20 January 2007

Cow Pose

Can you believe, I used to be able to do this pose!! It was only about a year and a half ago.

I've been working with weights for about 4 weeks now and it really feels awesome. But the last couple of days my low back has been twinging. In my infinite wisdom :) I decided I was tight and that yoga would be a good thing to add to my repertoire 2x a week. So tonight I went to my workout room, popped my favorite yoga tape in and set to twist myself into a pretzel. Ummm, yeah, not so much. I am way, way tighter than I thought. I can not do any full pose. I had to do the beginner modifications for everything. Oh how sad. But, on the bright side, this gives me something to work towards and god knows, I love a challenge.

You know, wait - qualifier: this is purely my opinion!! I have not based this on any information obtained anywhere but my own body. When I was in my 20's my sister worked for a chiropractor. At the time I was overweight and so therefore had back pain. I started going to him. I would go like 2 or 3 times a week and I did that for years. Maybe it was only once a week towards the end, lots of my 20's are a blur ;) Anyway, eventually I stopped and I never really had back problems for years. When I really started getting active and doing marathons and triathlons my back started giving me trouble, nothing real serious and I put it off to training so hard. Also, I could always fix it by doing some yoga twisting poses. One thing I noticed is the crunching sound that occurs when I do twists. I wonder if I have arthritis in my low back and if it's due to the chiro treatments when I was so young. I have nothing against chiros and still see one once in a while when things get really bad. But I always wonder about that. I'll never know because no one else has my back but it makes me go hmmmm.........

Okay, I must go eat dinner now.

5 comments:

Vickie said...

I understand your concern about chiropractors, since most people distrust them. I can say from my own experience after this accident that going on a regular basis I think has helped get me back into the shape I want to be in right now. I was under the impression that "crunching" sounds are because of calcium deposits on the bone and those are due to some sort of injury or trauma. Maybe a good massage or two could help break those up? I get those in my heel all the time, and I do have that crunchy sound in my neck--due to a neck injury and worn down vertebrae. Good luck with your flexibility. That seems to be the hardest thing we all need to work on. You don't want to do it until something hurts and then, well, it hurts!

Ross said...

I think I read somewhere or maybe I heard it on Rush Limbaugh or Fox News but anyway I heard that cracking joints does not cause arthritis. A personal antecdote: I have cracked every knuckle in both my hands perhaps 15 times a day since I was 3. That's at least 219000 cracks of each knuckle. If you multiply that times the knuckles plus elbows, neck, toes, ankles, knees and low back I have cracked my joints about 10,074,000 times. Not even a hint of arthritis anywhere. Maybe another 20 years and 5,000,000 more cracks will tell the story.

Fe-lady said...

Hope your back is feeling better and that you are progressing in your yoga flexibility! I find that I need to stretch/do yoga at least once a week (should do more) to prevent my back from giving me problems- i have put out my lower back a couple times (once a few days before my wedding-don't ask about the honeymoon!) but between my massage therapist and chiropractor and some kind of pill (Vicadin maybe?) I got through my vows OK :-)

Who is your boss?
Wendy Minor?
The other masters ladies names don't come to mind...at least the ones I know that live in Hawaii!
Someday I hope to get over there for Xterra Maui!

Kewl Nitrox said...

OUCH that cow pose sure looks painful and no where like a cow! :)

Maybe some of the flexibility is gone now because of muscles from all that strength training - could be a good thing, right?

I've been having crunching sounds in a few places for some time now. In my case, I am afraid it may be just "age".

angelfish24 said...

I like yoga, I starting it last year and sorry to say I am still at the beginner poses but I've made some progress. I'll keep trying cause I need the stretching and other benefits.
Sorry to hear about your back issues and don't have any experience w/ chiro's. But I did hear that in the new too what the above blogger said that cracking your joints isn't bad, can actually do some good. Who knows if there's truth to that.
Have a great week.

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