Day 54: Stretching My Back and Prepping for the Super Bowl

My knee felt better today and it's encouraging that I'm seeing little improvements. Well, it felt better until this evening until I started hobbling around again.

"Don't look at me."

I decided to give my knee a bit of a rest tonight which I know might end up being a stupid move since the warrior poses really seem to be helping. Instead, I decided to focus on my back. Sitting hunched over a computer all day isn't exactly conducive to a limber spine.

Pictured: not me.

To start, I did a couple A series and towards the end of my last run through, I extended my time in standing forward bend as I am excited that I can almost straighten my legs again. I then used my hands to take hold of both elbows which formed my top half into a weight that really stretched out my upper back. I'm pretty sure this pose has a name and I'm pretty sure I knew it a couple hours ago but it escapes me at the moment.

This.

I also let myself spend a good amount of time in downward facing dog. I feel like a lot of the time I don't allow myself to really get into this pose because it ends up being a brief train stop of a pose before I move on to something else.

Afterwards, I continued my work towards king pigeon (I swear, I feel like I'm just an inch or so away from being able to kick myself in the head). I also did half lord of fishes pose to get in a good twist. I've read that twists are good to do before bed, something about giving your organs a gentle squeeze to aid digestion.

Like this.

The right side felt pretty good but when I twisted to the left, I noticed a strong tightness in my outer left thigh.

That can't be good, right?

I also did some eagle arms at the end of my practice which really helped loosen up my upper back.


Tomorrow is the Super Bowl. As a Broncos fan, I'd prefer if both teams lost in a surprising upset and the Broncos were declared the winners of the season just because they're awesome. I know that's an unlikely (but theoretically not impossible!) outcome so I'll be rooting for the Seahawks even though my gridiron fantasy playoff challenge team has almost all Patriots.

To answer your next question,
yes, it feels weird to no longer have a soul
after selling it to win a fantasy football playoff challenge.

I'm pretty sure the Patriots are going to win but I suppose we'll see. Either way, I'll be crying about the Broncos not being in the Super Bowl so I'll probably need to do some yoga for emotional healing tomorrow.

SOON.

Day 53: Repetitive Procrastination

Another day of trying to slowly rehab my knee. Overall, my knee wasn't actually that bad today. I mean, it wasn't great, but it wasn't torturous either.

I'll take what I can get.

More notably today, I noticed how horribly tight my upper back felt. I worked all day so I'm sure it's from hunching over my laptop.

I have the same ailments every day. I'm realizing I'm pretty boring.

I did my usual suspects today: A series, the warriors, cobbler's pose, etc. By the end my back felt much looser--or at least, looser than it was when I started.

To both of you that read my blog, I apologize for such a short, lame post. I'm falling asleep at my laptop. I keep saying that I should really move my practice to earlier in the day and I always like it when I do--perhaps I should actually make that a regular thing.

Day 52: Knee Progress . . . Kind Of

When I got up this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my knee didn't hurt as much as it normally does. I mean, don't get me wrong, it still hurt--but it wasn't as awful. It seemed like the knee-strengthening poses I did yesterday helped . . .

. . . until this evening when I reverted back to hobbling around like Igor.

"I am so good at yoga!"

However, I'll take it as a win that my knee wasn't as terrible for at least a few hours today.

Despite my knee pain, I decided to push through and do the warrior poses again for my knee. Once again, I was surprised by how much my knee hurts until I'm in the poses. It seems completely counterintuitive to me but then again, I don't understand physical therapy or joints.

Pictured: Me, pretty much all the time.

I'm also making improvements in king pigeon. Tonight I actually verified it with my husband that my head and foot are, in fact, moving closer to each other and it's not all in my head.

"Am I doing it? This is king pigeon, right?"

The last thing I noticed about my practice was during savasana. As I lay there I noticed a pinched nerve in my right shoulder . . . which if you've been reading my blog, you know is my Edelman shoulder.

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!
We're in the same state because of the Super Bowl so I'm positive this is your fault!
GAAAAAAAH!!!

How I managed to hurt myself while lying still on the floor is beyond me.

