Hi
I have been practising for about a year now.I am really enjoying yoga but I feel my personality/lifestyle is affecting my progress.
I am a keen cyclist,mountaineer and sea kayaker,which means I have a lot of tight muscles as a result.This makes certain postures difficult for me and I feel I have to push more into them to get anything from them.My Hamstrings and ankles are very tight and I suffer in the simplest of poses as a result.
I understand the ethos of Yoga enough to know that you should not ‘force’ your body into poses that feel uncomfortable.But surely you have to experience some discomfort to attain the flexibilty to progress.
I would like to know how much effort you should put in the pose to progress as efficiently as possible.What is the correct attitude to adopt and how to overcome my basic stiffness?
Regards
I’m in/was in the same boat, regarding attitude, but when I can step outside my ‘box’ and become more accepting, things go better, smoother.
I put the same question to all my teachers (3). They all came back with pretty much the same reply.
"Work into the pose to the point where you can still maintain the proper alignment, ie hip opener poses should be focused on that, even if it means a ‘shallower’ pose, same for the other poses. Focus on maintaining the breath. Allow the inhale and exhale cycle to help me ‘deepen’ the pose. Try to let my body get ‘comfortable’ in the pose, then work to extend a bit more. Acknowledge some days I’m more flexible and some days less.
I make it less about ‘getting there’ than ‘being wherever’ - when I do this my body finds a way to relax into any pose a bit more."
Because it takes time for me to get ‘comfortable’ in poses, I go to classes which are not as ‘flow’ oriented - quick in and move on to the next asana - and spend more time in each pose. I like this better anyway, since it helps me get my mind and body into the same place more often. I think this approach also helps minimize any possibility of injury to myself, since limits are approached slowly. Like most anything else worth doing, I try to do an organized class practice at least 3x a week, one just doesn;t get me anywhere. Then I try to get a few home practices whenever time allows.
I still pour sweat thru every practice, but its a more flexible sweat. OMmmmm 
Hi,
I hammered a way at yoga for ten years giving 110% to everything. The reality is things come a lot quicker when you relax. I now use my breath as a guide. The rate and rhythm shouldn’t change that much from sitting relaxed.
Explore the edge and always use the breath to indicate your effort.
Make sure your are not on a low fat (no fatty dairy), low greenies diet. This lowers the amount of the ingested vitamin A, and paired with forced yoga postures, leads to sure cartilage injury. Than you will have to stop, and whatever progress you made by them in yoga on a mental level, will be lost also.
About forcing postures, I know what you talk about. That hamstring is so rocksolid that it seems it never will stretch, right ? Like strings of steel, we wonder, how will they ever stretch beyond this, than we stretch as if our life hangs on it. It is important to do postures what isolate the muscle, to avoid strain on other, more flexible parts (lower back, knees, ankles) and have patience as overstreching will injure the tendons or their insertions.
Our dear fellow and teacher InnerAthlete gave an example for someone, where he said it takes about a year of regular practice to open up a headstrong hamstring. Based on this, I give you an example:
My hamstrings are like two inches or 5 centimeters shorter than they should be, 50 mm/365 days = 0.13 mm. This is the amount of flexibility I should achieve every day. Not noticable, that’s for sure. Even in a hundred days, it is just a little more than a centimeter (a third of an inch) what I think is still below the average awareness level. So it is understandable that it seems that there is no advancement at all, but we have to keep it up, and finally we will succed.
Development is not linear, an sometimes you seem to get stiffer than more flexible, flexibility also depends on a lot of other factors, age, time of the day, food, drink, physical exertion, mental state. Without a regular, everyday in the same time, long lasting (several months) practice there is no noticable result, and even with it, it is minimal. A huge amount of patience, and self restraint is needed to succed. It is hard to assert the exact amount without the help of someone who has been there. That’s what yoga teachers are for.
I meant private sessions. Also letting easier on the activities what caused the tightness is something to think of.
Oh, other thing which has helped me greatly over the years, in flexibility and recovery, has been massage.
Outside of yoga practices, any other activity I might do vigorously, like cycling, hiking, whatever; I try to do a session of self-massage afterwards, within an hour or so of the end of the activity.
The legs and hip/lowerback are relatively easy to do, with some guidance from someone experienced in self-massage. Neck and upper shoulders also not a problem.
Then I try to get a full body massage done every 2 weeks, especially during the ‘cycling season’ (which around here is 365).
Massage can be pricey, and sometimes beyond my means, but I’m lucky to be in an area where there are lots of options… look especially for any massage therapy schools which might be in your area, they often have lower rates since students have to put in a lot of ‘qualification’ hours before being certified.
