Yoga « Law of Inertia

Running has been pretty sparse lately. I think I’ve only done 4 miles since my last post. Those 4 miles went pretty well and the next day I was no worse off. I intended something like that every other day with a mandatory rest day in between. Yesterday would have been the 2nd run, but the rain and other things made it inconvenient. Rather than fight through my schedule to get the run in, I figured less is more at this point and took it as a sign holding off for another would be better.

Today it’s absolutely gorgeous, so I intend 5 in central park today while making sure to keep everything feeling good in the hamstrings as I run.

Over the weekend I was climbing the walls, really wanting to do something long. With lack of anything better to do I headed to the gym with my wife with no real plan or idea of what I’d be doing once I got there. Most cross training options I think would tend to aggravate my hamstrings just as much as running.

By chance, a yoga class was starting so we jumped in. Holy cow. I had no idea how f*cked up I really am. First off, I’m not surprised I’m a little tight in the legs in every way you might think someone could be tight, but it’s much more severe than I ever imagined. Hips, calves, shins, quads, everything. I couldn’t do some of the most simplest poses, say like um, …sitting. I couldn’t even sit cross-legged without my knees being in the air as high as my shoulders.

namaste

I’ve stopped stretching a while ago. I used to be very diligent about this. At one time in my life I could do a full split. Then I’ve come across studies that seemed to go against conventional wisdom and suggest that stretching doesn’t prevent injuries. I never enjoyed it so I bought into the belief and let myself go in that department. I got away with it for quite sometime. Probably longer than any study would have been conducted, but I’m convinced that had I kept stretching I wouldn’t be injured like I am now.

On top of that, some of the balancing poses that require standing on one leg showed me how injured my hamstrings really are. It wasn’t so much a lack of balance or strength, but my leg just buckled as soon as I would try to support my weight using my hamstrings. That was another surprise.

It became clear to me I could use this as a tool to detect problems I’m having that I might otherwise be tempted to dismiss. Looking back it’s obvious I’ve been too focused on certain aspects of my training that I’ve lost sight of a bigger picture. I need to balance things out a bit more. I guess figuratively and literally. Otherwise I’ll just be setting myself up for another injury to creep in.

Since then I’ve been adamant about stretching everyday. I plan to get in a routine that includes some sort of yoga on a regular basis. As of now I have no clue what I’m doing so I can’t realistically do anything on my own at this point. But, I’ll try to find a couple of classes to get familiar with the basics besides downward dog.