Friday Book Report: Yoga and the Quest for the True Self

Stephen Cope’s book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self is not the one to pick up for how to do poses.  It’s more about why to do poses, and I don’t mean to achieve yoga butt.

 

Cope is both a psychotherapist and a yogi from Kripalu.  His book has a lot of the characteristics of the usual self-help and pop psychology books (stories about people with various problems and their victories through yoga).  It’s also a history of the Kripalu ashram, which provides some cautionary ballast to the happy joy love story.  Cope’s writing style is conversational and clear.  He doesn’t throw out a whole bunch of Sanskrit and leave the reader to sort it out.

 

While at times he strays a little far along the woo-woo spectrum, he remains grounded and practical.  He does not look at yoga as a cure for everything and does, from time to time, note that he did refer various people in his stories to therapy.  He seems to believe that yoga, by freeing the body, helps us get to what we need to free our minds, which is where therapy is a useful adjunct.

 

For me, the price of the book was worth it for these five words:  “breathe, relax, feel, watch, allow” (p. 210).  This is his recipe for integrating physical, emotional, and energy experience.

 

Definitely an interesting read; may not be for everyone.

In a Car Jam

Anybody stuck in a car or behind a desk for a long time can attest to the toll it takes on the body.  Here is a list of survival tools to help us through.

 

1.     Duck.  Also called a point-pressing stick at the local Daiso store.  Best $1.50 investment ever.  We hook it over a shoulder and pull down and that spot between neck and shoulder that holds all the tension feels the relief.  May even keep us from swearing in traffic.

2.     Yoga Tune Up Balls or lacrosse balls.  The former are better for desk and the latter for cars because lacrosse balls are firmer to compensate for squishy car seats.  A ball under one side of the behind can bring all kinds of relief to aching hips.  A pair of them on either side of the spine can help keep the back from making us want to stab people.

3.     Microwavable neck pillow.  This one requires planning ahead, which can be a problem, but in the morning cold the pillow can bring much needed relaxation to the neck and shoulders.

4.     Water.  Dehydrated people are grumpy people.  We should get whatever kind of travel cup makes us actually drink more water and add bubbles or mint leaves or lemon slices or whatever makes it feel more fun.

5.     OTC pain relievers.  Different ones work better for different folks and some of them interact poorly with various prescription medications, so we need to do a little checking, but keeping some in the car to deal with that post-work or in-traffic headache can get us where we are going slightly more sane.

 

Go play.

X Marks the Variable

If changing our approach to our workouts (see yesterday’s post) doesn’t work to break up the boredom, we can address other elements of the experience.  Basically, if there is a variable, we can adjust it.

 

Consider, for example, pace.  Some of us are the kind of people who do everything deliberately.  We lift and lower slowly.  We like endurance cardio.  When that gets dull, we can mix it up with some sprints in cardio and some power moves in weightlifting.  The speed demons among us can do the opposite and exercise patience along with our muscles.

 

Then there is time.  Sometimes throwing in a longer workout is exactly what we need to wake up our body and brain.  Conversely, maybe we want to work harder for a shorter time and call it a day.  Or we can get crazy and break up our workout into smaller segments at different times of day.

 

What about location?  Being stuck in the gym forever is not a recipe for happiness, so maybe take that run outside.  Already working out outdoors?  We can try a different route, add some hills.

 

Company can help.  We can piggyback on a friend’s workout, see what they do that is different, or invite them to join us.  This works best with friends who have roughly our same level of fitness or with a friend who is a lot more fit who is willing to take a rest-ish day with us.

 

How about order?  We can try doing the workout backwards.  We may realize that we do it in the usual order for a reason, or we may discover that backwards is better; either way, we’ve done something different and we’ve learned something.

 

In short, we break up boredom by trying things, lots of things.  Some of them will be fun and some less so, but at the very least we will not be staying the same.

Two approaches

Sometimes we get stuck in fitness ruts.  We don’t want to do our workouts.  We’re bored.  We’re tired.  I have two suggestions that go in totally opposite directions.