In self-massage I focus on the legs and especially pelvic region/lowerback. The hips being the really ‘tight’ area because of cycling and other similar related activites.
One major tip/caveat I find never gets mentioned - always work muscle in a direction with circulatory flow TO the heart, NEVER against the flow.
Arteries are not an issue, but veins do have valves which stop backflow. Pushing hard against them in direction opposite to flow can do severe damage to valves and lead to varicose veins. Always massage towards the heart. Light kneading across the muscle or easy pressure on the backstroke is fine. Working across the muscle in a smooth or kneading fashion allows the blood to still ‘escape’ and flow properly the way its intended to.
Massage is a great compliment to Yoga and visa-versa.
I appreciate all the advice and don’t feel so bad now about ‘losing my way’.
I am going to back off a bit in class and try and practice a little each night ,rather than once or twice a week.Although I find it hard to motivate myself when not in a class,this seems to be what is needed to progress.
Cyclezen ,I was wondering whether you ,like me,feel that cycling and other sports work against yoga?I know some Yogis feel that these exercises irritate the body,whereas yoga stimulates the body.From my own experiences from when I was still climbing hard,I found I was stiffer as a result form training sessions(I did warm up and down and stretch!)I also find cycling is guilty of giving me stiff ankles/knees/hips/shoulders and hamstrings!Although I confess that I don’t self massage as you advise.
Thanks
The way(s) in which one does asana (once again assuming we are talking about asana rather than Yoga) depends on their purpose, intention, or svadharma.
If one is looking to merely become more flexible in muscle tissue and has no concern or regard for potential injury in doing so, then that student could work incredibly hard, very aggressively, and quite violently in their pursuit using asana as the vehicle.
If on the other hand a student is doing asana as part of a larger practice, seeks to develop awareness of the body for the purpose of knowing the Self more intimately, then that student should work (in asana) in accord with that purpose.
Generally speaking, I see into students and encourage the ones who might work more intensely to do so (with no performance, Ego, or violence in their practice) while simultaneously requesting those who are over doing it to back off a bit.
But your question (original post) asks about tight (short) muscles resulting from your activity choices.
This is real life cause and effect. Mindfulness or karma in action. If we choose activities then we also choose that which comes from the activities. If these activities bring you joy then continue them and consider an asana practice that serves to counter that which you are tightening (and accept it). As long as you are feeling your body and the residue of the poses then you are “getting” something
[quote=urga;8098]…
Cyclezen ,I was wondering whether you ,like me,feel that cycling and other sports work against yoga?I know some Yogis feel that these exercises irritate the body,whereas yoga stimulates the body.From my own experiences from when I was still climbing hard,I found I was stiffer as a result form training sessions(I did warm up and down and stretch!)I also find cycling is guilty of giving me stiff ankles/knees/hips/shoulders and hamstrings!Although I confess that I don’t self massage as you advise.
Thanks[/quote]
I’ve come to think of the varying activities and things I do/participate in all in a positive light. Certainly many, maybe most of the ‘sport’ things we do - cycling, weight-lifting, whatever, - have their limiting affects on us. But knowing that, we have options to counter that. I now like to think of the physical aspects of yoga as being a foundation for countering some limiting affects and even extending performance. I therefore don;t believe its rational or productive to think of one activity as ‘working against’ or ‘irritating’ - at least for those I’m familiar with, some of the same you are familar with as well.
The body is our vehicle, and the journey is the one we choose. As Inner Athlete notes in this, and many other threads, the karma of our choices determines the experience of the journey. The asanas of yoga make the experience of the ‘journey’ broader and maybe deeper for me.
And even though most of us are constituted of much more than ‘sports’; keeping the focus here within that area, the mindful and thoughtful side of yoga goes even further into making a sportful activity, for me, a deeper experience.
If you have or had a deeply competitive side as I have had, then yoga can help to clarify that ‘success’ and ‘failure’ are really the same thing, a temporary point or ‘signpost’ of our journey. Appreciating the ‘journey’, either in the very tight view of a sport activity, or our broader progress thru life, becomes easier and a fuller experience.
AS I’m writing this, I’m having thoughts on the recent developments revolving around Marion Jones. The whole doping issue and right/wrong aside; she’s now at a point where her earlier successes can no longer be a focus of her life as a human. She can either live in the past, move on to a ‘new’ perspective of her life, or give up. I believe yoga, for a person in that position, would make “moving on” a natural thing.