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.

BodyMedia Screen Shot

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!

BodyMedia Screen Shot

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. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

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! 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

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. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

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! 

Gaiam Yoga Journal's Yoga for Strength with Rodney Yee

Yoga Journal's Yoga for Strength with Rodney Yee

This was my second workout of the day. This morning, I did a workout from Gaiam called Rodney Yee's AM & PM Yoga for Beginners. I did both of them. I didn't think I was going to get a second workout today because hubby came home early from work. At 2:00 PM (my normal weekend workout time) he volunteered to go into the bedroom so I could have my workout time. He's such a swell guy! The DVD jacket says that this workout has menus so you can jump right into the workout, but I must not be very bright because I couldn't find them. It started off with a bunch of advertisements. I hit my title button on my remote and then I was given an option to see the interview and an option to do the workouts. When I clicked for the workouts, it went to a video showing Rodney doing yoga. It was amazing to watch him, but I had a limited amount of time, so I started to fast forward hoping it was just a short segment. It seemed like an eternity! 

When I got past that, I got to the first workout. He talked about the workouts first and gave a description of them. He made it sound like I would get to pick which one I wanted to do, but I wasn't given an option to pick one. It just went right into the first workout. 

This was a lot slower than some of the other ones that I've been doing from him. He was also much younger in this workout. He still had the long braid though. He talked a lot less in this one and we held poses longer. There were things in these workouts that I just couldn't do, but there were things that I was able to do that surprised me! I don't really remember everything we did, but I feel amazing after doing it. My butt feels like I did a boat load of squats. 

The first workout started off with a Vinyasa section. We did four different sequences. They were all pretty similar. They involved Down Dog, Plank, Up Dog and some sort of standing pose in the middle. Nothing in this segment was very hard. Once the Vinyasa stuff was done, I think we did some relaxing on our backs which is why I thought the segment was the first workout. The editing in this thing was a bit rough. He was standing one second and then seated the next. So after the relaxing stuff, we held some poses instead of doing a flow. I don't remember them all, but I know we did some Triangle and what I call Right Angle, but he called a Side Stretch or something like that. There were more, but I just can't remember them. My memory sucks. None of them were crazy hard or anything and we didn't hold them so long that I couldn't do it. After we did those, we did some relaxing stuff again and the segment was over. 

The second workout had some standing stuff and some seated stuff. This one didn't have a flow section. It was pretty much just what I was looking for. I like the flow stuff, but I really wanted to do one where we just held some poses. We held Down Dog for 2 minutes in this segment. I actually broke out of it before he said that time was up. This workout was sort of broke up into two sections. The first one was leading up to shoulder stands. We did Down Dog a lot! We also did it with our elbows bent and our forearms on the floor. I think I've done this before, but it was called Dolphin. I could be wrong though. We did this a few times and touched our heads down to the floor. This segment was hard on my shoulder. I had pain in my shoulder, but I'm not sure what was causing it. I wasn't very fond of the segment. Then we sat on some blankets in front of  chair. We moved to Plow position with our feet on the chair. He just magically moves into Plow position. I had to just keep rocking on my back to get enough momentum to get my butt high enough. My lower body just weighs too much to magically float into Plow. Once we were in Plow we were supposed to lift up one leg and then we switched and then they both went up and were were in a shoulder stand. I actually did a shoulder stand. It wasn't pretty, but I did it! After the Shoulder Stand, we did some relaxing and some stretching. Some of the stretching was awesome! It's more stuff that I'm going to add to my nightly routine. Not necessarily every night, but I'll rotate them in. We used a strap and stretched out one leg straight up. Then we stretched out an arm to the side and lowered the leg to one side and then the other side. We did that with each leg. That felt amazing in my hips. I can still feel it. 

Then we did the next section which was more holding of different poses. One of them required two blocks. Well, you might be able to do it without the blocks, but I couldn't. He said to use the blocks, but he didn't use them for the second time we did the pose. We were seated in a cross legged pose and put our hands on the blocks. Then we were supposed to lift ourselves up off the floor and balance just on our hands. I got some lift, but I didn't get all the way off the floor. We also did a Crow position. I never understood why it was called Crow when we were doing it in PiYo, but it was a modified version of it. When you do the full version, you do sort of look like a bird. I put as much weight as I could in my hands, but I didn't get off the ground. However, I was able to get my arms into the correct position this time. When I tried this position during Daily Burn, I couldn't get my knees up high enough onto my triceps to even attempt this move. Progress baby! We did more Triangle and that Side Stretch from the first workout. We also did Exalted Warrior and Brave Warrior. I get so confused with all of the Warrior poses and the different names. Exalted Warrior just seemed like Warrior 1 with a bit of a back bend to it. Brave Warrior was just like Warrior 3, but with our hands forward instead of back. We also did a Half Moon Pose. Oh and Boat Pose. I suck at Boat Pose. There were probably a few more poses, but I just don't remember them. Some of this stuff was hard, but I really enjoyed it. I did a shoulder stand! 

