Sweat Was A-Flyin ...

Sweat was a-flyin! …

Well, I got my sweat on last night and it was a-flyin! Did my Cathe Friedrich step aerobics with her Athletic Step dvd and her oldie but goodie Step Works. 

 

For some reason her warmup in Step Works is so namby-pamby that I avoid it at all costs. Which is so out of character for her because almost always her workouts are amazing from start to finish. So I replaced it with a nice shortie-but-goodie warmup from her Athletic Step dvd. Plus added for good measure a nice flowy stretch from my fav Namaste Yoga’s season 1, Episode 11’s forward fold, low lunge, to splits flow. As I’m trying to open my hips and hamstrings for forward folds and front splits. I wanna do the front splits again! Is it wrong! 

 

 

I was able to do it for a short time in ballet as a kid but didn’t maintain it so I lost it fast. Now in my “old” age I want to do it again this time for keeps. So, it’s one of my practice research postures that I try to include twice a week along with hip openers such as baddha konasana, pidgeon pose, and double pidgeon pose (of which I’m attrocious at!) But my mysore teacher added it in to replace lotus as I can only do half lotus since my right hip is a work in progress. So lots of baddha and double pidgeon to work rotation in the hip for now. Methinks I’ll do a post on my research “workshop” practices in the evenings. More posts! Yeah!

But, I digress …

It was an awesome cardio practice. Very fun and I’m aiming to build my VO2 max and cardio lung capacity slowly but surely. Still got a ways to go, as 2 years ago I was doing Step Works with no stopping or little taking it down a notch. But as a result of my knees (bad adjustment in ashtanga which caused my patella problem to resurface) and achilles probs in the past 1.5 years I haven’t been able to put in too much cardio. Now that I just started back in the past 2 months, I find I’m ramping up rather quickly going from low impact, steady state to high impact with intensity blasts quite quickly. Which is awesome. Though I do notice the difference as I need to take it down a notch and pace more to build the VO2 max again. And I have to break to catch my breath! Woo! But’s it coming along faster than I expected! Yeah! And I see another post on VO2 Max itching to come out. So all in all it was a great session.

Then of course I always post practice ice my knees and achilles. As a result of my patella-femoral diagnosis years ago (brought on by an overzealous trainer having me do super-heavy squatting which popped my patella’s, life as I know it has never been the same! Oh well! As my nephews like to say, "That's life!") and achilles tendonitis more recently it’s just a given and a no-brainer-auto-pilot thing now.

Onwards and upwards …