Cathe, Kino and Travis!

The dynamic trio! ... I'm so proud of myself as I just did 3 workouts in a row since I've been back at work starting this past Monday, with my awesome go to trainers. I decided to print out a workout schedule and try really hard to focus and stick to it. I find that planning, printing and having my schedule in front of me at my desk is really helping me with my motivation and focus. I was finding that in my heart I want to do it. The heart drive is there BUT my physical, psychological motivation was lagging behind once the evening came around. This way, seeing my planned schedule and also knowing my days off is really helping me so far. But the true test is time over tension and consistency. So we'll see!

My Bakasana Ideal
(arms straight, knees higher)

My Bakasana Reality
(arms bent, knees lower, but getting there!)

I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet. Just an overview as I need to get to bed!

Travis Monday: 

On Monday I did my hearthrob, Travis', Ultimate Yogi Flexibility and snuck in a bakasana (arm balance) and jumpback to chatarunga. Weee! I felt stronger the second time around. Love the front splits in this one which he has you sit in forever! I'm practically groin down on one side. Yes! My hammies feel quite knackered the next day, but you know it's just stretchy growing pains — the Travis' leftover effect — pummelling my hammies to submissive openess. All's good.

Cathe Tuesday:

Then on Tuesday I did the awesome Cathe's XTrain All Out Low Impact HIIT. My achilles have been feeling a touch twingy lately from all that plyometric jumpy fun I've been having. Been icing diligently but thought what better time than this to try her dvd. Man, this got my heart rate up. It was funtastic.

She uses alot of low impact cardio moves that really hit the quads hard making it anaerobic too. Those quads burn!! There was floor work then step work and finally glide disc. I'm still having trouble with those discs. I can't quite keep my feet on them without them sliding off during the exercises. I'm trying to figure out what the magic trick is. But overall this was an amazingly fun, challenging, HIIT, quad quaking sweatfest without any impact that left my quads nice and sore the next day. I even felt the soreness in my vastus medialis muscle (the teardrop) muscle close to my knees. Nice! This is a muscle that's always been hard for me to engage properly yet is key to keeping my patellas stabilized. So, it's nice to know that all those vastus medialis leg extension machine exercises that I do at the gym is paying off.

Kino Wednesday:

And I topped it all off tonight with my favorite beautiful ashtangi yogini teacher, Kino's Primary dvd. Not that I don't have other fav yogi teacher's ~ we all know me and Travis ~ but sorry Travis I have some other loves too. lol!

With Kino's dvd, I love her pacing which is a bit quicker and her impressive non-stop dialogue of instructions. Some will love the chatter and some won't. I love it. It actually keeps me focused and in the zone. Also, if you really listen to what she's saying her directions are a phenomenal gold mine of tips, teaching and guidance into each posture. Literally a treasure chest of information. And I got to practice my jump backs and throughs. I will master you yet! Funny, the Travis set has helped give me more strength and stamina for the primary which is a nice bonus. I'm actually not surprised as I thought it might.

Hmmm, I don't think I was successful in keeping it short. Oh well!

So, it's been a good week so far and it's just past hump day! Now it's all down hill from here. Weeee!

... practice, schedule ~ do whatever works ~ and all is coming.

Ultimate Yogi Cardio ... Waaaa?!?!

O.M.Gerd!!! Travis, babe, you're killing me! Lor' give me strength! Or rather, if I keep this up, Travis & God WILL give me strength! ... That's the way I felt doing his amazing Cardio disc on his amazing 108 day odyssey, 12 disc yoga program. (Psst, I'm not really doing the 108 days, as I'd get super bored doing any program that long plus I need the cross-training, and he'd do in my already misaligned shoulders through no fault of his own. Just that too much chatarunga's does not make my shoulders too happy.) And I do love his Bryan Kest like rhyming (there's no doubt he was taught by him) which I find keeps me focused, trancelike and happy. And you need it through this one.

