How do you fit in yoga?

G

geojill

Cathlete
I love yoga and really need to do it more often for stretching, but I can't seem to fit it in to my routine. I want to be sure I'm getting in my weights and my cardio and I just don't know where to fit it in. I generally work out for about an hour a day in the mornings (although I'm willing to stretch it a little bit if needed) and I most likely won't do it at the end of the day (hey, at least I'm being honest ;-)). I had thought about a shorter yoga workout to tack onto the end of my current workouts, but I have not been able to find one that I like that is around 15 minutes long and focuses mostly on flexibility without being...well...other than the westernized spectrum. I really like Sara Ivanhoe and Rodney Yee and I don't care for Baron Baptiste or Bryan Kest. I have a deck of yoga cards but I personally like a bit more flow, I think, so I generally use a video for yoga.

If anyone has any suggestions for me, I'd really appreciate it! I know I'm being a bit picky, but hey...maybe there's someone out there that understands what I'm looking for and can help...you never know till you try!
 
I do cathe's stretch tapes...not yoga...but I can't find a yoga dvd I like. SORRY!! I wish I could help more!

Jessica
 
Hi Jill :) I love my yoga, too, and also find it hard to get in for the same reasons. I have a ton of yoga media (mostly DVDs and a few CDs) and a lot of the time I find myself doing the same ones over and over due to time constraints. Since you don't like Baptiste (I love his "Yoga Bootcamp" which has 3 practices, 2 of them at 20 minutes each, all on CD), have you tried the "Yoga Short Forms" DVD by David Swenson? (Used to be available at Collage, not sure it still is). It's got 45-min, 30-min, 15-min, and 10-min deep relaxation practices...I usually only do the 30-min (and love it), but it's nice to have the options. Also, Eoin Finn's "Power Yoga for Happiness" (which is wonderful) has a huge variety on 2 discs, with one of them being 30 min. and another being 40 min. You can get this one either at Amazon or Eoin's website.
 
I usually do am/pm yoga with Rodney Lee and another lady (I can't remember her name) They are short, that way I could do the am after my morning w/o and pm right before bed instead of watching tv. I still w/o with cathe 1 hr 6 days a week, I just don't do her stretching part. HTH!
 
If you have iTunes (it's free software, available for Windows and Mac), you can get a ton of FREE video podcast Yoga workouts! Yogamazing has some awesome ones, and most are less than 30 minutes long. Each workout has a specific focus, so you can get a lot of variety. You just need a high speed internet connection (because the files are HUGE). It's a great way to try lots of different Yoga routines for free. :)

ETA - I should clarify that you don't need an iPod for this - just watch them right on your computer. :)
 
I have the same problem. I like Rodney Yee's Energy Balance DVD - there are 5 segments geared toward different goals - you can pick & choose what you want. I usually will do yoga in the morning and do the first 3 segments which takes about 35-40min.

AM or PM yoga for Weight Loss w/ Suzanne Deason is also pretty good (at least for me) for a quickie (~30 minutes).
 
Perfect post! I, too, love yoga and have such trouble fitting it in. I have long been on the quest for a good 15-20 minutes yoga practice that stretches everything. . . and I'm still looking. We need to encourage Cathe to make one--something like StretchMax only yoga.

I like Eoin Finn's 'Power Yoga for Happiness'. I just have trouble keeping it short because I love his hip openers and twists, and end up wanting to do the whole thing.

I want to try David Swenson's Short Forms.

Rainbeau Mars 'Pure Sweat' and 'Pure Power' give good stretching for legs & hips. Her imagery drives me batty, but her instruction is good. 'Sweat' is 40 minutes, but 'Power' is 33 minutes--and it really gets the hip flexors.

Rodney Yee's 'Power Yoga: Stamina' is just over 20 minutes. It's a beginner practice, so it gives more of a stretch than a workout. I use this the most when I'm short on time. 'Strength' and 'Flexibility' in the same 'Power Yoga for Beginners' series are also short (around 30 min). You can also use segments from Rodney's longer workouts. Also, his 'Yoga Conditioning for Atheletes' has short sports workouts. The 'opening' section of that practice is a good stretch.'

Sometimes I do the 'supine poses' or 'forward bends & twists' segments from Shiva Rea's 'Yoga Shakti'.

The 'Total Yoga' series by Tracey Rich & Ganga White have 15 minutes bonus workouts from their other programs. For example 'Fire' has a 15 minute bonus workout from 'Total Yoga: The Original.'

'10-minute Solution Yoga' is okay, but doesn't really stretch enough.

I hope this helps, but I still haven't found anything that is just perfect. Pretty please Cathe?

Carol
 
>I like Eoin Finn's 'Power Yoga for Happiness'. I just have
>trouble keeping it short because I love his hip openers and
>twists, and end up wanting to do the whole thing.


Oh that reminds me - Eoin Finn has some free podcasts on iTunes too. They are audio only, so it's good to have some knowledge of the basic poses in Yoga, but they seem like really good workouts. One I downloaded recently and have been dying to try is Tragically Hips - it's just what I need for my piriformis problems. :)
 
If you have Fittv Namaste Yoga is on several times a day and is a flow series (in fact I am watching it as I type). It ends up being about 20 minutes when you fast forward through the commercials. It is not my favorite program, but it is really accessible if you have Fittv. One big downside is you will end up saying goood a lot. The voiceover person says goood constantly throughout the class. It is so obvious that my husband walks around the house mimicking the voice, he actually does it quite well. One time out of sheer habit I found myself saying it to the yoga class I was teaching. No one in class understood the humor, but DH thought it was hysterical.

Shayne
 
Aaaackkkk!!! I keep hearing about fittv and we don't get it :-( I've watched it at my parents' house but it's not really in our budget to upgrade just so I can get this program. I wish so much that I could just pay for specific channels...disney (for DD), discovery, history, travel, fittv, and the local channels. Ahhhh, wouldn't that be nice?

I was having problems with the podcasts on iTunes. I'm a bit technologically inept and keep things as simple as I can (I just have a nano with some music on it...and hardly listen to it any more!).

I do have Yoga Cond. for Athletes as well as Power Yoga for Flexibility. But sometimes that is just a bit more than I need. I hadn't thought of the shorter mixes of ...Athletes, I'll have to check that out. I have Sara Ivanhoe's 5 DVD set of 20 minute yoga makeover but they are not focusing on flexibility as much, their focus is different than what I need.

Maybe I just need to realize that I have some ideal in mind and it's not going to come to me easily, that I will just have to work with what I've got and make it work. Or maybe I could just change my ideals a bit so that it DOES work! :) Maybe there will be one more hour each day starting tomorrow and then I could fit it in without adjusting the rest of my schedule ;-)
 
Jill,
I now do yoga (or a stretch) on what I used to reserve as a total rest day. I just want a 20-30 minute gentle but thorough stretch and have had trouble finding DVDs suitable to my needs & wants. There is a glut of Power Yoga DVDs out there but not as many geared solely to flexibility, it seems.

I like 10 Min. Solutions Yoga, Yee's Conditioning for Athletes, Stretch Max, and A.M./P.M. Stretch. I still do Crunch Joy of Yoga or Kathy Smith's New Yoga from time to time, but many others I've tried just gather dust.

[font face="heather" font color=brick red size=+2]~Cathy [/font face] http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/4.gif
"Out on the roads there is fitness and self-discovery and the persons we were destined to be." -George Sheehan
 
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