Yesterday I dropped two posts, If You Know Recovery Will Suck, Ease Off to Start and Lean Into the Pain. These two pieces of advice seem totally contradictory, and I suppose at first blush they are.
Then again, each came with a story, one about going too hard, too fast and causing so much pain that it led to failure through quitting. The other story was about going too hard, too fast, and enjoying the pain.
The one you choose is the one that works for you. Me? I generally lean into the pain, except when it comes to my spine. Back and neck pain are no joke and that’s one area where I generally ease myself in. So I gave you a summary of my little Friday yoga workout, once again to be working on my back pain and posture problems.
Well, here’s Saturday’s workout.
- 2 minutes breathing (in corpse pose)
- neutralize the spine
- 30 seconds core brace
- articulate the spine
- neutralize the spine
- 30 seconds core brace
- articulate the spine
- prime the hip joints
- neutralize the spine
- dead bug, 5x per side
- neutralize the spine
- 10 reps bridges, calf lifts and pulses
- neutralize the spine
- 10 reps baby cobra
- 30 seconds puppy pose
- 10 seconds bear
- repeat cobra, puppy, bear
- 10 straight armed pushup
- 10 reps baby cobra with leg raise mod
- 30 seconds sphinx
- neutralize the spine
- 2 minutes breathing (in corpse pose)
Once again, not a particularly strenuous routine, but 24 hours after my first workout, it is a moderate ramp up of the intensity.
I’m not leaning into the pain, but I’m also not running from it. For the next few days I’ll continue to ramp the reps and intensity of the exercises until I’m back to my normal maintenance routine.
Whereupon I’ll have to start back into my core strength routine. Sigh.
