Connect the Dots Ginger | Becky Allen: Active Recovery Yoga

Friday, September 25, 2015

Active Recovery Yoga

Oh I love my Sundays because after church we come home and the kids go down for a late afternoon nap, I usually catch an hour or two of a good nap and that evening I choose to do my yoga.  I used to not workout on Sundays at all as a true day of rest, but since I started to incorporate yoga on Sunday I have felt more rested and relaxed on Monday for the start of my working out for the week, and overall I am so much more limber. So now I use Sundays and Wednesday as an active rest day. (Pilates on Wednesday)

Why are rest days so important? The entire purpose of recovery is to allow the muscle to repair itself and to engage muscles that are tired and sore from previous days of exercise. To keep your body working at it's peak, you can choose to do an active rest day which is just remain active without pushing yourself as hard as you were a day or two before. Low intensity is what you want to aim for. Running at a slower speed, or doing less amount of exercise or a more slow paced exercise like yoga or pilates!

These are not easy routines I do for my yoga or pilates, they still require me to work, but I focus my mind and breathing to help clean me mentally and also using deep cleansing breaths. It really does work!

Yoga can be done by all shapes and sizes. If you are a more curvy girl, like me, you will have to modify some moves and that is ok! Listen to your instructor and do what you can and over time you will be able to do more and more! The stretching though is so good and feels amazing! For years I felt so scared to do yoga. I didn't think I could because I wasn't a skinny twig of a girl! I started yoga when I was pregnant with Collin and loved it every week that I went, all the way through 39 weeks pregnant. It was amazing. And helped so much, especially since I was running during most of my pregnancy. Even in the last few months I have struggled with Bow Pose. I couldn't not get it. But I kept trying, often just holding one leg at a time and switching halfway through. Then one day, I did it. It just worked! So keep going at it and you will be amazing at what you can accomplish!

This Sunday I challenge you to try out some of these poses. Or Hulu, Amazon they have FREE yoga workouts you can watch. Follow along. Focus on your breathing and allowing your body to release tension. Comment below if you are going to try this, this weekend! I would love to hear from you!

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