I did a 90 minute hot yoga class today with my wife. It was pretty hard, there were alot of things I couldn't do, and I'm already kinda sore. I was pretty good a some stuff though, which was fun. I also sweated my fucking balls off. I'm pretty sure that if I do this once every couple of weeks, it will make me stronger and probably less likely to hurt myself. We'll see.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Any idea how much this helps flexibility relative to other activities? I'm tall and have terrible hip/leg flexibility (which I suspect effects a lot of things lifting-wise), and have thought of trying yoga/hot yoga/pilates to improve it.
ReplyDeleteHi Albert, thanks for reading the blog. I'll let Garrett speak about yoga specifically, but in my opinion, there are more efficient ways to get hip mobility to a level that allows for comfortable lifting.
ReplyDeleteThere are a bunch of places to get this information, and frankly, everyone does it a little differently. You could try:
* Defranco's Agile 8 (http://www.defrancostraining.com/ask_joe/archives/ask_joe_08-10-03.html#question04)
* The Squat Rx mobility series (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKnpmQNhc3w&feature=related). It's also worth looking at the whole series if you have time.
To be honest, though, any set of mobility drills from any respected coach is fine. Just pick one and do it religiously and your mobility will improve. Avoid mixing and matching, though, and there's certainly no need to do all of them.
If there is a spoecific aspect of flexibility that you want to work on, then static and dynamic stretches for the bodypart will be much more effective than yoga. The yoga class that I did will help my overall flexibilty some, put I think the most important thing that it will do is help to identify and correct muscle imbalances and strengthen some of the smaller muscles that are not primaray movers in the weightlifting that I do.
ReplyDeleteThe two best things for me for hip mobility is 1) getting into a deep squat position and then rotating my torso and reaching alternating hands to the sky. 2) Sitting at the bottom of a deep squat with 135 pounds on my back and gently strechcing in the position by moving side to side and back and forth for 10-20 seconds.
Thanks so much for these. I'd heard hot yoga was a good way to improve flexibility, but I think that for bang for my buck (time) it isn't too effective, so I'll give the agile 8 a try, as I can do it before/after work each day, and see where it takes me. I always had weaker flexibility, which was made even worse by the fact that I am tall, skinny, and grew pretty quickly. Squats and Deadlifts used to get dicey at times, and I still can't do a deep/ATG squat as I'd like. Hopefully, these will help.
ReplyDeleteMost generally, I'm looking to hit some specific lifting goals for Bench/Squat/Deadlift (225/265/315) by July, then try to move into Olympic lifts......not for competition, but for enjoyment and explosiveness for basketball/ice jockey. We'll see where this goes.