I loved Cardio! Maybe it's because I'm a closet adrenalin junkie. And this will give you your fix. No question about it. Now, this disc is not a misnomer. This is a one non stop, breathless, power vinyasa flow. There is NO rests in downdog except for the very first one in his version of sun salutation A. And from then on in it's all systems GO! Remember when I said in my last post about him, he'll make downdog feel like a resting posture? Well, you'll be begging for one now. He takes us through about 5 of his versions of sun sal A's before going into 5 of his versions of sun sal B's, which include 3 legged downdog, knee to nose, leg back up then through to high lunge. When you get back to chair pose in sun sal B you sit there and do a flow from arms up to chest to thigh with arms back then sitting back up with arms up. The first cycle you do one of these in chair then you do that same flow in high lunge on each side. Then you cycle back to chair doing the flow 2x in chair and 2x in high lunges and you go on until you complete 5 cycles. It looks benign upon previewing but man by the 2nd cycle your legs are starting to burn in chair pose and the burn gets hotter and hotter as you go along. And the breathe gets louder and louder. Remember there's NO breaks. THEN after the 5th sun sal B you then go through vinyasa's from side to side 10 times! Yeah, you heard me, 10 times! Well, Travis, my babe, lost me there. I only made it through 6 cycles before I raised the white flag. By that time, I was a breatheless, sweaty, sniffling, leg quivering mess. As a Cathlete once said "I think I almost drooled." But it was amazing and I glowed afterwards. So, nevermind that I finished early, I have faith that when Travis, my babe, is finished with me, I will be one strong iron warrior woman!!

... practice, drool, and all is coming.

Sore Muscles, Sore Eyes ... but Beautiful Vision

Everything is sore from sore muscles to sore eye. lol! I do love sore muscles as I know I did some crazay effective workouts. Like yesterday's amazing Xtrain Cardio Leg Blast by Cathe which made my quads and hamstrings sore and the day before Travis' Ultimate Yogi Flexibility which darn well did in my butt, hamstrings and shoulders. So, I've got DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) setting in nicely now. Yowza! With that a rest day was in order today. And to top it all off my left eye began feeling achy when doing some minor grocery shopping in my neighbourhood. Today was the first day I went out with my eyes fully undressed from the protective sunglasses the doc gave me. And my eyes felt the wonky vision full on in broad beautiful daylight. My eyes are so miss matched blurry that the walking around trying to focus through the brilliant haze proved a little too much too soon. Thank goodness I wasn't out too long and still managed to enjoy the fall sunlight. I even took this beautiful vision of a picture above on the way home which made me almost and I say almost love fall! lol! But I digress ...

Xtrain Cardio Leg Blast by Cathe

 

 

I did Cathe's amazing Cardio Leg Bast for the first time yesterday. I had this disc for a while but had to shelve it until my knees grew stronger. So, now I'm enjoying some good ol jumping cardio. It reminds me of my ballet days doing all the beautiful jumping floor work. I felt so light, lithe and strong back then and it makes me feel the same now, so exhilerating being finally able to do it again.

This is a great cardio and moderately heavy weight leg circuit workout with 12 rounds of about one minute plyometric cardio blast (HIT) with one moderate weighted leg work for about a maximum 16 reps which you repeat 12 times. The first 6 rounds are done off the step and the next 6 rounds are done on. No exercises are repeated so it's really fun. At first I used slightly lighter weights than Cathe and crew wanting to play it safe with my knees but then realized if I wanted to feel any burn with just 16 reps I needed to match or go heavier with the weights. So when I hit the round where we did plie squats — my legs are strong for this — I went with my 50lb barbell than their lighter pound dumbbells. I also added some extra pulse squats to the squat section to feel more burn and instead of doing their side lunges after that set — my knees do NOT like side lunge motions — I did pop squats interspersed with jump ropes. I found this more effective for my quads following quad style plyos with weighted quad work. It employs the quad muscles in a way that forces the quads to get strong very fast. Also, I noticed that, especially with the jumps on the step, I bend my knees more than the crew does. I think my ballet training has alot to do with this. This technique creates a softer, quieter, more controlled landing and also takes the impact into the quad and calf muscles more than the knees. Thus protecting the joints while building powerful, more explosive lean legs. I did have to take some extra breathes here and there but all in all I was able to keep up nicely and ALMOST completed the workout. I got to round 11 and quit. Naughty girl! I didn't realize there was only one more to go!

The music was great and keeps you going when it gets hard and was one of the reasons I was able to even get to round 11 and also I love step work. Cathe's a pro at using amazingly hip music and crescendoing it at just the right moments to keep you fired up and getting that extra wind to take you to the next level. Really amazing! (Can you tell music is very important to me for workouts. It actually will make or break what would be a very good workout for me. Cathe is a genius for this most of the time. The one time she derailed was when she did her amazing STS heavy weight periodization program where for me the music did NOT work.)

