Hatha Yoga – “The Yoga of Vitality”

Posted on August 28, 2009 by The Average Joe

Hatha Yoga is known as the foun­da­tion for all of the yoga types. The name, hatha, has some real mean­ing: “ha” means “sun” and “tha” means “moon,” so “hatha” is refer­ring to the sun (pos­i­tive) and the moon (neg­a­tive) cur­rents within the body. These cur­rents are sup­posed to be bal­anced and mas­tered so that the prana (vital force) can be reg­u­lated, the mind can be cleared, and a super con­scious state can be experienced.

About the Asanas or Pos­tures Used In Hatha Yoga

The best way to prac­tice Hatha Yoga poses (asanas) is to come to the prac­tice in a calm, med­i­ta­tive mood. After sit­ting qui­etly for a few moments, one can begin the series of yoga poses, with con­trol and grace, and being slowly inwardly aware as the body does the poses selected for that prac­tice ses­sion. The asanas are not a com­pe­ti­tion, with oth­ers or with one­self, though one should want to do one’s best and seek to improve.

The Value of the Asanas

In order for our bod­ies to be reju­ve­nated and have vital­ity, they need three pre­req­ui­sites: a healthy cen­tral brain and spine (ner­vous sys­tem), healthy inter­nal organs, and healthy glands.

The brain and spine are helped by so many of the posi­tions in Hatha Yoga! Con­sider the head­stand, and the spinal posi­tions. These increase cir­cu­la­tion to these organs and areas of the body. The spine needs to be kept flex­i­ble by asanas to keep proper align­ment for opti­mal health. The inter­nal organs of the body are ben­e­fited by the asanas by being mas­saged and stim­u­lated. This makes the inter­nal organs func­tion bet­ter and last longer.

Hatha YogaThe endocrine glands are greatly affected by the asanas. These glands secrete pow­er­ful hor­mones that con­trol much of how well our bod­ies func­tion. The thy­roid glands ben­e­fit from Hatha Yoga poses like the head­stand and shoul­der stand. Sex glands and adrenal glands are also affected by many of the asanas. The asanas also help other bod­ily aspects, like a healthy diges­tive sys­tem, joints, and skin.

In Con­clu­sion

The asanas are cer­tain poses that are com­bined with spe­cific breath­ing exer­cises. There are poses in all body posi­tions – supine, sit­ting, stand­ing, twist­ing. Orig­i­nally, the poses were designed to cre­ate the phys­i­cal sta­mina, strength, and con­cen­tra­tion that was needed for effec­tive med­i­ta­tion – which was used as a path to a more spir­i­tual life. Many yogi still prac­tice yoga for that purpose.

Today, Hatha Yoga has become very pop­u­lar in the United States because it is easy to learn and a basic form of yoga. But it is usu­ally prac­ticed for the sense of health and well-being that it pro­vides, and no note is taken of the spir­i­tual con­tent. How­ever, Hatha Yoga is not just an ordi­nary stretch­ing exer­cise pro­gram. There is a focus and dis­ci­pline to Hatha Yoga that helps pro­vide inner and outer bal­ance. Many – even those why didn’t expect it to be so – will find Hatha Yoga to be a path to enlight­en­ment. And mod­ern med­i­cine is mar­veling at its many health benefits.

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P90X, Days 43 — 49, Week 7

Posted on August 23, 2009 by The Average Joe

P90X Core SynergisticsWhile last week was about see­ing gains, this week was a real chal­lenge. I know, I know P90X as a whole is a chal­lenge, how­ever, this week my body was very fatigued. It was dif­fi­cult get­ting up in the morn­ing to work­out and I had to push harder than nor­mal to get going.

I looked at it a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent ways. This is the half way point for P90X, so of course my body is going to feel beat at this point. Next week is a recov­ery week, so I should be able to regain some of my energy then. Plus, with the changes I want to make, it’s not going to be easy.

While I still love this work­out and I still push play every­day, there are going to be days and weeks like this where every ounce of my body is exhausted and doesn’t want to work­out even though my mind does. That’s the mind­set I real­ized that I was going to need about halfway through the week.