Overall, I'm glad I did this workout. I was really looking for a workout where we held poses instead of just doing a flow and this workout did that. I feel like I did an amazing leg day and I barely broke a sweat. I didn't have to deal with bouncing around and nothing was too crazy terrible. 

BodyMedia Screen Shots

This DVD was really confusing for me so I thought the first workout was done, but it wasn't. I had stopped my workout tab on the BodyMedia device so I started it up again. The first two are the first workout and the third is the second workout. The first workout was sort of in two sections so each one is a section. 

Gaiam Rodney Yee's AM & PM Yoga for Beginners

Gaiam Rodney Yee's AM & PM Yoga for Beginners

This DVD had two workouts on it and you can also download a AM&PM Meditation video that's 12 minutes long. I haven't done that part. I did both of the Yoga workouts on this DVD though. The AM one is led by Rodney and the PM one is led by Colleen Saidman. The workouts have very basic moves in them that just about anyone should be able to do. You have the option of playing these with just the music or with the full instructions. I played them with the full instructions since I had never done them before. They talk pretty much through thing. It's all about where to move next. In the PM one, she was a little bit ahead on the voice over part which was weird. I'm usually behind, but I found that I was ahead of her on the screen even though I was a little behind her cues. She still sounds like Dharma from Dharma and Greg though which is just weird for me. 

AM Energize

I did this in the morning, but I didn't feel particularly energized when I was done. It was a very calm routine. I don't think I broke a sweat. The music was calm and his voice was calm. It was filmed along the ocean. He was on a yoga mat on top of a board or something on top of the sand. I like having the nice serene settings like this, but I did most of this with my eyes closed or looking at the ceiling. This was a slow moving stretchy type yoga. We started out on our backs and alternated pulling our knees to our chests. We did this for what seemed like a long time. We did some other stuff seated. I think we did some Cobbler's Pose and some Staff Pose. We also did some Dog Dog and Cobra. We also did some forward folds. We did a brief Warrior 1 segment. We did a little bit of Chair (or Powerful Pose as he calls it). We did some Mountain Pose and Volcano Pose as well as some back bends with a bit of a twist to them. We also did some stretching and twisting on the floor. One of them had us cross one leg over the other than then lay our knees down on the ground while we held our back flat on the floor. My back cracked during this one and it felt sooooooooooo good! What pain was left over last night was gone after that crack. I will have to remember that one later! I will try to incorporate it into my back rolling/stretching session. 

Overall, I liked the workout, but it was a bit slower and more calm than I was expecting for something that was supposed to energize me. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here is my unimpressive screen shot. 

 

 PM Unwind

This one was filmed in a field. She was on a yoga mat on some type of board just sitting on the grass. This one was even more calm and relaxing than the first. We did a lot of stretching and not a lot of holding any specific pose. We did some Child's Pose, some Cobbler's Pose, a bit of Staff Pose and even some Down Dog. We used a yoga strap for this one. We had it on the ball of one foot as we stuck that leg straight up in the air and stretched out our hamstrings. Mine are super tight so this one always hurts, but hurts in a good way kind of thing. We did a seated straddle stretch as well as a straddle stretch while standing up. Yesterday I did the one standing up and was able to touch my head to the floor. My feet were pretty far apart to get  my head that low, but it didn't matter. My head touched the floor! It felt amazing! I was pretty shocked that I was able to get my feet so far apart and I was shocked that my head hit the floor! LOVED IT! I actually squealed or something and my husband just couldn't understand what I was so excited about.

Overall, I liked this workout, but it wasn't really what I was in the mood for at that point. I'm really looking for a workout where we hold the poses for an extended period of time. I want to be shaking when I'm done! These have all been pretty low key workouts. I have a few more to get through, so we'll see how it goes. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here is the screen shot. Those steps and that minute of activity were from my jaunt into the bedroom to get my yoga strap. I cleaned up the living room today because we had a couch getting delivered. I made sure to leave the mat and the blocks, but I didn't think I would need the strap so I moved it to the bedroom that is getting converted into a workout room. Guess I jumped the gun on that one. 

