Yoga with Biggest Loser's Bob Harper

I don't watch much television.  I like TV quite a bit, but between working, working out, blogging, playing with my dog, occasionally sleeping and, you know, having a life, my days are pretty full.  And I'm a bookworm.  Anyway, I had seen snipits of Biggest Loser over the years, but, truth be told, I had never watched a full two-hour episode until last night.* 

Nevertheless, when the lovely Fitarella invited me to join her at a special yoga class taught by Biggest Loser's Bob Harper, I tweeted back "yes!" as fast as I could.  I really like what I've seen of Biggest Loser, and I love the message it sends about what people are capable of when they put their minds to something.   And Bob is awesome.   On Biggest Loser, Bob yells and he pushes, but it seems to come from such a genuine place; you can see that he cares and that he's passionate about what he does.  I was very excited to meet him, and I hoped that seeing him in person wouldn't spoil my impression of him.

The event was organized by Filter for Good, Brita's philanthropic endeavor (Bob's one of their spokespeople) and hosted at the 21st Street NY Health & Raquet Club.  Thanks to both for the awesome swag, and particularly for my new Brita filter!  They even sent a car to pick me up this morning.  I felt as much like a princess as I could at 6 am, before coffee, in the most minimal amount of makeup I could stand to be photographed in.  

I was still pretty out of it when we stumbled into the yoga studio, which is the only way I can explain how I ended up in the front row, directly facing Bob.  I'm a front row kinda gal for everything except yoga, and I'm pretty strict about that exception.  I try, but yoga's not my thing.  I had even toyed with the idea of squeezing in some extra yoga practice this week so that I wouldn't embarass myself infront of Bob, but it didn't happen.  To make matters worse, right next to Bob was a photographer who just kept snapping away.  I'm sure she's a lovely person, but, I swear, at one point she was taking pictures of my feet.  I'm just glad I had a fresh pedicure!

"A storm is brewing." - Bob HarperBob was an awesome yoga instructor.  He even managed to throw in some push-ups.  (I knew he was my kind of guy!)  At one point, I down-dogged when I should have up-dogged.  And there was a minor spider mishap (props to the girl in the orange top next to me for killing my spider!).  Other than that, class passed without incident and was really, really fun.  Bob has great taste in music.

After class, Bob answered our questions and graciously posed for a bazillion pictures.  Bob was everything he is on TV and more.  He spoke passionately about Biggest Loser and about fitness in general.  When asked where the line is between "feeling the burn" and "pushing too hard," he questioned whether there is such a thing as pushing too hard, and urged us all to push.  That said, he advocated finding exercise options, such as yoga, that work at any age and warned that ego can get in the way of fitness.  Bob addressed the recent study that found that women need to exercise more as they get older just to maintain (you knew that, right?  same for men, too.) and ragged on the media for some of the sensationalist and confusing stories that have run lately about exercise not being good for you.  As Bob put it, anyone can eat their way out of the benefits of exercise, and those kinds of stories just give that woman in Omaha one more excuse to skip the gym today.  Bob is also a fan of Jamie Oliver's new show, Food Revolution.  "A storm is brewing," he said.  People are realizing that most of what they eat isn't good for them; people are talking about food and health and fitness, and this is a good thing.

I left class happy and inspired.  To cap off a fabulous morning, I joined Fitarella and new friends Alison from Foster Fitness (check out her post and cute pics from yoga, too!) and Jodi from Model Per4mance and Jodiojo for a well-deserved breakfast at L'Express.  We gabbed about workouts and blogging and life in general, and, amazingly, when we left the restaurant, the sun was actually (finally) (kind of) shining.  Thank you, Bob!

-Gym Belle-  

*In my defense, I've been following Bob and Jillian on Twitter since I joined.

Conquering Savasana

Now, don't get all excited, but Sunday night, I did yoga.  Again.  This was my third Sunday night yoga class at Physique 57.  The past two times, Antonietta has been the instructor.  Class is chill and challenging at the same time, and I actually think I'm getting better at it.

One of my big yoga hang-ups has been savasana, the pose at the end when you lie on your back and relax.  There's no trick to it as far as I know; you just lie there.  But while everyone else is all blissed out, I'm writhing around.  Savasana kills my back.  So, instead of letting it all go, I'm wondering how in the world I'm screwing this up.  Sure, I'm a tense person, but I should be able to just lie there.  No matter how well class had gone, it would always end on the same discouraging note.

Recently, I decided that if I was really going to try to practice yoga regularly, I would have to conquer savasana.  I decided to ask a good friend, Emily Gewitz of Every Shape Yoga.  Amazingly, she has lower back pain in savasana, too!  She advised me to put a bolster under my knees, and a blanket under my lower back, if necessary. She also recommended resting a blanket over my belly and pelvic area.

Sunday night, I tried putting a block under my knees and a blanket under my lower back (I didn't have a second towel for on top) and it definitely felt better.  Take that, savasana!

-Gym Belle-

Physique Yoga

I promised to give yoga a shot again in honor of Yoga Month. Since we're over a third of the way into September, I decided it was probably time to put my plan into action. I've downloaded a week's pass to Pure Yoga that I totally intend to use, but I didn't want to start that this week for logistical reasons.  Instead, I decided to check Physique 57's yoga class.  I'm a huge fan of the regular Physique 57 classes, but I've never branched out to the others, so I had no idea what to expect.

I was nervous at first when I walked in and saw only two other students.  Small classes can be so awkward.  Luckily, we had a great instructor.  Donna was knowledgeable and not at all preachy and totally turned the turnout into a positive.  It felt more like a semi-private workshop than a class.

As it turned out, this was a stretchy, feel-good yoga kind of class.  A few of the poses made me grit my teeth a bit, but we didn't hold them long, and I didn't break a sweat.  I don't normally like classes like that, but this was actually pretty cool.  

I loved all the individual attention.  I've never been able to stick with yoga long enough to get good at it, so it was helpful to have someone really correcting my form.  I was also able to test out some more difficult things that I wouldn't consider trying for the first time in a big class.

All in all, I liked it.  I'd never replace a regular workout with a class like this, but it would be a great complement to my routine.  If I go  back, I'll keep you posted.

-Gym Belle-