The week started out with a needed rest day due to a work com­mitt­ment. The fatigue really hit me about halfway through when I really had to push myself with Back and Biceps. I decided to sub­sti­tute Core Syn­er­gis­tics for Kenpo X this week to do some more work on my mid­sec­tion. With the recov­ery week com­ing up, I’m look­ing for­ward to doing that rou­tine twice in one week. Here’s how the work­outs broke down through this week.

Day 43 — Rest Day

Day 44 — Chest, Shoul­ders, and Tri­ceps

Day 45 — Ply­o­met­rics

Day 46 — Back and Biceps

Day 47 — Yoga X

Day 48 — Legs & Back

Day 49 — Core Synergistics

Weigh In

Since I just passed the halfway point, it’s time to do a weigh in and post some cur­rent stats.

Weight: 230
Waist Size: 38″

In a way I was hop­ing to see the scale move down at a bit faster rate, but it’s only one met­ric. The biggest sign of improve­ment I’ve seen is with my belt. When i first started, I was at the first notch and now I’m on the fourth. So while the scale only shows a drop of 22 pounds, I’ve actu­ally lost much more due to the added mus­cle. The increase in strength has been incredible.

My clothes have been fit­ting much bet­ter lately and have had to go out and buy some new pants already. The khakis I had been wear­ing to work started to get a bit baggy.

The dig­i­tal scale I had, which also tracked body fat, died sev­eral weeks back. I’ve been using a reg­u­lar scale for the time being. I just ordered a new dig­i­tal scale so I can track body fat % again.

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Learn­ing Yoga Poses Can Be Enjoyable

Posted on August 21, 2009 by The Average Joe

If you want to learn to try some yoga poses, you should be on an uncar­peted floor, as the car­pet­ing can adversely affect your bal­ance. You can use a sticky mat or a large towel to have a bit of cush­ion­ing while you prac­tice your yoga poses.

It is best to first prac­tice in a class, and using a book at home to help you remem­ber how to do the yoga poses cor­rectly. Also, in class you are around oth­ers doing yoga, and there is a feel­ing of “com­mu­nity” to be doing yoga poses together.

There are many places that can teach you yoga poses. There are spe­cific yoga schools, classes in gyms and health clubs, and other places. Your gym or doc­tor might be able to make a rec­om­men­da­tion – or ask around. A lot of peo­ple are doing yoga poses these days!

Yoga poseEach teacher of yoga poses has their own style of teach­ing. Some keep things very seri­ous, oth­ers are more fun. Some do more hands-on cor­rect­ing, oth­ers do not. If you do not want to be touched, be sure to let the teacher know. And for your first class or two, it is smart to sit behind the front row so you can watch other stu­dents and see how to do the yoga poses yourself.

Yoga Poses: Descrip­tions And Information

The first move­ment you will likely learn to do is the “sun salu­ta­tion.” It is the stan­dard series used in yoga classes. It helps your mind and body wake up and pre­pare for the pos­tures to come. It is con­sid­ered a “mov­ing med­i­ta­tion.” You should focus on your breath­ing and begin relax­ing as you move through many posi­tions, includ­ing another of the yoga poses known as “cobra.”

There are sev­eral basic yoga poses. One is “Sit/Easy Posi­tion – Sukhasana.” It is a posi­tion where you sit cross-legged and focus on your breath­ing. Another pos­ture is called “Dog and Cat.” It is done up on the hands and knees, and the tail­bone is rolled up and down, increas­ing the flex­i­bil­ity of the spine. There is a “For­ward Bend or Exten­sion,” which stretches the legs and spine, relaxes mind and body, and rests the heart and neck. “Trikonasana — the Tri­an­gle” is a posi­tion that stretches the spine, improves bal­ance and con­cen­tra­tion, and opens the torso. To do it, one stands with legs in a wide stance. The arms are raised up and the body bends to meet one foot at a time. “The Cobra” is done by lying down and rais­ing the head and torso up. It stretches the spine, strength­ens the back and arms, and opens up the chest and heart. There are many other posi­tions, but the final one in any yoga class is called “The Corpse.” As it sounds, the body lies on the back on the ground, and though appear­ing dead, the goal of that yoga pose is con­scious relax­ation. The relax­ation part is easy, the stay­ing con­scious – not falling asleep – part is a bit harder.

