First time hot yoga

[Dan C]

I did a 90 minute class this morning. 105 degrees. Felt great afterwards.

The instructor said it looks like I've been doing it all my life. Everybody clapped for me.

4 hours later and I feel a little funny now. Not quite a headache, just feel like my head is swimming. I've consumed over 3 liters of water/Propel during the class up until now.

Anybody do hot yoga before? Have any similar experiences?

[westside24]

no, but im impressed by that... Just try resting for the day homie. you might be encountering a mild heat stroke if you dont cool off and relax.

I did hot yoga a couple of times.

The only fatigue I recall was my eyes from glazing at all that eye candy.

My wife was with me so it was high risk glazing. Thought about wearing sunglasses but that might have been too obvious. Can't risk the face slap.

Machines and hot yoga Big Dan, you have come along way. What's next? Pink dumbells and tricep kickbacks?

Yoga makes the body feel good. It is tough.

[westside24]

haha! dont make fun of him for broadening his horizons. Im guessing hes trying to get an appreciation of all fitness aspects to help him create and open a gym!

You still swimming Dan? You feel better homie

[pseudonym]

Yup

My experience is charted here

I was honestly surprised at how hard it was.

[Dan C]

I've been doing yoga for almost as long as I've been lifting. I've slacked off a little the last couple years but I manage to get a session in once in a while. This is the first time I've attended an actual class outside of a clinic or expo.

And yes, the eye candy was mesmerizing. I have my doubts about taking my wife with me now (we had originally planned to go together)... but the instructor did tell me the best way to learn was to watch other hot sweaty beautifully limber women (I think that's what he said

Funny you mention pink dumbbells and kickbacks, I was doing them this morning in a senior fitness class I teach! LOL! My bells were blue though, and we did overhead tri extensions not kickbacks.

You know, something I did realize about this yoga class, is that teaching a group exercise class is a different skill set than personal training. It's very difficult to train a large group of people who have different fitness levels. Although I have some limited experience here, what I've realized is I have virtually no experience as a student in such a class. It just so happens that I am teaching my first two group kettlebell classes today, and I'm glad I made it to yoga last week because I think that one class helped me understand what you expect as a participant. So yes, westside, I have gained an appreciation but in way that I don't think you or I expected.

[Dan C]

Thanks for sharing pseudonym. I actually made it through all of the poses. I'm pretty flexible for someone my size but some of the poses didn't look like what the girls were doing but all in all I kept up and didn't really take any breaks outside of the ones we were allotted. This was not recommended by the instructor, he actually told me not to push it but I felt good about it. It wasn't until afterwards when I felt a little head funny. A couple ibuprofren knocked that out though.

[maverick]

Bikram yoga? They are opening a studio here in Pittsburgh in the summer and I was thinking about giving it a shot. Dan John (writes a lot over at t-nation) talks about it in a handful of his articles. One of my favorite quotes from the article:

Originally Posted by Dan John from 'Recovery 101'

If you decide to go twice a week, that's three hours of stretching, pulling, twisting, and relaxing. For many of us, that's two hours and 59 minutes more than we typically stretch and relax in a week.

So true too often for me. All of my fitness related activities to this point have been about muscle, strength, and intensity. In light of the fact that I recently found out I have a bulging cervical disc (no more heavy lifting or MMA for a while), perhaps a less injury prone endeavor is what I need right now.

Dan, the group instruction stuff is definitely a challenge, one in which I have no experience. But my good buddy TomG (a DF member) has years of experience teaching karate to young children, including uncoordinated little boys whose parents bring them there before they are ready. Maybe TomG will see this post and jump in with his years of experience. I don't know how he does it but I saw some of his young students on Saturday and I was impressed.

Mav, bummer about your bulging disc. Looking back is there anything about the training you have done that contributed to this? You have done some heavy squatting and deadlifting and doing those Zercher squats. Just curious and wondering how you are taking it.

[maverick]

Originally Posted by pierini

Mav, bummer about your bulging disc. Looking back is there anything about the training you have done that contributed to this? You have done some heavy squatting and deadlifting and doing those Zercher squats. Just curious and wondering how you are taking it.

This goes all the way back to a poorly executed SLDL about 3 years ago. Nothing recent was the source (so those listening, don't be terrified of heavy lifting or zercher exercises!). When it happened I was in excrutiating pain for a day or two, in bed the whole time, completely immobile. In a week or so, I felt OK again.

6 months later it happened again, doing, get this... curls. Same scenario, lots of pain for a day or two, took it easy for a week or so, and was back to normal. Basically, its always been pulling exercises, usually pullups actually.

Up til this year, it happened once every 5 or 6 months. Being the stupid guy I am, that was fine by me and I let it go and just dealt with it. But since starting MMA (and subsequently stopping for the time being), its been reoccurring in varying intensities almost every other week. It took 3 useless "rest and take pills for the pain" doctor's visits before I convinced the doc to let me get an MRI. Then it showed I had a slight bulge in one of my cervical discs. Not bad enough to do anything medically about, and the doc was not very helpful with alternatives.

I think a chiro or something else might be next on the list. I feel fine, so long as I'm not exercising intensely. As those here who know me can imagine, that's a pretty miserable state to be in. I'm all about trying new things, though, and it sounds like yoga for a number of reasons may be next on the list.

Thanks for sharing.

Add ab planks to your daily fitness plate.

[Dan C]

Mav,

Try this in the meantime...

http://www.poweryogastore.com/miva/m...oduct_Count=15

The consensus from the granola eating tree hugging hippies I've talked to is this is a more "athletic-type" of yoga.

It took me a couple weeks to be able to do the 1st workout all the way through. Still haven't made it through the 3rd.