Day 51: I Am Not a Delicate Lotus Flower

I decided tonight that enough is enough--I need to stop being a wimp about my knee and actually do some of the recommended poses like warrior 1, 2, and 3. I'd put off doing them because I can barely hobble across the room, let alone make my knee a focal, load-bearing point on my body. But I'm tired of having a screwed up knee and I'm hoping this will help.

I did the A series as a warm up to start my practice and was pleasantly surprised to find that I can almost straighten my legs again in standing forward bend. Now my knees are only slightly bent, as opposed to basically being in a squat. My downward facing dog is better today, too, although I did need to alternately bend my knees a little to loosen up and deepen my stretch. Because I had this song stuck in my head, I bent my knees to the beat of "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson, feat. Bruno Mars.

This is the catchiest song in existence.

If anyone disagrees, I will fight you.

I'm pretty sure that's not a traditionally "serious yoga" song but oh well. When I'm doing yoga, a lot of times I feel pressured (by myself) to be a serene, enlightened yogi. You know, the kind that only drinks herbal tea and listens to tribal flute music and is constantly consumed by inner peace.

I am not a delicate lotus flower.

I need to get over that. I put too much pressure on myself to attain some kind of ideal persona that I set up in my head. Instead, I should just be excited that I did all three warriors without crying. Actually, my knee felt pretty good. It went back to feeling awful as soon as I pulled myself out of savasana but we'll see what it's like tomorrow. It should magically be healed after one day of trying to rehab it, right?

RIGHT?!

Day 50: Hey Look, a Milestone!

As you will soon see, the milestone is just in the day, not in my practice.

Last night was a long night. I know I often complain on here about long days but my son was up a lot last night and I was so exhausted I fell asleep at my desk while I was working today . . . a couple times.

Good thing I work from home.

I looked up some yoga poses for knee injuries as I am still unable to walk without wincing in pain. A lot of them involve putting a lot of weight on my knee which I'm sure is good from a physical therapy standpoint. However, it doesn't sound too good from an "I'm lazy and don't like pain" standpoint.

I kept my practice really basic tonight and did a few of my usual suspects: downward facing dog, plank, pigeon, etc. Sitting in hero's pose was actually really nice on my knee which was kind of surprising. But then again, I'm exhausted--it doesn't take much to impress me today.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Here's hoping I'm able to get some more rest tonight so I can make it through a full yoga practice without needing a nap.

Day 49: My Body is Nonsensical

I am still a huge mess and sitting in the car all day didn't help. I'm apparently also delusional about how quickly my body heals.

I live here.

I felt good in mountain pose which is literally the only pose that's easier than savasana.

See?

And that's where all the good feelings stopped. From mountain pose, I tried to do a standing forward bend and discovered that it is still impossible for me. Downward facing dog went better than expected and my heels were nearly down on the floor . . . meaning that my body makes zero sense. I can't touch my toes but I can nearly put my heels down which I can barely do on a good day.

Sigh.

Pigeon pose was interesting. My right knee is still trashed so while my left leg could bet nearly parallel to the front of my mat, my right was . . . not.

Oh well. Maybe tomorrow I'll start looking into rehabbing my knee. I've been wearing a brace for the last several days and I need to start working to make it stronger.

Day 48: Desk Yoga for a Busted Body

I can move slightly better today than I could yesterday but my range of motion is still pretty sad. My right knee is just wrecked--I tried to avoid using the brace today since I knew I was going to spend most of the day on my computer and watching the Pro Bowl but my knee just feels totaled.

The bright side?
He-manuel Sanders showed up at the Pro Bowl LIKE A BOSS.

Since I had to spend the bulk of my day on my computer, I decided to do a little desk yoga today. I'm not sure how much I really challenged myself today but I definitely felt better after stretching out my muscles.

I was a little disappointed today. After yesterday when I was pleasantly surprised with my Edelman shoulder feeling better while I did eagle arms, I was bummed today to discover that my shoulder had tensed up again. I don't know if it's a result of sitting at my computer (probably) but it feels a little disheartening to take a step backwards.

Oh well--tomorrow is a new day. And maybe I'll be able to do a better practice if my knee allows.