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P90X, Days 36 — 42, Week 6

Posted on August 16, 2009 by The Average Joe

P90X LogoThings have been hec­tic lately, so for right now I’m going to move to weekly updates on my progress instead of the daily posts I’ve been mak­ing. Also, I’ve noticed that lately the major­ity of my posts cen­ter around my progress with P90X. I also want to write other con­tent that you’ll find inter­est­ing as well. Don’t worry, I’m still here, I’m still doing P90X, I’m still dis­cussing my progress, and I’m still Bring­ing It.

It seems like Phase II of P90X for me is about mak­ing gains. That means mak­ing gains with indi­vid­ual exer­cises and entire rou­tines. Here’s what week 6 looked like.

Day 36 — Chest, Shoul­ders & Tri­ceps. This work­out comes at your tri­ceps and the mus­cles in your chest and shoul­ders very hard. The slow speed pushups that make up two exer­cises in the rou­tine are a killer, but after com­plet­ing those exer­cises, I actu­ally felt a sense of accom­plish­ment. I can’t think of a bet­ter way to start the week.

Day 37 — Ply­o­met­rics. If you told me last year at this time, when I tried P90X for the first time, that I would be able to last more than 25 min­utes with this rou­tine I wouldn’t have believed you. I may not be able to com­plete the entire work­out yet, but I keep get­ting closer. I also don’t feel as if it is kick­ing my ass like it used to. It’s still a stren­u­ous work­out and it still pushes me to my lim­its, but I don’t feel as wiped as I used to.

P90X Back and BicepsDay 38 — Back & Biceps. My goal with doing P90X is to gain lean mus­cle. Since I’m look­ing to lose weight, I really don’t want to be any bulkier than I am now. So with that goal in mind, I con­cen­trate on doing more reps. So far I feel I’ve been pretty suc­cess­ful at it since I’ve noticed my arms are get­ting stronger and gain­ing def­i­n­i­tion with­out putting on sub­stan­tial size.

Day 39 — Rest Day. Lately it seems that by Thurs­day, my body feels tired and fatigued. It’s prob­a­bly a com­bi­na­tion of the long work week and the stren­u­ous nature of P90X.

Day 40 — Legs & Back. Last week was the first time that I was able to com­plete this work­out from start to fin­ish and I was able to repeat that this week. It was a big win for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take it easy. I still have a love — hate rela­tion­ship with this work­out and is still a chal­lenge. This week was about push­ing myself on the num­ber of reps per exercise.

Day 41 — Kenpo X. Last week I decided to swap out Kenpo X with Core Syn­er­gis­tics since I felt really good after doing it twice the week prior. This week I decided to go with Kenpo X for a calorie-burning, fast paced work­out. I hit my stride about mid-routine with this work­out, but feel fan­tas­tic when I’m fin­ished. While I enjoy Kenpo X, I think I may swap it out with Core Syn­er­gis­tics next week to do more work on my mid-section. We’ll see.

Day 42 — Yoga X. I’ve talked many times about the ben­e­fits I’ve seen with Yoga X, so there’s no point in repeat­ing them. Tony Horton’s pre­sen­ta­tion style is markedly dif­fer­ent with Yoga X than that of the other work­outs. Tony is usu­ally loose, upbeat and crack­ing jokes. I enjoy that style since it keeps the mood light with a very dif­fi­cult work­out. With Yoga X, Tony is much more sub­dued and there’s no jok­ing around. I find this style keeps me relaxed and focused on what I’m doing and the dif­fi­cult poses I’m try­ing to hold.

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What The Heck Is Vinyasa Yoga?

Posted on August 14, 2009 by The Average Joe

There are many vari­eties of yoga to help you find the one that suits your needs. One of the most pop­u­lar forms of yoga in North Amer­ica is called vinyasa yoga, some­times known as “astanga-vinyasa Yoga”. Vinyasa is the younger school of yoga derived from its par­ent school astanga or ash­tanga yoga. Both of these schools empha­size rou­tines that are fast and difficult.

Go With The Flow

In case you’re won­der­ing, vinyasa means “breath-synchronized move­ment”. Some have also hinted that there is no exact Eng­lish trans­la­tion, but for now, that’s the best trans­la­tion we are going to get. You not only learn how to put your body into eye-opening poses with vinyasa yoga, but you are also taught how to breathe when you go into them.

