I think I mentioned in my first post that I am taking a weight training class this semester, and that I am an on again off again runner. Well, I'm starting to see how all of those things are coming together...
Preface: I am very happy with my legs. If I do say so myself, they look really good. They are nice and muscular, although, according to a physical therapist I visited, they are unevenly muscular. Unfortunately, that has made my knees (literally) weak, making running, squats, lunges, taking the stairs, anything that puts pressure on my knees feel painful according to how much I've been doing the aforementioned. I haven't been very diligent about keeping up with my recommended exercises for building up my leg muscles as a whole. (I'm a really disciplined person, but the leg exercises seem to fall to the wayside).
Now that the back story is done, I have been doing a lot of upper body work in WT class. Consequently I have these lovely protective calluses building up. I really hope they don't get in the way of my slowly improving downward dog...Meanwhile, yoga has been great at opening up my chest, and relieving my back of all the tightening that happens in WT. I've been meaning to get back into running, but I obviously have some reasons to proceed with caution. When I do, I will be well prepared with an arsenal of post-running stretches such as Supta Virasana and Western Stretch. Finally, I think the leg work we do in yoga (ahem, holding the downward dog) will be great for my legs, since my upper body gets all the love in WT class.
BKS Iyengar says "there is no end of the work of the legs."
ReplyDeletego tyler! i also have areas that i want to improve on too in class, but for me it's the back. we do a lot of twisting and back stretches, and to be honest, i don't really feel like im making any progress in stretching my back muscles so that it alleviates the pain. i, like you, want to be stronger in certain parts of my body, and hope we do improve!
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