I forgot to do the bonus Burn Set Bi's at the end. But was probably wise that I forgot. As I'm feeling the sore today and don't need anymore added to it. That's another wonderful thing about Cathe is she's so generous (Amy Bento does the same too) she always adds premixes to all her dvds and sometimes adds bonus workouts from her other dvds in the set. Which she really went all out on with her Xtrain set. Kudos Cathe!

... so practice, get nice and sore, and all is coming.

Love and Butterflys ...

Yes, love and butterflys! Because I'm in love with Travis Eliot and his Ultimate Yogi DVD set AND I woke up with butterflys in my tummy, unfortunately not from him but from the queeziness of the blurry wonkiness of very slow healing PRK monovision. Yuck!! ... After I finally ate my breaky my tummy settled down and my brain began accepting the two toned blur of vision. I have a very narrow range of up close vision, basically my face has to be up close to the screen to see anything. Lol! And everything else is a lopsided blur fiasco. I forgot that because I'm getting BOTH eyes done that I won't have the other eye to compensate and take over for me as in my two last lasers. So I miscalculated on the adaptation and how long my healing would be to best corrected vision. And also forgot about adapting to monovision AND PRK being much more slow healing to best corrected than LASIK. Oh well live and learn as they say!

My right eye was corrected to see far but my doc has to overshoot the correction to see close up at first for it to heal to far vision where then I won't see up close anymore in that eye. And he corrected the left eye (the eye that's been corrected twice before and was the one I was seeing out of for 3 years AND is my non dominant eye that was trained and forced to be dominant, so my right eye is now lazy!) for up close vision and is still a blur up close and lets NOT speak about far vision as it will NEVER see for far. So right now my left eye is doing NADA and my right see's with a narrow span up close but is continually SLOWLY changing to far vision. So, I'm cross-eyed right now. AND on top of that now my right eye is my lazy eye when it used to be my dominant eye. So later on I may have to wear a pirate patch on my left eye when not reading — "aye, aye, matey!" — to get my right eye to accept monovision and become dominant again for far vision. Many people become nauseous at first before their brains adapt to monovision and fuses their sight together. So it's not a walk in the park unfortunately, it's a real bugger actually. But so far so good I've only got a couple of queezy sessions but my eyes do tire easily when doing things like switching my summer winter clothes, which took me all afternoon, proved too much for me eyes. Yes, it took me this late in the season to do it. I'm such a slacker! But thank goodness I can workout, doctor sanctioned (as I didn't have lasik flap surgery)! My saving grace! As I don't need my eyes to focus too much. Yeah! And as long as I keep the sweat out of my eyes I'm good to go. So, no yoga studio's for me, sorry Mysore, as I sweat way too darn much in my shala for it to be safe for my eyes. But anyway I digress...

My Love, Travis Eliot

So, lets get on to more important things like my love, Travis, the babe, who made the most wonderful challenging intense upper body and lower body focused 12 dvd yoga practice set. He actually left my legs a-quivering!! That's how much he affects me! Yesterday after getting over the queeziness and other sundries I did his Flexibility dvd (they don't have that video available so I've included Cross Training instead) coupled with the seated of Power Yoga for Happiness in order to keep up with my pickup jump backs and throughs. I just did the standing of Flexibility and it was a strong intense practice lots of his version of sun sals to get you warmed up then he did lots of stretching postures, forward folds, standing splits, intense side stretch pose, deep lunge warriors, seated front splits with lots of chatarunga vinyasa's interspersed to keep the heat and sweat going to maintain limberness. He also included his famous yogi pushups which Cathe likes to call tricep pushups to round things out. It's such a sweet well choreographed balanced practice reminiscent of the wonderful Brian Kest (he trained under him and it shows in his teaching philosophy and his cute rhyming) but with, I think, even better flows. And even though some people don't like his mannerisms I do like when he drags out "down doooooooooog." It somehow changes my perspective of downdog to a resting posture. And believe me, with Travis' strenuous yet effective flows, downdog will suddenly feel VERY restful indeed. lol! The only things missing, is I wish my love, Travis, would have fairy dust sprinkled in some arm balances and jump throughs/backs. I think with his challenging style he could've gone all the way. I mean why stop there? Maybe with Penultimate Yogi II I'll get my wish. In any case it was a fabulous practice and I have DOMS all over my backside and hamstrings to prove it. Well done, Travis my love, well done!

... practice and all is coming.