Vinyasa YogaOften, you’ll hear peo­ple or the media refer to vinyasa yoga as “flow yoga” or just “flow.” This is a slightly more ele­gant ver­sion of the super-athletic astanga yoga, where you try to flow from one posi­tion to another like water ris­ing and crest­ing in rip­ples and waves. Some peo­ple find it best to think of them­selves doing a slow dance as opposed to doing vinyasa yoga or flow.

Must Learn In Class

Vinyasa yoga not only needs to be seen to be believed, it needs a qual­i­fied instruc­tor to teach you what to do. Although videos and DVDs can help you once you’ve learned the basics, you can’t just mir­ror what you see in a DVD. You can really hurt your­self that way, giv­ing your­self sprains, strains or worse.

The best way to learn vinyasa yoga is to watch your instruc­tor and then try to mimic him or her. The instruc­tor then comes over and nudges you into the cor­rect posi­tion. You then try to mem­o­rize how that feels, in order to help when you attempt any of these posi­tions on your own. It will seem over­whelm­ing at first, which is why you need practice.

Where To Find

Vinyasa yoga classes are usu­ally help in com­mu­nity col­leges, health clubs and some­times at your local YMCA. There are also health clubs and spas only for yoga. You can check in the Yel­low Pages, from rec­om­men­da­tions from a trusted friend or from online adver­tis­ing. You really should sit in on a class to get a taste of the instructor’s style before you put any money down.

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Diet Soda, Arti­fi­cial Sweet­en­ers, Exer­cise, & Workouts

Posted on August 12, 2009 by The Average Joe

It was about a year and a half ago that I wrote a post about how stud­ies over the past sev­eral years are show­ing that foods using arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers, like diet sodas, may not be so good if you are try­ing to get fit and lose weight. It seems that the exact details are still being ironed out, but sev­eral the­o­ries con­tinue to emerge.

Diet Soda BottleAs I’ve dis­cussed pre­vi­ously, even though arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers have no calo­ries research has shown they can cause you to gain weight. It seems that sci­ence has found that the brain makes an asso­ci­a­tion between taste and the caloric con­tent of food and drink. When you taste it, the brain trig­gers mech­a­nisms in the body that pre­pare for the calo­ries to burn. When those calo­ries don’t arrive, the body trig­gers crav­ings in order to get the calo­ries it was expect­ing. And, think about when you have crav­ings. Do you eat a sen­si­ble amount? I didn’t think so.

Now, if you are in seri­ously work­ing out with a fit­ness rou­tine with the goal to lose weight, gain mus­cle, get ripped, or all of the above, you need to max­i­mize the nutri­tional value of every­thing you eat. This means lim­it­ing crav­ings is imperative.

Foods with lit­tle or no nutri­tional value, so called “empty calo­ries”, can sab­o­tage you. While there are lit­tle to no calo­ries, it seems that the body doesn’t quite metab­o­lize the ingre­di­ents right:

Fruc­tose, a pri­mary ingre­di­ent in many sodas, can­not be bro­ken down into use­ful energy. For this rea­son it is stored directly as fat.

Stud­ies have also shown there may be a link between arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers and the amount of energy used by the body:

In a study designed to mea­sure energy expen­di­ture, the saccharin-conditioned rats had slightly lower energy expen­di­tures after eat­ing a high-calorie meal con­tain­ing sugar.

Does this mean you should cut soda out of your diet com­pletely? That’s up to you, and depend­ing on your fit­ness goals, it just may be nec­es­sary. For me doing P90X, I try to severely limit my intake of soda. I try to drink mostly water, but every now and then I do want some­thing to drink with taste so I’ll have a glass, but that’s about it. And by every now and then, I mean once a week, if that. Based on what I’ve what dis­cussed with friends and read, I don’t drink soda reg­u­larly and it’s some­thing I sug­gest to others.

When look­ing into the nutri­tional value of food and drink, don’t just look at the calo­ries, carbs, fat, and pro­tein. Look at the other ingre­di­ents as well. Look at what kinds of arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers are used. The bal­ance between the quan­tity and qual­ity of foods is key, and it appears from recent research that arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers can throw off that bal­ance. Sodas are ok occa­sion­ally and in mod­er­a­tion, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to down a can after your workout.