Gaiam Rodney Yee's Daily Yoga

Gaiam Rodney Yee's Daily Yoga

This DVD has five different workouts. They 15 to 25 minutes long.

Day 1: Build the Foundation (lyengar)

I did this one on Monday. I was really looking forward to this one. I've liked the workouts of his that I've done, but this one wasn't what I was expecting. This was more like the instructional workout from Yoga for Beginners. It was filmed in a studio and had both Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman. She did all of the moves and he did all of the instructing. I found it odd that the instructions for Mountain Pose weren't the same. In Yoga for Beginners, we were supposed to have our feet separated and they were supposed to be parallel to the mat, but in this workout, our feet were touching at the inside edges. That was the only move that I remember being different. 

I don't really remember all of the moves that we did and I don't have time to rewatch the DVD, but I remember it being quite slow. I don't remember breaking a sweat. We did some Down Dog, some Up Dog, a little bit of Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Right Angle and Triangle. We also did some stretching stuff that I'm not sure about the name. He had her do Camel. I tried to do Camel, but my hands just can't get down to my feet. If I'm on my stomach, I can reach my feet, but if I'm on my shins, I think my fear of falling makes me too stiff to reach my feet. We did a lot of Cobbler Pose and Staff Pose. We did some "Push Up Pose" or Chataranga (however you spell that). I felt nice and stretched once it was over and while sitting at my desk hours later, I felt like I had done 100 squats earlier in the day. 

Overall, I liked the work that we did, but I wasn't a fan of the whole setup of this. It was very instructional and slow. I'm hoping that the rest of the workouts on here aren't like that. The back cover shows some peaceful picturesque settings, so I'm hopeful. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here's the unimpressive screen shot. 

Day 2: Energize (Vinyasa)

This one was led by Colleen Saidman. It was a nice setting, but not as pretty as some of them. This was a flow. We didn't really hold a pose for any length of time which seems to be pretty common with these workouts. She did a lot of instructing and for the most part, I was slightly behind for a good deal of it. She sounded like Dharma from Dharma and Greg again. 

I did this workout this morning and I don't have time to replay it all to do a play by play. This was another slow moving one and I barely broke a sweat. This was a nice stretchy workout. It was another one where a few hours later, I felt like I had done a bunch of squats that morning.

This one had some Down Dog, Up Dog, Chataranga (however you spell that), Warrior 2, Right Angle, (it might have had triangle), Stafff, Cobbler and Mountain. We also did a twisting thing, but I don't know the name of it. We had a knee bent up and then we twisted to the side. We also did a side plank that turned into a back bend type deal. We did this move in PiYo, and it killed me. I was so so bad at this move in PiYo, but I did it in this and I did it well! I'm getting so much stronger! We also did some forward bending. I really liked this one. We had our legs out wide and we bent over at our hips. Then we reached our hands out in front of us. I really liked this one! I like anything that helps stretch out  my hamstrings because my hamstrings are so tight and need some stretching. I also like stretches that I'm good at and I think I was good at this one!

Overall, I liked this workout, but it's hard to totally get into it when there's so much talking and not as many long poses. She talked about the importance of breath and connecting your breath to the movements. This isn't the first time that I've heard this, but it was the first time that I was able to really focus on it. At points, it was hard though because she would say to do something on the inhale and then she would take forever to tell me what I was doing on the exhale. I found myself holding my breath a bit. The deep breathing was nice and relaxing. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

This is another unimpressive screen shot. I got some great stretching and it was really relaxing. 

Day 3: Strengthen the Core

This workout was led by Rodney Yee again. He was in a field on a wooden circle with a yoga mat on it. I'm beginning to wonder if this was filmed on his property and he just has yoga stations all over the place. That would be amazing! This workout was pretty short. It was only about 17 minutes. 

This workout was all about the core, but we did it in a really calm way. We worked our abs without a lot of effort. It was calm and relaxing, but it was hard work at the same time. We did a lot of Cobbler's Pose and Staff Pose. We did Down Dog to Plank a few times. I'm getting so much better at Plank! I'm thinking of challenging myself to a 3 minute plank to see how far I can get. I'm not sure if I can do 3 minutes, but I'm pretty sure that I can do at least two so if I challenge myself to three, maybe I'll figure out how long I can really go. 

