So I took a Yoga class on Tuesday, it was about 90 minutes long and I am STILL in pain (mostly my abs) which makes me think that it might be a bad idea to do Yoga and weights on consecutive days. I had planned to do weights on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Yoga on Tuesday and Thursday but now I'm not so sure. Has anyone else heard anything about this? I know you're supposed to let your muscles rest every other day, and I didn't know that Yoga was going to put so much strain on my muscles.
BTW, I never did weights this Wednesday because my daughter was sick, and today I missed Yoga so I just did cardio.
I'm kind of in a dilemma about this. I KNOW that the traditional exercisers will say work your muscle groups on alternate days so that you don't overwork things, but I PERSONALLY think that depending on your goal, that might be a bunch of hooey. Mostly because my grandparents and parents' generation were used to daily hard physical freaking labour, and they NEVER took days off (Sorry, Mr BossMan, I can't lift that bag of concrete today because I really worked my biceps yesterday lifting concrete)...They just sucked it up and did it. An hour of Yoga followed 24 hours later by 30-45 minutes of weights followed by 24 hours of rest and then the Yoga most likely will make you sore, but won't injure you.
SO, my PERSONAL thought is to do your plan. It'll be hard in the beginning, but your muscles will get used to it. Especially since you probably aren't going to be doing SERIOUS competitive bodybuilding weight routines followed by 2 or 3 hours of training for the Yoga Olympics! So give it a shot, and see how it goes...you might just surprise yourself.
But that's just me...now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna hide under my computer desk and wait for the opposing "all things in moderation" POV...
My trainer has me doing the same things every session (MTThF), we rotated at about 6 wks to a different routine but I do that routine 4x wk. She says that we are not lifting at the level that needs the rest.
I also have wondered about the need for rest when thinking about older generations or hard labor jobs. They do them day in and day out and they suck it up. So? I would really like to see something about the type of exercises, what intensity really means, how you tell what type of working out you are doing.
I also do desk work so I sit for 8 hours a day and sleep 8 hours a day - that is alot of rest.
I would listen to your body - if you feel muscularly tired or overly sore then maybe need a rest or do a lighter day.
I also have wondered about the need for rest when thinking about older generations or hard labor jobs. They do them day in and day out and they suck it up. So?
SO? As just a thought here, perhaps we are too easy on ourselves with respect to what our wonderful bodies can do. Perhaps we are uncomfortable with the THOUGHT that we can actually do more than we think we can do. That we are afraid to push our physicial limits based on what the trainer/fitness industry tells us. That if we accept mediocrity, then we will get mediocre results and worst of all, think that this is what we are SUPPOSED to do and are HAPPY with it. And maybe, JUST MAYBE, we can step out of our comfort zone and actually PUSH ourselves beyond what we either think we can do or what we are TOLD we can do by some trainer in a gym...that's all. And that previous pre-Oxygen, pre-gym membership, pre-trainer generations just did what they had to because there weren't any options. And since this generation is the most sedentary EVER, with rising obesity and cardiovascular disease rates unheardof in previous years, perhaps the constant coddling just isn't very, well, productive...
Just food for thought...
and of course
JMHO
I really don't know anything about this, but do have one possible thought about why the alternating pattern may be better:
True, our grandparents did work hard labor jobs day in and day out, but didn't their bodies pay for it later in life? When you think of people in those jobs, they can't work until they're 70 years old the way a professor or a lawyer could because their bodies are too beaten up. They worked like that because they had to in order to survive. They were able to do it, but it took a toll later.
Of course, these people were working hard all day long, whereas our workouts are rarely going to go over 90 minutes. Just my two cents...
I dunno -- my grandmother worked her 2 acre garden to feed her 16 children (seriously) and also worked the fields. My mom never remembers my grandmother going to bed OR waking up. She was always going -- whether it was weeding, cooking, cleaning, sewing, or stooking hay, or rounding up cattle...she certainly didn't do these things on alternate days...
She lived to 91 with a clear mind and a healthy body. Same with my grandfather (although he was only 88 when he passed).
There are lots of ways to be working hard without pushing weights at the gym and our forebearers certainly weren't all bricklayers. But their overall activity levels were way, way higher. It was pretty normal to walk to work, or bike. It was pretty normal to scrub a floor or two, or hang laundry out on the line (no Swiffers or dryers there!). And the difference between that generation and ours seems to be the super-reliance on the automobile and the fear to stretch ourselves physically...
Which is why I suggest (and ONLY suggest) that 90 minutes of yoga in a day followed by inactivity, then followed by 30-45 minutes of pushing weights, followed by inactivity, and repeated MAY not be such a scary and forbidden thing to consider...
Yoga and strength training on consecutive days
