Being of classic middle aged cyclist levels of flexibility*, which really shows at the boot camp I’ve been doing as well, I’ve been persuaded to four trial classes of yoga for men.

Now, with there being an obvious downside of nothing to look at but with the upside that I won’t feel quite so stupid – how much will i hurt tomorrow?

* I’ve been told to bring a bottle of water, a towel and ‘wear something stretchy’. At my levels of flexibility I could wear my work suit and take it back home uncreased.

[in the correct forum as it was advertised through my club as being good for cyclists]

I sweated a lot the first time I went.

You should probably leave your ego in the car too lol

Leave your innate competiveness at the door.
You will be surrounded by ladies who look like they will blow away in the wind but are bloody strong.

Don’t do yourself a mischief.

A room full of middle aged men doing yoga ?

Prepare yourself for a barrage of unexpected farting like you’ve never experienced.

I’d recommend a pair of brown joggers and some sort of filtration mask.

Hurt tomorrow? – quite a lot 🙂
You shouldn’t need water – you’ll sweat a bit, but it’s not a xc race. I wear a baggy pair of old climbing 3/4s and a t-shirt. No need for any mr-motivator style outfits.

Remember to focus on breathing and do everything to your ability – there is no competition here.

Don’t hide at the back. Take a mat at the front of the room in direct sight of the teacher so they can walk over and correct you / avoid injury if you do anything wrong. Make sure you let them know before the class starts it is your first try and don’t over stretch if you are in pain despite what others in the room may be doing.

Couple of sideways planks in and you will realise it actually translates to the trail quite well 🙂

You will be surrounded by ladies who look like they will blow away in the wind but are bloody strong.

Spot who doesn’t read the OP and jumps in 😉

I suspect perchy is closer to the truth – sadly…..

As a 40 something with a desk job and lower back problems, that my massage therapist said was due to tight glutes and hamstrings, I took up yoga a couple of months back. It’s a mixed class and aimed at cyclists so works on all the right bits. Attire is more baggies than lycra, at least for the blokes thankfully. I’m certainly seeing the benefits in flexibility and less aches then normal. Think my core strength is coming on too, who knew I could plank for 2mins.

For anyone in Bristol it’s…. http://www.facebook.com/stretchyogauk

You may not die, but you will fart. Amazing how a little bit of rolling around on the floor can make you sweat quite so much and make you shake like a Jack Russell having a crap.

Planking? Aching? Is this yoga or some sort of “fitness” exercise class? Yogalates or some such abortion? #Lululemon.

You’ll definitely fart.

Stick with it though, the difference you start to feel is great. I’m naturally tight as hell and will wake up aching on a daily basis but yoga fixed it.

I went 10 years ago. It took my another 8 before I tried again. And not been back since. I keep wanting too as it’s clearly good stuff, but it’s just a bit too mung bean for me.

I tried PiYo (Pilates / Yoga cross thing) and that was pretty good although I’ve not been back to that either.

Oh, I wrote a thing all those years ago (Note: contains at least two rude words, you have been warned): http://pickled-hedgehog.com/?p=296

I greatly enjoy yoga, I haven’t had torticollis since I started and generally am more aware of my body posture and flexibility.

it’s just a bit too mung bean for me

It’s just stretching and strength, unless you’ve been to some hipster thing.

My wife went for a class few weeks ago and she fall in love with it – now trying to go at least 3 times per week. She is not the fittest person, so I’m very glad she has finally found a “sport” she loves.

According to her – you’ll be in pain next day!

I went to a hipster thing. There was chanting and stuff at the end. I probably should have been a little less uptight about it… but it put me off going back!

it’s just a bit too mung bean for me

I’m kind of hoping that being a men’s class (and also advertised to cyclists) it’ll be quite specific and hopefully stay away from wind chimes. If it is too new age I suspect some piss may be taken.

I haven’t had torticollis since I started

I want to get better at flexibility but I’m not giving up filled pasta for anyone

The class I go to has no mung beans, chanting, joss sticks, or spliffs. Just stretching and strength poses. If it was more hippie/spiritual then it would put me off. I guess it’s a case of finding a class that has the right focus / feel, and for me that is focusing on the physical aspects. I do think the mung bean image puts a lot of people (blokes?) off.

I do a weekly yoga class during my lunch break. It’s great.

I seem to be the exception on this thread, as I never fart (there’s the odd occasion when I have to stop one popping out, but it’s not like as soon as I get in the class I start uncontrollably farting.
I also don’t generally end up sort the next day – I might be a little stiff in certain areas if we’ve been concentrating on a particular area, like hips….

