The truth is, when I started Bikram yoga 10 years ago, I was not super flexible. I was not even a little bit flexible. Years of school sports, long-distance running, and snowboarding had banged the life out of my ankles, knees and shoulders, and I was really crooked in terms of symmetry from my right side to my left. It wasn’t something you would necessarily notice when you looked at me, because I was in pretty decent shape, but my muscles were boxier-looking, everything cracked and popped when I knelt down, and when I did yoga postures, that’s when it really came out. You just can’t fool yourself about the state of your body’s health when you do head-to-knee and standing-bow pose. The truth comes out when you’re in the hot room staring at your sweating, red face in the mirror!
When I decided to really get bendy, after 7 years of a regular Bikram practice, and 4 years of a not-so-regular Bikram advanced practice, I went to an Esak Garcia coaching session, and got down to the real work of accelerating flexibility. I think the most important thing I’ve done over the last 3 years, is to develop a regular backbending program. I started off my doing 50 backbends a day, and for the last year I’ve been doing, on average, 25 backbends a day. I make sure that I can do certain poses without warming up, and use that as a guideline for how flexible I am. So far, lifting heavy weights hasn’t seemed to impede my backbends at all, and everything else is staying limber. I do, however, maintain a 5-days-a-week Bikram practice. The heat and the series are like a magic bullet for your body, inside and out!
I love this post. Yoga is one of the most important parts of my fitness process. I practice power yoga at Prana in Winchester, MA 3 – 4 times a week in a heated room. I’ve tried Bikram once and enjoyed it as well, although I love being surprised by a different series of poses with each class. I’m so excited to have found you through Cathy Savage (as well as reading about you in Oxygen) because you are truly an inspiration to me as I train for my first Bikini Competition April 30th. If you ever get a chance I would love to hear more about your 50 backbends that you work on each day to increase your flexibility. My email is [email protected] as well as being facebook friends!
Keep up all the hard work. You are amazing.
Hey GI shape girl, I am video-taping a few back-bends later today and will post them by tomorrow, with instructions. I agree, it’s awesome to be able to share the knowledge and the excitement of training for competition and I want to stay posted on your journey. Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! My address is: [email protected]
Paz y Luz!
Hi Michele. I know this is an old post but I wanted to ask if you could share what you do for flexibility post work out. I used to lift weights, at one point doing power lifting long time ago but then I found bikram and loved it. So I stopped weights and just practiced the yoga and have improved my flexibility. Recently I found myself going back for some weights training but my practice had really taken a step back specially on my hamstrings even if I stretch after my weights training. Could you share some of your tips on this. I would love to have the 2 combined but it is very frustrating as I would want to go forward in my yoga practice but I’m just getting tighter even more. Thanks.