So it’s been about 24-hours since I completed the first day of DDP Yoga, which gives me a bit of an opportunity to talk a bit about how that went.
First, I’m not feeling particularly sore, which I would have thought I would have despite the relatively easy effort required doing what’s called the Diamond Dozen.
Of course, that’s not particularly surprising because the Diamond Dozen is really more of a lesson on what the moves are and how to do them. Yoga is all about postures, and you have to do them properly to get the most out of them. Diamond Dozen is about covering those bases so you can start the first real workout with at least some knowledge of just what the hell you’re doing.
Even so, I still expected some soreness.
Of course, I do have a bit…in my wonky shoulder.
It’s not the typical burning soreness you feel after a good workout either, but just a really low, dull ache when I try to use it.
This meant I needed to assess the pain and determine whether or not this was proof my experiment was a failure or not. However, despite the achy nature of the shoulder, it doesn’t feel injured with this pain. Instead, it reminds me of the physical therapy I did when I hurt my hip 20 years ago. You ache the next day, but it feels different from hurting something or being sore from a workout.
It’s kind of hard to explain.
Anyway, there is that, but I also feel a few things throughout my body that aren’t exactly soreness but makes me feel like muscles were definitely used yesterday in that brief, 15-minute introduction to yoga.
Interestingly enough, I spent a fair bit of yesterday researching yoga as a whole, and there is a ton of information out there all touting how great it is as a fitness system.
Of course, the majority of it was written by yoga practitioners, so that’s hardly surprising. Still, at least one contained information about studies that seem to support the idea of yoga as a viable way to get strong, get fit, and even improve cardio fitness to some extent.
Eh, I’m not ready to buy that just yet. In fact, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to buy that.
Then again, I’m not trying to get where I can go up a flight of stairs without noticing. I’m trying to build a level of fitness that lets me fight for my life as effectively as possible. That isn’t likely to happen because I stand with my body in a certain posture.
I’m still going to need to do some sprints and some long, slow, grinding kind of cardio as well.
I’m also not sure if this will cover my strength training needs or not. I’m inclined to say no, primarily because I need to be able to throw around another me, and I’m not sure you can attain that level of strength with bodyweight exercises, which is essentially how yoga builds strength.
That said, the balance and flexibility yoga can bring might be sufficient for me to keep using this even after my shoulder is good to go. Especially since my lifting keeps getting sidetracked due to injuries lately.
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