 

One:  phone it in.  This is for those days when we really are tired, but not so tired that what we ought to do is take a rest day.  It is all right, once in a while, to give significantly less than 100% to our workout.  Choose a lower incline on the treadmill.  Do two sets instead of three on the weights.  This works because what we are showing ourselves is that we can keep showing up even when it is hard and boring and we don’t want to be there.  Sometimes we take the C and move along.  NOTE:  it is not all right to do this all the time.  If we find that we want to phone it in all week, we need to try something else, like maybe getting some real rest.

 

Two:  kick it up to 11.  Yes, this is the exact opposite of what I just said.  This technique works if what is tired is our brain, not our body.  It is hard to stay bored when we are breathless from doing some high intensity intervals or from choosing weights that push our boundaries.  When we focus in on doing the most we possibly can do, we wake ourselves up a little.  We may discover that we can do more than we thought.  NOTE, AGAIN:  it is not a good idea to do this all the time, either.  Intense workouts require more rest afterward.  Making one workout a week more difficult is about right.

 

Tomorrow:  more boredom busters.

Monday Workout: Compound

I am getting more excited about compound exercises lately.  More joints moving means more calories burned in less time!  Hooray!  Today’s workout takes our usual bent-over rows and adds a tricep kickback at the end of the movement; use the weight for the kickback, which will feel light-ish for the row.  The squat press is exactly what it sounds like:  we squat down with some weights held at our shoulders and as we stand up, we press those weights overhead.  The spiderman pushup works like this:  we lower our body as for a normal pushup and then pull one knee toward the same side’s elbow.  Then we return to start and do the other side.  This is a shorter circuit, so do four rounds.

 

step ups	30
row & kickback	20
squat press	20
woodchoppers	20
(spiderman) pushup	10
pretty princesses	10

 

Four Things to Do

So I wrote about two different kinds of exercise earlier this week.  Just to round out the picture, here is a more complete list of categories we want to cover in our workouts:

 

1.     Cardio.  Get breathless for about 30 minutes on most days of the week.

2.     Weights.  One to three weight workouts per week (start with one!) will help with body composition, weight loss, and metabolism-building.

3.     Stretching.  Strong muscles that don’t move aren’t very useful.  Stretching and flexibility practices (Pilates, yoga) help us maintain or improve our range of motion, reduce our chances of injury, and feel good.

4.     Balance and core.  This is another place where Pilates and yoga can help us.  Working our abdominals is certainly part of core and balance work, but coordination is important, too.  Developing good posture and increasing our proprioception helps us to respond appropriately to unstable environments (like pretty much all of life!).

 

Go do stuff!

Gotta get breathless

Yesterday I wrote about why we want to lift weights.  Today I’m going to dive into why we want to do cardio, too.

 

As a fitness professional, I’m supposed to say we need to do cardio because it’s good for us.  It is.  It keeps our hearts and lungs healthy.  Without those, we’re kind of dead, so yeah, that’s important.

 

But personally, the more immediately obvious benefits of cardio are more compelling when it’s a question of sleeping in versus getting up and getting to it.  Of course I’m glad that cardio burns calories and keeps my arteries from clogging and increases my sensitivity to insulin, but that doesn’t get me on the bike.  Here’s what does:

 

Cardio boosts mood.  Studies have shown that cardio can be as or more effective than antidepressants for mild depression.  Even without the scientific evidence, I think most of us know that a brisk walk or a bike ride or a swim can make us much more cheerful.

 

Cardio makes our brains work better.  Those of us with desk jobs or who are students should take note.  That morning run or afternoon recess helps cognitive function.  Bonus points for doing it outside.

 

Cardio increases our energy.  Not at first.  At first, we may feel more tired because we’re working out.  Eventually, as we acclimate to the increased activity, we find that we have more resources to draw on in other areas of our lives.  Some of this comes from the fact that cardio helps us sleep better at night, but even independent of that, we get energy (paradoxically) from spending some getting breathless.

 

My reasons for doing cardio may not apply.  We all have to find our own motivations.  But we can do this.