Gaian AM Yoga for Your Week with Rodney Yee

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Gaiam AM Yoga for Your Week with Rodney Yee

This DVD had five workouts on it. They are each about 20 minutes. There is a menu so you can select which workout you want to do. The options are Standing Poses, Twists, Back Bends, Forward Bends and Hip Openers. I had a hard time deciding which one to do first because they all sounded like they would be interesting. I decided to just go in order. My plan was to do two or three in the morning and then do the others in the afternoon. I did the two in the morning, but then got a headache and a case of the blahs in the afternoon so I decided to skip my afternoon workout. When working out becomes a chore that I have to do instead of something that I want to do, it's time for a bit of a break. Instead, I sat on my couch learning Spanish on my new app. 

Standing Poses

This one was filmed with him on a raised platform in a picturesque place. It had rock formations and water. It was very serene. We held poses in this one instead of going through a flow. I really liked that. I'm trying to remember all of the poses that we did, but I can't remember enough to fill up 21 minutes. I thought I remembered them all though. I even wrote them down once the DVD was over. We did do a lot of forward folding and mountain pose between moves so I guess that can eat up some time plus we did the five minutes or so of calming down when it was over. I remember Warrior 1, Tree, Triangle, Warrior 2 and Right Angle (or Extended Side Bend I think is what he calls it). It doesn't seem like nearly enough moves. I'm not sure how long we held each pose because he doesn't use timers and I didn't have a clock in front of me. I really liked this one. It was nice to just hold a pose. I did pretty well with them except for Tree. I can't tell you how many times I fell out of Tree. I also can't get my leg up as far as I'm supposed to. My heel is just above my knee instead. Oh well.

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Here is another unimpressive screen shot. 

Twists

Twists was the second one on the list, so I did it next. This was mainly done on the floor, but there was a little bit standing up. We did a runner's lunge type pose. The elbow of the arm that was opposite of the front leg went to the outside of the front leg. We then put our hands together in prayer pose and held the twist. I still have a hard time with twists. I just can't get my elbows where they need to be. We also did a move with the strap. We had a leg on the floor and a leg up in the air. The leg in the air had a strap around the ball of the foot. Then we took the opposite hand and pulled the leg down to the side. I liked this one. We did something similar in a different workout and went both ways with it. It feels really good to stretch out the hips. We did several seated twists which were all pretty much a variation of each other. We had one leg bent up to our chest and the other one straight and then we twisted in the direction of the bent leg. Our elbows were in various places during these different twists. I don't know the names of anything we did on this one. I liked it though. I liked twisting. They say that all the twisting will release toxins from your internal organs. It massages them and sets stuff free. I honestly have no idea how true that is. It sounds kind of hokey, but whatever. I do know that I will never be able to do a class with twisting because all of that twisting makes me release the gas from my lower GI tract and I don't wanna be the fat gassy girl in yoga class. I will have to learn how to control that little problem at some point though because I want to do couples yoga with my husband someday!

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Here's another screen shot. They tagged this as a 20 minute workout, but it was closer to 25. Oopsy. 

Back Bends

I was a bit nervous aout this one because I don't do so well with the back bends, but I had to do it to finish out the DVD. I couldn't leave one workout undone. It just felt wrong. This was another one where we held the poses instead of doing a flow. We did some Down Dog, Cobra, Mountain, and Forward Folds. The real fun came when we did Camel and Bow. The first time I did Camel, I couldn't reach either of my heels, but this time I was able to touch my heels. It wasn't an attractive camel, but it was a camel. The Bow was pretty rough. I got my right foot easily enough, but my left foot was a bit harder. We did some Cobbler's Pose and a Simple Seated Twist as well. Oh and we also did extended right angle. We also did a pose where we were in a runner's lunge type position and put our arms up over our head and did a bit of a back bend. Overall, this was a good workout. I had some balance issues, and I didn't do well with the Camel or the Bow, but I got through it! Woot Woot! The first pose of this one needed a prop. I forget what he called it, but we could just roll up two blankets to make one if we didn't have one. I just used my foam roller. It looked about the same size. We put it on the floor and laid on it so it was at our shoulder blades. Then we did a back bend over it and had our heads on the floor. 

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Most of the steps came from running to the bedroom to grab my foam roller to use for the first move.

Forward Folds

This one was pretty much just what the title says. It was all about the forward folds. We did some standing forward folds and we did a lot of seated forward folds. The standing ones were mainly with our legs together, but there was also one with our feet apart and we were supposed to touch our head to the floor. I can do that if my legs are pretty far apart. I always get a major rush when I can do that. I'm not sure if it's from the blood rushing to my head or if it's just the excitement that I've gotten to a point where I can put my head to the floor. I'm 268 pounds, so it's quite the accomplishment to be able to do that. The seated forward bends mainly consisted of putting out feet in various positions and then folded forward. We did it with our feet in Staff Pose, Cobbler's Pose, Wide Angle Pose and some others that I'm not sure of the names. It was a nice calm workout. I'm really enjoying yoga and my foam rolling is really helping my reach. My hamstrings have come a long way in the last couple months! 

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Here's my rather unimpressive screen shot. 

Hip Openers

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this one, but I wasn't really expecting to be doing so much Cobbler, Staff and Half Boat. We did a lot of those in this one. We also did a little bit of Lightning Pose and some other stuff that I don't know the name of. My Cobbler's Pose has vastly improved since the first time I did it. I still can't get my heels as far in as he can, but in the beginning, the space inside of my legs formed a bit of a diamond, and now, It's more like a triangle. I love seeing the improvements that I'm making. I'm still not losing any weight, so the non-scale victories are huge for me. I can't be upset about not losing weight in the last couple of weeks though since my diet hasn't been so great, but I haven't lost weight since around the middle of September. I'm starting the 21 Day Fix and I'm hoping that will all change now! Okay back to this workout, I liked it. It was nice and calm. I got a good stretch in my hips. We did some cross legged poses and one of them had one ankle up on the opposite knee while we did a forward fold. That was intense. I didn't get very far forward. I was just happy that I was able to get my ankle up onto the opposite knee. We did some Pigeon Pose too. I love Pigeon! I still can't get my front leg into the right position. My foot always angles back too much. I'm working on it though. 

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Here's the unimpressive screen shot. I'm hoping to get a nice calorie burn going on with the 21 Day Fix that I'm starting today!