Muscle Hangover.

As soon as my body lands in the Great White North, it automatically sets itself in "hibernation mode." As soon as I walked through the door of the Toronto house, I went up to my bed and fell asleep for about three hours. 

My body clearly needed the recovery.

Once I woke up, I was sore and achy. Not sick, like everyone else seems to be. Just achy. The muscles in my back and arms radiated with mini stabs of pain when I stretched and moved certain ways.

"I'm so sore today! Whaaa! Why?" I messaged my trainer, Camp.

"Because I kicked your ass," he said. "You went up in weight. The soreness is your muscles recovering."

The day before, Camp made me lift heavier weights than normal. "It was time" he had said.

"But I can't do 20 pounds in each arm!" I argued.

He didn't budge. So I expertly rolled my eyes, sighed, and hoisted the weights into position. And he was correct, I was ready to lift the weights. But I wasn't ready for the day after "hangover" in my muscles. I found myself wanting to go back to bed to continue "sleeping it off." But I knew I needed to get up and move around. 

So I hit a late day Bikram class (Day 18!) and proceeded to have an awesome class. My muscles relaxed in poses like never before... Or rather, like they hadn't in a long while. In the Standing Bow pose I found myself able to kick more strongly, and hold the pose the entire set. Triangle pose proved to be no problem whatsoever. And I even managed to get my legs up higher in Locust.

The "muscle hangover" was doing wonderful things for my practice!

We've often heard in Bikram classes that "all you need is the yoga." And while I do believe this yoga keeps you fit on the inside... I have found personally that you still need weights and gentle cardio to keep you toned on the outside. The yoga helps me with breathing and creating a nice foundation with a strong spine and flexibility. The weights boost the potential of me to be more aggressive with my postures, as well as help my endurance in holding the poses.

It's turning out to be a complimentary combo.