Yoga is not enough?

Core Strength 101

So, I was trying, this year, to get away with not lifting weights and just doing yoga, believing (hoping) that this was enough.  Well, new studies on yoga just published reveal that it is not enough.  In fact, yoga produces about the same level of exercise as a 2 mile per hour stroll!  Yikes.  Here is a summary of the study in the Gretchyn Reynolds’ column in the NY Times:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/ask-well-does-yoga-build-strength/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=health&_r=0

  So…for me, it’s been back to the gym, especially to develop core strength.  There is a great test for core stability strength that everyone really should do once a week until you can do it, and then you should do it once a week to make sure you are keeping your core strength.  Here is the core stability test:

Get a timer first of all and put it in front of you.

Do a forearm plank for 60 seconds.  Keep your body in a straight line.  Suck in your tummy and tuck your tailbone.  Make sure you begin in a good forearm plank form and keep it that way.  When you start to waver, you know that that is an area of core strength you need to work on.

Without dropping, add in lifting the right arm straight out in front of you.  Hold for 15 seconds.

Without dropping, put down the right arm and lift the left arms straight out in front of you.  Hold for 15 seconds.

Without dropping, put down the left arm and lift the right leg 6 inches from the ground and hold for 15 seconds.

Without dropping, put down the right leg and lift the left leg and hold for 15 seconds.

Then, without dropping, lift the right leg and the left arm and hold for 15 seconds.

Then, without dropping, lift the left leg and the right arm and hold for 15 seconds.

Finally, go back to the full forearm plank and hold for a final 30 seconds.

If you cannot do this, you need to seriously work on core strength stability by doing different kinds of core strength exercises….planks, squat holds, push-ups, bridges, one-leg bridges, various kinds of ab exercises (especially leg raises).  Slowly, you can build up your core strength until you can do the stability test and hold steady.

Why do you need core strength?  Mostly, you really need it to perform daily basic tasks without taxing other, smaller muscles.  It is great injury prevention and will keep your body younger longer if you have it.  Also, I should add that doing yoga is great for other reasons, just not as the sole means of strength training and/or cardiovascular fitness.  So, I’ve been mixing it up with yoga, running, swimming, weight-lifting, pilates, etc.  Feeling great too, by the way.

Fall and Winter are just around the corner.  Core stability training will make you more flexible and pliable in all sorts of weather conditions, even slipping on the ice!

So, my advice is that we focus on not just one exercise form, but many.  Add in some dance and fun sports too…just to round it all out.  This will make you fit and happy for life.

Next week…update on the whole health picture.  I am much further than half-way through this health journey and it has been so invigorating…so much fun to figure all of this out and develop a completely new outlook on life!

Uddiyana -- ZIP IT UP!

Well, I haven’t written in a long time.  Busy with research and work all over the country, but I have been practicing the 52 health habits religiously.  I still have my favorites like daily oil pulling, meditation, wellness journaling and so on.  I’ve learned much about eating and worked quite a bit in the past month on portion control, rewiring my own appetite for over-consumption.  I would say that one of the most important principles I’ve learned this year is from yoga – Uddiyana.  This is core stabilization.  It is zipping in your gut as a regular practice, not letting it hang out, and learning to breathe deeply still in the diaphragm as you pull it in. 

I watch people at the gym, I watch people walking around, and they are definitely just letting it hang, and what will ensue is damage to the lower back, serious damage because the core is not engaged.  Want to avoid back injury?  Zip it up!.  Pull that belly button to your spine every single minute and it will become habit.

What will this do for you?  Well, let’s look at what it’s done for me.

First, it has seriously helped my lower back injury and piriformis syndrome/sciatica that developed from that.

Second, it improves your posture in all areas – sitting, standing, walking, running, yoga, etc.  Everywhere.  And this will help your entire back.  And this will help your self-confidence in life too.

Third, it burns calories constantly if you make it a practice, whether or not you exercise in other ways.  Uddiyana engages your core so that you are consistently keeping that center of your body contracted and yes, it will burn more calories when you do anything.

Fourth, and this is HUGE…it will give you a present center.  Ever seen someone who just seems really centered and confident in herself so that she wants for nothing.  This is what Uddiyana does for the body.  It yields presence in the body itself that communicates and radiates outward to others. 

So, please, give this one a try.  I recommend taking yoga or pilates to really develop it, but you can also just do it on your own.  Try it running if you run, swimming if you swim, cycling if you cycle, and definitely do it during weight lifting, ab-work, etc…it will boost those activities and the muscles will develop faster. 

Other things going on with my health?  Well, I have been reading quite a bit about running because after my piriformis injury, I was forbidden to run by my physio-therapist.  Sooooo….now I am back at it, and trying to do it healthy and safe.  Core stabilization seems to be the thing I need to work on the most to improve my running.

Definitely been working on flexibility.  The front of my body is not so flexible, nore are my inner legs, so I’ve been dedicated myself to getting that to open up, working on hip openers from all angles.

It seems that we carry much of who we are in your hips, and so you may find that as you start to allow them to open, you experience more emotion.  This is interesting, and I’ve definitely experienced it on my yoga mat – where a profound sense of anxiety seems to be released when I let my hips ease open in various poses.  Try it.  See if it works for you to relieve anxiety and stress.

Right now I am in NYC working and I’ve taken yoga from a couple studios while here, but mostly I’ve been practicing on my own. 

Now remember – Uddiyana.  Zip it up!

Healing can happen. 7 months 16 days.

7 months 16 days.

Healing can happen.  I am here as a witness to this.  One of the pieces of health advice given to me this year was to do yoga every day.  At first, I was reticent.  How c ould I do it every day?  Well, I didn’t . Not at first.  But my friend Roxanne at church invited me to hot yoga in January at 6 am on Fridays and I felt like I was walking into Ghana when I first entered that 95 degree humid room.  So I went, and I stayed. 

At first, I only went a couple of days a week.  Then, I joined the studio.  Then I did their 30 day, every day challenge, then I stayed even more.  Now it is a habit and if I don’t make it every day, I feel slighted.  The meditative mode, the heat, the community – it is all healing. 

Since 2011 I have been suffering from pirafmormis syndrome when I broke my tailbone in a sledding accident.  This little muscle extends from an attachment at the tailbone to the outer hip and it passes over the sciatic nerve.  If this muscle gets tight…well, it causes sciatica and piraformis syndrome. 

My injury was definitely causing this and it just would not subside.  In fact, every time I drove long distance in a car.  Every time I sat for too long in a soft chair or really…any chair, it inflamed.  Running inflamed it…that is my passion in sport and it was just killing me to only be able to run a few miles before it hurt like hell.

In yoga, we do a pose every class called pigeon pose where you place your leg at a ninety degree angle under you, extend the opposite leg back and just dig in to bend over the ninety-degree leg to open up the hip.  OUCH.

I have been doing this pose every single day.  Holding it.  Enduring three minutes of hold at least per class and dying dying dying.  Today, for the first time in months, the pain released, and when I say released, I mean a flood of pain left my body and my right hip reached the floor…it opened.  I do not know how.  I do not know why, but it happened.

I am hear to testify that the practice of yoga pays of off, big time!  Do it.  And do not just do it…do it daily.  Let it nourish your soul and body.  I’ll let you know how it progresses as my year of health continues.

All else is well…eating well, drinking well.  Taking care of myself to the hilt.  Loving every minute of it!

Core strength -- kick it into gear.

Wow.  I have not written in awhile.  Apologies.  Been a bit busy with summer research and teaching work, not to mention the fact that my best friend is in town and she’s been re-organizing my kitchen, making it easier for me to cook in and that has been delightful. 

Having a well-organized, clean kitchen where you have easy access to all cooking utensils and foods is a must for a healthy lifestyle.  So, even with just a few quick fixes, you can make your own better. 

Now, how has my year of health been going?  Pretty well, although I must admit that I’ve had some serious exhaustion and inflammation that has kept me from feeling totally healthy.  I continue to exercise every single day, both with yoga and with another form of exercise, usually swimming or running.  Now that it’s nice outside, I tend to take at least one long walk a day too.

Just bought a FitBit.  Now, there are some funny anecdotes out there about these pesky little devices that track your fitness in terms of steps, and can also track food and such.  If you take it seriously, it can be a helpful device in knowing your overall level of health and challenging you to fit in your step goal every day.  This David Sedaris article about the FitBit is hilarious.  Read it if you haven’t already:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/30/140630fa_fact_sedaris?currentPage=1

What I have learned the most from my own FitBit is that I am not sleeping as well as I would like, sometimes experiencing as much as 15 periods of restlessness a night.  So, now I am thinking about strategies to work on this.  Tonight I am going to try my sleep mask and ear plugs to see if that helps.  One of my friends told me yesterday that ear plugs work for her.  I’ll give it a try and keep you posted.  I know I have a lot of trouble with light, so darkening my room helps so much.  Apparently not enough, so I shall keep working on this.

Tomorrow I begin a 21 day challenge with my coach Mandi, who will be helping me to improve my overall fitness.  I promised myself to do a couple of such challenges this year.  I completed 30 days of yoga, and now I am up to over 60 straight days of yoga, headed toward 90 and onward.  This 21 day challenge should get me eating better and with better overall strength.  Core strength is something I especially want to continue building.  In Yoga, I can feel when core strength is lacking because it is the source of exhaustion in the practice.  When my core is engaged and strong, and supporting my whole body, I feel plugged in and feel like I can do it all.  When my core is tired or doesn’t have enough strength, I just feel like retreating into a face plant. 

The core of the body is from the chest down to the knees.  In particular, it is the muscles that are connected to and wrapped around the spine, extending out.  If the core is strong, you can pretty much accomplish anything because it kicks in first to support the body and REALLY reduces injury.  Yoga is perhaps one of the best movement forms that improve core strength at an integrated level.  Many weight lifting exercises can work the core, but they do not integrate it completely in the way that a good yoga instructor will teach you to do.  Just doing a daily series of sun salutations:

http://yogasite.com/sunsalute.htm

Just doing these on a daily basis will help you so much.  They can be done alone and there are plenty of videos out there to help you.  Try it.  See if you can do it…just ten a day.  You can and you will feel better and better.

If you just cannot abide yoga, but still want to build core strength, you can try pilates as well, but I would also recommend the P90X core strength building video.  It uses weights and really kicks some butt in terms of a challenging workout. 

Remember, the core is not just the abdominal muscles, but all the muscles surrounded by and supporting the spine. 

Just last week I was in yoga and I felt truly plugged in and integrated for the first time in a long time…maybe even since I was a kid when the body is more fully integrated because we have a higher level of flexibility.  What I mean by feeling plugged in is that I was in a pose (high plank) and I was not tired at all and just felt completely present and supported.  My spine was perfectly straight and I felt like I could’ve stayed there for a good long time.  It was wonderful.  And I could just breathe and relax into the pose.  Then, just a little while later, I was out in the garage and a box fell from a big rack and I caught it and it was heavy, but there was no problem because I actually felt my core kick into gear.  It was like a little lightning bolt of energy across the core muscles of my body.

So, kick it into gear.  Core strength and the spinal stability it provides will keep your body young.