We also did some V-sit stuff. I think he called it Half Boat and Full Boat. I'm going to get a book about Yoga poses and see if I can learn some of this stuff. I want to do some meditative yoga stuff before bed. Last night I slept great after my foam rolling yoga stuff. Okay, I'm totally losing focus. Okay so the V-sit stuff is hard! With PiYo, we did it with bent legs unless we wanted to do the advanced stuff, but with this, we did it with straight legs. It was a bit rough, but I got through it. We also laid down on our backs and bent our knees up to our chests and then rolled our knees to one side and held it. Then we went back to center and did the other side. Then we did it with one straight leg and one bent leg. Then we did it with both legs straight. It seems really simple, but it was hard! It felt good though. It felt really good that I was able to do it. I'm really amazed with how  much stronger I've gotten in the last few week/months. I'm not sure when it happened. I've just been noticing it while doing these Rodney Yee workouts. 

I don't remember what else we did, but nothing was crazy hard, but it all really worked my core. I wish this has been a longer workout, but I needed these nice short workouts this week. I needed a recovery week. I love these calm workouts because I don't need a rest day. I was planning on taking a rest day yesterday, but decided I didn't need one because these workouts held keep me in my workout routine, but they aren't bouncy and stressful on my body, so I can recover from everything I've doing recently. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here is another unimpressive screen shot. It was still a good workout and my abs definitely felt it. 

Day 4: Clean It Out (Ashtanga)

This workout was supposed to detoxify my body and leave me with a feeling of lightness and clarity. I'm not really sure how or why, but that's what the back says. I think the detoxing was supposed to be because we did some twisting stuff. When I did the Twist Flow with Daily Burn, she talked about twisting helping to detoxify the body. 

I did this workout this morning before work. I didn't feel particularly clear or light, but I did enjoy the workout. We did a lot of stuff that I've done before in PiYo and Daily Burn. We did some Sun Salutations that involved some forward folding, then jumping back to Plank, doing push up position, then UP Dog and then Down Dog. There was some Chair involved in there someplace. We did a few different variations of this and some involved Cobra. One of the series included Warrior 1 as well. The first section was pretty much just a flow where we did each move on the inhale or exhale. This resulted in him doing a lot of talking and me being a smidge behind the whole time. We also did some standing poses including Warrior 2 (I think we did that one) Right Angle, Triangle, a modified Reverse Right Angle (I think that's what he called it). We had a knee on the floor and then we twisted and our hands in prayer pose. We held these poses for a bit. We also did a Pyramid pose with our hands behind our back in reverse prayer pose. That was hard to get my hands going the right way. I really liked this one once we got to the standing poses that we were holding. 

Overall, I liked the workout. It had things I liked more than others, but nothing was crazy hard. I felt all stretched out and good after it. Once again, I felt like I had done a bunch of squats.

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here is another unimpressive screen shot, but I don't care about that. I'm getting more flexible and my balance is better! 

Day 5: Calm Down (Restorative)

This said that it would relax the body and clear the mind. It was relaxing, but it didn't really clear my mind. I was too focused on trying to get the poses right for some of them. This was a nice short little "workout." It involved a lot of laying down, some Constructive Rest pose and Child's Pose (the real Child's Pose which I can't actually do!), We did some cross legged pose while trying to put our face on the floor. This one was done in a studio, and I just don't like those as much as the ones out in nature. Not much else to say about this one. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here's the screen shot. Probably the most unimpressive one to date, but you can't expect much from lying down for 15 minutes. 

Gaiam Power Up Yoga with Rodney Yee

Gaiam Power Up Yoga With Rodney Yee

This DVD had three different workouts. I did the first one last Sunday, but I never wrote about it. I did the other two today. They were all pretty short. This wasn't a beginner's workout, but it wasn't crazy hard either. He moved a bit quickly in these and it was hard to do the first one because I wasn't familiar with the poses. Doing the training workout in the beginner's DVD helped.  It was set in a gorgeous setting and he was on a raised platform. The music was calming. These were done with him being filmed and then doing a voice over with the instructions. This DVD had three different settings or the sound. There was a full instruction option, an inspirational option and a music only option. 

Connect

I did this one a week ago, so I'm a bit sketchy on the details. This one was about connecting to the earth and building strength and muscle tone. I remember it being physically challenging for my legs and my arms. I know we did some Warrior 1 and Warrior 3 and a Half Moon. There was some Vinyasa stuff with this one too. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here's the screen shot.

