in school was no longer natural.  As a matter of fact, it was really freakin' hard.  It might be a stretch to call the 2 videos we have in rotation "variety", but she seems to be much happier about it and I'm liking that it challenges my body in a greater variety of ways.

Results

I expected this foray into yoga to be hard, but then physical therapy is hard.  I went into this with the mindset that it would be like doing physical therapy and it isn't.  Yoga is much harder on this beaten up runner's body.  In PT, there is a mix of strength, stretching and balance work but the durations are relatively short.  I think the longest that I've ever been told to hold a position in PT is a plank for 1 minute and most PT activities are done with much shorter duration.  

One of these videos starts with us sitting on our heels in a position that simultaneously stretches our quads and ankles, we then hold that position for 2+ minutes while doing other things.  Yikes!  At my best, in years past, I've been proud to hold that position for 30 seconds without crying out like a baby and that was with my shoes on!  Since we are barefoot the depth of this stretch is way more.  Mommy.

The other video starts with 6 minutes of sitting cross legged the way most 6 year olds can do with ease. Youch!  Yeah, umm, you know I'm a runner right?  Help.

There is strength work in these yoga videos, but it comes during the transitions when you are lifting your body from one pose to another.  The transitions are some of the hardest parts of the videos because they require the application of strength and flexibility/mobility simultaneously.  I don't recall ever trying both at the same time during physical therapy.

After trying yoga 18 times, I can honestly say that I'm lucky not to have hurt myself.  My flexibility has improved.  I snap, crackle and pop a lot more often when I'm just living life, but I think that is a good thing.  I hope it is.  It seems to be a consequence of my burgeoning flexibility.  My mobility has probably improved but only marginally.  I'm sore a lot in entirely new ways.  It still hurts to get up off the floor.  I don't move as quick as I'd like to, but then again what did I expect?  This body is almost half a century old and I've been pounding away pretty hard for 9 years.  18 yoga sessions in 1 month are a start, but of course that isn't the end of this part of my journey.  If it was that easy to be a better human everybody would do it.

I'm going to do my best to maintain a yoga habit for months, maybe even years, to come.  I think it will help me be a better human, but it is going to take a lot more time and dedication to undo the harm I've caused my body from the rest of my athletic pursuits.