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The Impor­tance of Fol­low­ing Bowflex Instructions

Posted on August 10, 2009 by The Average Joe

It is very impor­tant that you fol­low the Bowflex instruc­tions if you want to get the best results and make sure that you do not get injured. There are many Bowflex instruc­tions that are listed in the man­ual, but a few in par­tic­u­lar which are really going to be important.

Get­ting Started

Before you even get on your Bowflex there are a few rules that you are going to want to be aware of. Before begin­ning any exer­cise pro­gram you want to con­sult with your physi­cian, so they can assess your state of health and make sure that you are not going to be putting your­self at risk by start­ing this type of exercise.

Bowflex Revolution instructionsYou also want to make sure that you inspect your machine for any worn or loose com­po­nents prior to use and tighten or replace any of these com­po­nents prior to using the machine.

Using the Bowflex

There are some impor­tant Bowflex instruc­tions that relate directly to your using the machine. Hook­ing the power rod units to the cables is going to be one of the most impor­tant steps here, and you may use one rod or sev­eral rods in com­bi­na­tion if you prefer.

To hook mul­ti­ple rods up to a sin­gle cable, you want to bend the clos­est rod toward the cable and then place the cable hook through that rod cap. Then you can hook up the next clos­est rod through the hook, and so on and so forth.

Using the Bowflex Ulti­mate adjustable pul­ley sys­tem is another impor­tant part of the Bowflex instruc­tions. The pul­ley knobs here are spring-loaded, and they are sit­u­ated on the back of the adjustable pul­ley sys­tem. If you want to extend the pul­ley at any point, all you need to do is twist the knob a cou­ple of times to the left, and then pull out, and pull the adjustable sleeve out away from the machine until you hear it click into position.

These are all very impor­tant Bowflex instruc­tions to fol­low, espe­cially if you are a novice to exer­cise in gen­eral and have no idea what you are doing. You really want to make sure that you max­i­mize all of your work­outs and make them as worth­while as you can, but even more impor­tantly that you are not going to be putting your­self at risk and will not be get­ting injured dur­ing your workout.

As long as you read the instruc­tions and fol­low the guide­lines, you should not have any prob­lems with your Bowflex and it should last you for years to come.

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P90X, Day 35 — Yoga X

Posted on August 9, 2009 by The Average Joe

Ashtanga YogaToday was the Yoga X work­out since I moved up X Stretch due to some fatigue I was feeling.

Yes­ter­day I played a round of golf and walked the 18 holes. When I woke up today my legs were feel­ing a bit stiff and sore. Yoga X was a lit­tle rough going at first, but as expected the posi­tions and stretch­ing helped greatly. My legs felt great after I finished.

I know the gains I’ve made over the past 5 weeks can be be attrib­uted in part to the work­out I’ve got­ten with Yoga X. The stretch­ing has kept me fresh and has helped with fatigue. I know I was feel­ing beat last week, but with X Stretch I was able to get a work­out in as well as work on the stiff­ness and sore­ness. Just a few years ago I wouldn’t have ever thought Yoga would be a seri­ous part of my work­out rou­tine. Now, I find it cru­cial part and can’t stop talk­ing about the ben­e­fits of it. I guess I can thank Tony Hor­ton and P90X for that.

I am by no means per­fect with Yoga X. It’s hard. Some of the posi­tions really push the lim­its of my flex­i­bil­ity. This is just one of those work­outs that I’ll con­tinue to make small gains with over a very long period of time. I know that even when I hit day 90 of this time through P90X, I won’t have this work­out per­fected. But we’ll see when we get there.

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P90X, Day 34 — A Return to Core Synergistics

Posted on August 8, 2009 by The Average Joe

P90X Core SynergisticsToday was sup­posed to be Kenpo X, but after the num­ber Core Syn­er­gis­tics did on my mid-section last week, I decided to swap out Kenpo X with Core Syn­er­gis­tics. I enjoy Kenpo X, don’t get me wrong, but of all the work­outs Kenpo X is the one that I get accus­tomed to the quickest.

Kenpo X chal­lenges my endurance and my bal­ance. It’s a fast paced, calo­rie burn­ing work­out. I’ll put it back in the lineup next week. This week I wanted to con­tinue the work on my mid sec­tion that started last week. I’m telling you there are some tough exer­cises in this work­out, the prison cell pushup, the sphinx pushup, the squat x press, and the list goes on.

Core Syn­er­gis­tics will put you through the ringer.

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