You’ll probably end up ‘glowing’ rather than sweating.

Water bottle & a towel is a good idea – I mainly use my towel as padding under my knees, or for putting under my head when lying down.

Don’t feel like you have to ‘touch your toes’ or any other nonsense. If you get into a stretch, but have actually barely moved, then it is still an effective stretch for you….
If you keep going, it’s actually quite interesting as it teaches you a lot about your own flexibility and how different everyone’s bodies are.

as above, find the right class. Some are more hippyish than others for sure. But I’ve generally found that any mungbeaniness is offset by my jealousy admiration of the teacher’s ability to do stuff with her body that eludes me. One year into doing it weekly and my only regret is I didn’t start doing it 15 years ago.

I have done bikram yoga in the past, it’s good for flexibility, strength and cardio. It’s done in 36degree heat so you are generally sweating before the warm up begins.
I haven’t done it lately due to breaking my collar bone. Looking to go back at some point as I can feel my sciatica coming back.

Good luck! I’m sure you’ll be fine.

How was it?

Very good.

Arrived to find a group of men mainly like me; slightly perturbed that the whale music was already playing but that was the extent of mung-bean -ness bar ending the session with deep breathing and our souls speaking to each other. When really I know a few of them were going to the pub to speak to each other in person.

Good advice above, you don’t need to perform all poses to the full extent – as long as you feel it it’s good enough (although one bloke I could see in the mirrors was ridiculously bendy, so while I can get my fingers to my knees currently, he and the teacher were folded completely in half and that made me feel slightly fraudulent)

And it was hard – like proper sweaty hard, even though it was just gentle transitioning between poses, and I never felt out of breath I was leaking badly!!

[edit] oh and someone did a little tommy squeaker (assumed by accident) and I was surprised at the maturity of the class, although inside we were all back to second year primary school levels of giggling

Well done for getting your first session in. What most people’s advice misses is that there are many styles and schools of yoga (same as cycling, climbing etc) and it can take a while to find an instructor you get on with. I found iyenger to be good for me as it’s all about posture, the flowy ones my wife prefers.

Edit, just saw someone said similar above me but I missed it, soz

It’s not called broga is it?

no. or I wouldn’t be going.

Officially she said it is vinyassa (sp) where poses flow into each other, with options to add strength bits between as well but as we were all basically having to learn each pose individually there wasn’t much flow.

I’ve done a fair bit of yoga and I like to think of the poses instead as gestures or movement patterns. It isn’t about making identical shapes to the rest of the class, is about getting the body to move similarly but with an awareness that we’re all anatomically different with different restrictions. And don’t think of it as stretching but breath into the end points of the gestures. The concept of holding poses is too static and rigid.

The more yoga I do, the better I corner and the less I ache. Berms are particularly keen on me being yogafied!

tommy squeaker (assumed by accident)

It’s positively encouraged. Holding it in is not great for full movement. I still can’t get my head round that though.

I don’t think a full movement is encouraged 😯

Second class tonight. Just had my tea of chickpea and lentil dhal.

Will everyone else die?

Schoolboy error right there 😉

At least it wasn’t cauliflower cheese.

Yup leave the eating until after class!

After gently taking the whatsit ^^ there, I was somewhat hung by my own petard after attending a PiYo class. Where everyone else appeared to have 2 less ribs, twice the co-ordination and hamstrings longer than 1mm fully extended.

Pretty hard work. Even the stretching at the end. Good tho, will be going again. Wonder if I can leave those two ribs at home 😉

It was good. A bit easier than last time, having read a bit in the week instead of trying to do everything I listened to the ‘it’s not supposed to hurt / it’s about breathing at the same time’ instructions more and tempered my natural instinct to try everything to the max.

It was amazing and also revealing to have a view of the room this time; one of the guys there is a proper barrel chested rugby prop shape and I look pretty lithe next to him, but he can fold in half and put his hands under his feet whereas for me anywhere south of the knees is progress. Which also convinced me I can’t do that so no point trying, and to go for a bent knee stretch to work my lower back instead of being limited by the tendons behind my knees. Conversely it looks like he has a broomstick across his shoulders when he tries to lift his arms. Horses for courses, i guess……

She also got the more advanced among us (so I had to give it a bash) to try the crow balance. Or in my case; crow-roadkill. Needs work, let’s say.

crow pose is great! when I started last year I could only do it by squeezing my arms with my legs. Now I can get my knees onto the backs of my upper arms and balance that way. All progress is fun!