Me and my girl have done this intermittently over the past 5 or 6 months, it’s complementary to strength training IMO. We also got ours from groupon!
I did Bikram a few times and really enjoyed it. It’s not easy! The studio I went to is a little too far from home for me to go consistently…and it’s one of those things where I’d rather go consistently.
If it were easier to attend, I’d do this at least once a week. I really like Yoga as an “active rest day”. Bikram was definitely a workout though.
Yoga day for me; I took a gentle restorative yoga class at a studio not to far from me.
I’ve been working diligently on getting more ankle mobility and have been successful, to the point that my gate has changed and my feet feel floppy to me.
I’ve got a busy weekend with sports and used the yoga class as a way for my brain to re-learn what to do with the new found ROM. A lot of people have the experience of injuring a part of their body (hammie, ankle, shoulder) after a particularly intense stretching warm up. You’ve increased your ROM but your brain isn’t accustomed to “seeing” the body part move through that entire range so it may spasm in order to protect a nearby joint (hammie strain) or may lose it’s sense of proprioception leading to injury (rolled ankle).
I think yoga is useful by allowing the brain to reacclimate.
Glad to see this thread has gotten a little more traffic.
Dr. P, that’s a fascinating thought. Somewhat related to that, while most yogis probably do not think of it this way, I think yoga is actually superb for helping develop MMC. Not that you want to be flexing or getting a pump, but in many of the single-leg balancing postures, you can feel your hamstring or quad flex a bit to keep you in proper alignment.
MattyG, that’s great. If you can manage a class once a week, I think that’s enough to have some noticeable benefits. Not in becoming a yoga rock star - that’s not the point. My once-a-week practice is basically the “tune-up” that keeps me in good working order for lifting the rest of the week.
Alpha mike, totally understandable. Especially since the class is 90 minutes long, if you have to drive 40 minutes to get there it turns into a 4-hour affair. If you really like it, I have two possible suggestions:
- once a month or so, if the yoga studio is in a nice area, make a weekend of it. My GF lives in the middle of nowhere, Michigan; there’s a Bikram studio two hours away in Ann Arbor. She loves Bikram, so a couple times this fall, we met in Ann Arbor on Friday afternoon, took a yoga class and then went for dinner and drinks with some friends who live there.
If there’s a great brunch place nearby, maybe drive there on Sunday morning, take your yoga class, and treat yourselves to a great brunch. Or if there are some major attractions, anything that floats your boat, drive down on saturday, go to the show/casino/whatever, spend the night, and take a yoga class the next morning.
The other thing you can do is look for yoga studios when you’re going on vacation. My parents, my gf, and I all habitually do this. Once I was at a conference for work and found a Bikram studio within half a mile of my hotel, so I just bought their weekly package and took a yoga class every morning. I’ve gone a couple of whole-family beach vacations where we found a Bikram studio and did the same. Take the 9:30 yoga class, shower and spend the rest of the day on the beach drinking foofy drinks. A good time was had by all.
YMMV.