Day 47: I Can't Straighten My Legs

Today's post is going to be short just like my practice. When I woke up this morning, I found myself almost completely incapable of moving my legs. Putting a brace on my right knee helped but the only thing that actually made me feel better was lying completely immobile on my bed.

The answer is no.

Unfortunately, that wasn't really an option. So instead I hobbled all over my house and regretted every step.

My practice tonight was pretty short. I considered giving myself a day off but I really didn't want to. This is only day 47 of 365--I can't slack off now.

I tried to start with a couple rounds of the astanga A series and discovered that I can no longer doing a standing forward bend. Well, I can try, but it turns out that my standing forward bend looks more like a squat today.

I'm so good at standing forward bend.
I'm basically an expert.

Instead I focused my efforts on loosening up my back since I had to spend a lot of time working today to compensate for taking yesterday off for my son's trip to the hospital. Cat and cow were really helpful, as were eagle arms. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much easier eagle arms were tonight. Usually my Edelman shoulder makes me want to cry but tonight it actually felt pretty loose in that pose. So in summary . . . I can't bend my legs but my shoulder that has been hurting for the last 41 days felt okay.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

This is the appropriate, adult response.

Day 46: Apparently I Suck at Breathing

I know I always say that I've had a long day but today was particularly long. We had to leave our house at 3am for our son to get a biopsy at a hospital a couple hours away (don't worry, he's doing well and snoozing next to me as I type this) so we're all kind of running on empty at the moment. However, I anticipated this and I decided to plan accordingly by doing 15 minutes of yoga right when I woke up at 2am.

And tired.
I'm very tired.

Last night, I picked a "wake up" yoga routine on YogaGlo to not only help kickstart my early day but to make sure I got my yoga practice done. I wasn't sure how long we'd have to be at the hospital and I didn't want to save yoga for just before bed when I'm exhausted and falling asleep in standing forward bend.

"Zzzzzz . . ."

The routine I chose on YogaGlo was a Hatha practice called "Awaken & Prepare for the Day Ahead" by Claire Missingham. I didn't realize this when I chose it but it's a 10 minute practice that focuses on various breathing techniques. I'd originally wanted something that focused more on poses to help wake up my muscles but since breathing is such a big part of yoga, I figured hey, why not?

Apparently, I really suck at breathing.

I found myself short of breath and lightheaded for most of the practice. I don't know if I have a smaller than average lung capacity or I just don't know how to breathe properly, but this was way harder than I anticipated. I'd like to chalk it up to how tired I was or the fact that the town I live in is at 7,000 feet above sea level but I'm pretty sure I just suck at breathing.

Existing is hard.

At the end of my practice during which I nearly passed out from something as inhaling and exhaling, I wanted to do a little more to get myself up to at least 15 minutes to fit my year of yoga challenge requirements so I added in a couple sun salutations. After my more intensive flow practice last night, I expected to wake up with really sore muscles but was pleasantly surprised to find that I felt fine.

Now, however, is a completely different story.

My whole body is so sore that it takes me entirely too long just to stand up. I've joked before about being geriatric with my hip but at this point, I'd trade just about anything for a wheelchair or a motorized scooter.

I could do donuts in the front yard.

We'll see what happens tomorrow morning but if I still feel like this, I see some restorative poses in my future.

Maybe a few of these, too.
Just line 'em up.

Day 45: And Now For Something Completely Different!

During this challenge, I've mostly been doing the same kind of yoga: slow stretching, spending a lot of time in each pose, doing the same few over and over. Which is fine and most of the time, I like doing that. It helps me ease out some of the kinks in my body and I like to really get in for a deep stretch. But since this is my year of yoga challenge, I don't necessarily want to always do the same thing. I want to mix it up, get fancy.

Unfortunately, my top hat tends to fall of during downward facing dog.

Today, I decided to do a practice from yogaglo.com (and before 11pm!) YogaGlo is a paid website but luckily my mother-in-law has a subscription and she was kind enough to give me her login info so I can use it.

I am also without shame.

Tonight I did a 30 minute vinyasa flow video ("Dancy Flow" by Kathryn Budig for those of you on YogaGlo). In theory, this one is supposed to be good for shoulders because screw you, Edelman, that's why. It's also a pretty quick flow sequence that really got my heart rate up and made me really regret eating a grilled cheese sandwich four hours before doing this practice.

