My “Yoga” Routine – Cody

So this has been another good week of training. The knee has behaved itself and I was able to do a nice 12-mile run without pain. The pace wasn't fast, but it didn't hurt and I felt like I could have kept going. Otherwise, I've been putting in a significant amount of time at the gym with a fairly aggressive hip-strengthening program and I'm encouraged in that I feel like I'm getting stronger. I've also added a dynamic warm-up before each program, which has better research for injury protection versus static stretching, only I don't think it has been studied for overuse injuries. I've found it useful though since I have a tendency to just jump right into things.

I've been told that a few people have been interested in my "yoga" program. I put yoga in quotes, because I'm pretty sure if someone who taught yoga saw me doing it, they might see that its yoga based, but I'm pretty much doing my own thing. I have tight hip flexors and hamstrings so that's the focus of the program. I don't know the names of any of the poses except downward dog so hopefully my explanations make some kind of sense.

Bend forward, back relaxed, knees slightly bend. I feel a stretch in my hammies. Arch your back so your trunk is parallel to the ground, knees bent as needed. I also get this one in the hammies.

This next part happens several times, so I'll just call it "transition to downward dog":

Hands on the ground, body in push-up position. Lower down in a push-up, hold for a second, then push shoulders up while hips stay down. Push back into downward dog.

Step one foot forward and do a hip flexor lunge stretch with knee on the ground.
Step back and transition to downward dog, repeat with the other side

Step one foot forward and do a standing hip flexor lunge stretch. Come back up and go into Triangle Pose (ok, I know the names of two of them). Back to standing lunge on the same side, then transition to downward dog. Repeat on the other side.

Step one leg forward and do what I call a pigeon stretch (don't know if that's the official yoga name). Transition to downward dog. Repeat on the other side. And you're all stretched out.

I never thought I would be blogging about yoga!