Health & Exercise: Learning to Read Your Body

So, this is an odd blog post, but it was something Kevin and I were talking about and he suggested I blog about it.

The photo that brought Vietnam into American homes.

I have always been amazed by some of the worlds most exclusive societies.  Mostly, that of devote monks.  I'm sure you've heard stories of them: those that can control their heartbeat down to almost deathly levels, those that can control their body temperature regardless of the temperature outside, those that walk on hot coals, those that can withstand any pain, etc.  The most infamous in our time would be Thich Quang Duc who set himself on fire (also called self-immolation) to protest the treatment of Buddhist's in South Vietnam by the Catholic government in the middle of a busy town square.

The amount of self-control these people have generated and the degree to which they are in tune with their bodies has always fascinated me.  The ability to manipulate the body with the mind is astounding.  Even something as simple as the placebo effect shows how much power the mind has over the body.

But I am actually starting to learn that this is far from the realm of only achievable for the extremely devote, it's for anyone. Maybe not at the "set yourself on fire in protest" level, but at the very basic one.  My bouts into massage therapy and yoga have started me on this journey without me realizing.  I'm not going to go into my reasons for needing trigger point massage since I blogged it before (see My Journey into Alternative Therapies) and I know I have blogged a couple of times about my journey into yoga (see Yoga Daily and Yoga Update), but ultimately, these two things have helped me become more in tune with my body and how it feels.  Because of the massage therapy, I am starting to be able to identify which muscles are tight and causing me problems.  I don't know these muscles by name, but i know where they are and where they go (like the muscle that is currently giving me trouble starts in the back of the leg and comes up around my hip towards my abdomen, which, by the way, is very difficult to stretch).  The yoga also helps in this.  While I am stretching, I can actually feel when my muscles aren't opening up and creating circulation properly.  My flexibility has improved, but I am still not fully able to reach each yoga position.  Yet even still, I can tell when my circulation has increased properly in certain muscles, when I need to spend more time in a position and when the stretch needs to go deeper.

I was talking to my massage therapist about this and she told me that this is actually the natural progression for those doing yoga.  (If you are doing yoga and are becoming more flexible  but you aren't more in tune with your body, you are probably doing something wrong.)  But the odd thing was what she told me next.  Parker told me that next I need to work on sending my breath to the areas where I know I need more oxygen rich blood.  Now this is still weird to me, but it is basically identifying which muscles I want to send my breath to, really considering as I breath in and then think about that breath as it enters my body and sort of push it to the area I want.

This is still really odd to me and I haven't really figured it out at all yet, if I even can, but I figured I would give another update and share how far things have come for me.   I will write another update if I manage to figure out how to really direct my breaths and hopefully then I might be able to explain it better.

Health & Exercise: Yoga Update

So, after a week of doing yoga, I thought I would give a brief update.

I am already finding my flexibility improving.  Aside from missing a couple of sessions, I have been pretty good about staying consistent and I am already noticing an improvement.  Now, obviously, it hasn't been miraculous and the splits are still totally out of the question, but I can already feel myself being able to reach farther and stretch more.  I am also at a point of having both the Sun Salutation and Moon Salutation completely memorized.  Last week, I did 2 Sun Salutations and 1 Moon Salutation daily.  This week, I will do 3 Sun Salutations and 2 Moon Salutations daily and see how that goes.

After more work with my Parker, my massage therapist who does my trigger point massage, she says that my muscles are much shorter than they should be in some places.  That happens after lactic acid builds up (from improper stretching after exercise) and then calcifies.  This pushes muscles fibers out of the way and causes them to shorten from the tension.  As those muscles shorten and pull, it is going to pull on the opposite muscles too.  So, for instance, likely my issues started in my pectorals (the muscles in your chest).  As they shortened, they pulled my shoulders forward causing my aforementioned shoulder pain.  My shoulders no being properly aligned pulled on my back muscles and my back muscles pulled on my hips and neck.  

Thus, part of my therapy needs to be not only breaking up the lactic acid and increase circulation, but also stretching and lengthening my muscles.  This is going to make it so that my recovery lasts longer and my body heals properly.  There are many forms of exercise that increase flexibility and give a good stretch but I chose yoga for one reason. It's all stretching! I work out to build muscle and increase endurance but what I really needed was a good stretch and so that is what I am going to focus on.  And so far... so good!