There were some close calls.

There was a lot of plank pose, upward facing dog, downward facing dog, and wild thing. The last one was one I hadn't done in ages but it actually felt really phenomenal. Here's an awesome explanatory photo from yogabycandace.com:

I can guarantee I didn't look this elegant.
It must be because I wasn't on a beach.

The routine was quick and had a dance-type flow to it (hence the video name "Dancy Flow") and even though my arms and legs nearly collapsed by the end of it, I really enjoyed it. My downward facing dog was way better than it normally is and I'm assuming it's because my muscles were properly warmed up.

I know. Shocker, right?

The one part that really made me want to cry was the flow included a LOT of was the half one-legged squat. Here's a demonstration picture from endureyoga.com:

When I did it, pretty much all of my weight was on my hands.

The video had a lot of this pose and quickly switching sides which, if you have a knee injury, just isn't going to happen. I've had a brace on my right knee all day and at some point, I apparently re-aggravated my left knee as well. I used to have two knee braces but now I can't find the other one so I get to play the "which knee hurts worse game."

It's not a fun game.

Aside from that, I feel like my practice went really well. I'm exhausted and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to move in the morning, but right now it feels totally worth it.

Now to go find my other knee brace . . .

Day 44: Falling to PIeces

I'm not sure what's going on but apparently my body is more fragile than a Faberge egg. I woke up with some new injuries so, both of my readers, if you're keeping track, here are my current ailments:

1. Edelman shoulder
2. Painfully tight hips
3. Pinched nerve on the left side of my neck
4. Old injury in my right knee has flared up (had to wear the brace today)
5. Knots in back that make my shoulder stay up near my ears

On top of that, this is still a problem:

6. Right pinky toe is still sore/a little swollen

I whacked it on my bed frame on day 6 of this challenge. Now, nearly 40 days later, it's just starting to heal.

I know, I know.

Is this part of yoga? I start out okay and then completely fall apart and then am rebuilt as a stronger, better me? I sure hope so because hobbling around isn't super fun. Plus I'm a much angrier person from spending so much time blaming everything on Julian Edelman.

THIS FREAKING GUY.

Tonight's practice was pretty basic because I was trying not to further piss off all my joints. Hip and shoulder openers were my main focus but I added a couple poses I haven't been doing lately. I added bow and boat poses which, of course, made me want to cry because I have no stamina. I'm not sure what the third pose I added is called but it's supposed to look like this:

Whatever this is.

I managed to do this with my right arm on top. When I tried to switch and have my left arm on top, my fingers didn't even come close to touching. I'm not really surprised, especially considering the issues I've had with my right shoulder.

Yeah. That shoulder.

I think tomorrow might be time to really focus on shoulder rehab. I need to try and repair at least one body part.

Day 43: I May Need Life Alert

It has been such a long, exhausting day. I was on the verge of falling asleep but I pulled myself up to do yoga. I'm not that far into the challenge and I don't want to bail and miss a day. So I quit whining and did yoga which energized me just enough to be able to write this blog post before I pass out on my keyboard.

This is a thing, right?

I also thought it was important to do yoga tonight, not just because of the challenge but I've been re-aggravating old injuries left and right. When I used to bartend, I managed to injure both of my knees and my ankles.

Bartending is a dangerous profession.

In particular, my right knee has been bothering me for the last couple days. I'm sure there's a connection with my jacked up right hip and possibly even my Edelman shoulder.

You son of a bitch.

I did a little research and read a really interesting article on yogainternational.com about yoga for knee injuries. One of the recommended poses on there is warrior 2 which I took as a sign that I need to stop being lazy about standing poses so I can strengthen my leg muscles and maybe stop falling apart every time I stand up.

I need Life Alert at age 27.

Not terribly surprising, but my legs were really weak although I'm not sure if that's because I'm exhausted or because my legs are actually weaker than a kitten's.

I could totally take him in a fight.
Maybe.

This has not been a productive few days of yoga. Must do better tomorrow when I'm not fighting the urge to face plant on my keyboard.