Weekly post: What did you do?

[cereta]

For those of you who weren't here last week, this would be our weekly chance to talk about what we did this week. You can go into detail, you can talk about something new you did or an increase of some kind, or you can just report time or days or whatever makes you happy.

Comment away!

Comments

[opusculus]

I'm now on my second week of exercising every weekday morning, which I'm pretty happy about!

Overall it's been a mixed bag. I've screwed up my shoulder a bit trying to do pushups on the assistance bar in the bathroom at work, and the yoga routine I tried yesterday was really not designed for someone who's got a lot of weight on her chest. By the time I was on my 8 millionth downward dog, upward dog, bend over and touch your toes, bend up and touch your toes another way that made up well over a quarter of the half-hour video, my back was going "Dude. No." At least I've learned enough that I quit before it caused any damage this time, which considering my history is pretty good.

The weightlifting's doing much better, though. I added another resistance band for my rows, and I think I'm pretty close from graduating from railing squats into broomstick squats. I'm more at the point of using the railing slightly to balance myself rather than oh my god if I don't hold onto this with a deathgrip I am going to fall over, at least.

[rydra_wong]

Have you found sun_salutation yet? Useful for yoga advice.

(In my experience, the crucial thing for protecting your back in forward bends in yoga is to be very strict about bending from the hips and not rounding your back at all: bend your knees as much as you need to, and try not to fixate on how close to your toes you can get.)

[opusculus]

That looks like an awesome community, thank you!

And actually, that's good advice, thank you. I just experimented with a couple forward bends and realized that I must've been rounding my back a fair amount. Doing them while paying attention to that feels a lot better.

[rydra_wong]

This is a nifty little video on exactly what's involved in bending from the hips:

YogaGarden: Stretching Hard or Hardly Stretching? Use Your Hips!