Energize

This one was is cardio focused according to the back of the DVD, but I don't remember it being much of a heart pumper. I don't even remember breathing heavy or breaking a sweat on this one. I do remember this one being physically challenging though. Although, it's hard to remember which moves I did in which workout between this one and the next one on this DVD. I did Camel for the first time today. That one was hard! We also did a Bow or a Reverse Bow. I can't remember which one is which, but I think we actually did both. We were laying face down and reached our hands back to grab our feet. Then we rolled to the side and then back center and then to the other side. Well, I didn't do the rolling thing, but they did. We also did Crow. Well, he did Crow. I did the crouching part, but I never got my feet off the ground. This workout was interesting because I was able to do something and felt really good about them, but other things I just couldn't do and I felt really sucky about that. I'm 266 pounds though and I've only been doing Yoga for like a month. Unless you count PiYo and then it started back in September, so I've been doing it for three months. I can't expect to do every move. 

I liked this workout even though it moved a bit fast. I want to find one where I have to hold the poses for extended periods of time. I might have to just get a book to learn the poses and then set a timer for myself. I like the flow stuff, but I really want to work on some static poses too. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here is the screen shot for the workout. Not very impressive especially since the back of the DVD said something about it being about cardio.

Breathe

This one was focused on breathing. Imagine that. It had a lot of stretching and deep breathing. I really liked this one. I liked the calmness of it. We didn't do anything crazy challenging. Well, unless some of the moves that I think were in Energize were actually in this one. I love all of the stretching stuff, but this one had a lot of forward folding stuff and my hamstrings just suck! Tonight, I'm focusing on the hamstrings with my rolling and I'm doing that five minutes on my feet every day to see if that works. Oh, and my calves too. I've read that if your calves are tight, it could cause you to think your hamstrings are tight. I'm pretty sure it's not my back that's the problem since my standing forward folds are pretty killer. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

This was a nice short workout. It would be great to do just before bed. 

Gaiam Yoga for Beginners with Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman

Gaiam Yoga For Beginners with Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman

This DVD had three workouts. I got it from my library. They have several of Rodney Yee's workouts and I plan on doing them in the next two weeks. I'm starting 21 Day Fix in 2 weeks so I'm doing Yoga until I start it. I might do some other stuff too, but I want to really work on my flexibility and I don't want to do anything that will make me sore going into the 21 Day Fix. 

Pose Training for Perfect Form

This was a 43 minute training program. It wasn't a hard workout, but it was a workout. They talked about proper form. We didn't do anything too terribly difficult. We didn't hold a pose too long. I really like Rodney Yee's stuff because we don't do the same poses that everyone else is doing. Although, I don't have a vast experience with Yoga so I could be wrong, but these are different enough from anything we did in PiYo and anything we did in the Daily Burn workouts that it feels new and different. I'm still getting a good workout and amazing stretch too. I also like that he calls them by the English names so I can learn something.

I can't remember all of the poses, but I'll list off as many as I can remember. Mountain, Volcano, Power (Chair), Staff, Cobbler, Right Angle, Triangle, Down Dog, Cobra and Warrior 2 are the names that come to mind. We also did some forward folding both standing and seated. I do much better with forward folding when I'm standing. Seated is so hard for me. My hamstrings are just so dang tight. I'm going to work on my hamstrings in the next couple weeks. I'm going to do a lot of stretching and a lot of foam rolling. I read that rolling your feet five minutes a day can help with the hamstrings too. 

Overall, I liked this workout. I learned some things, I burned some calories and I felt good and stretched after it was over. This one was filmed in a studio. Rodney and his wife were in it together. They switched off between doing the poses and doing the instruction. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

These are never very impressive. I'm not even sure why I post them anymore but it's my thing so I keep doing it. 

20 Minute Morning Workout

This was another good beginner workout on this DVD. This was actually a workout. This was set in Hawaii. He was on a raised platform on a yoga mat. The music was nice and calming. I've done way too much yoga today and I can't remember the specifics of each workout anymore ugh. I do remember that nothing was difficult in this workout. It was basically a quicker version of the tutorial. We did the same moves, but with less time between each of them. It was very calming and relaxing. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here's the screen shot in all it's glory.

15 Minute Evening Workout 

This one was led by Colleen Saidman. It was also in a beautiful setting. This one was even more relaxing and stretchy than the morning workout. I don't remember the moves again. I tried to play it in my laptop, but it just won't play correctly. 

I liked this one because of all the stretching, but I like Rodney leading better only because his wife sounds sound like Dharma from Dharma and Greg so it was really distracting for me. 

BodyMedia Screen Shot 

Another unimpressive screen shot, but it was beginner's yoga, so it wasn't too hard. I don't even think I broke a sweat.