I am always in awe how can some people have both strength and flexibity with little bit of training. Strength is my weakness. I don’t have much. We have 650 muscles. In face we have 50 muscles. So smile while you are reading this, as this way you might be exercising.
For men muscles constitute 40% to 60% of the body weight and for women it is around 30% to 40%. I feel lack of strength while performing some asanas. For some my stability is very poor. It is because of lack of strength.
I have realized that though I have performed yoga for good number of years, my strength component has not improved a lot. I have never gone to gym or lifted any weight. I am not sure if lifting weights will significantly improve my upper body strength. I have seen many yoga practitioner lifting weights.I am still in dilemma whether to make it a regime to lift the milk bottle 🙂
For now I feel like reading and understanding more about these terms. Hoping to get familiar with following vocabulary – “Exercise”, “Set”, “Rep”, “Form”, “Tempo”.
Now comes the second golden word, flexibity. During my past asthanga practice, I felt that I posses some flexibity. I was really amazed when I was able to hold my wrist in paschimattasana. However starting again the wrist lock seems to be a far cry. By the time I reach the seated sequence, I feel giving up.
So now both strength and flexibility are running ahead of me. I am confident in gaining the flexibility back but for strength I feel, I need to include separate weight training. If you can suggest one, it would make my work a lot easier. Meanwhile, my research for the strength training continues.
“Body not stiff, Mind stiff”
Sri K Pattabhi Jois, the founder of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga
