Bikram Yoga

 Two sandwiches, sesame tofu, pork potstickers and chicken rolls after Bikram Yoga. Hey, it's justified because I had fasted beforehand (didn't want to throw up) and you supposedly burn 900 calories.

What is it with girls dominating me in fitness classes?

Before, it was spin class; now, it's Bikram Yoga.

In case you don't know what Bikram Yoga is, it's "hot yoga." You do a bunch of standing and seated yoga poses in a room that's about 100º F and you sweat more than you've ever sweat in your entire life.

Being my first time doing yoga, I got a quick tutorial on proper breathing techniques from the instructor, Johnny. He took me into a small side room and had me inhale and then exhale loudly. I was horribly self-conscious.

When the class started everyone did the breathing exercises Johnny had showed me. It was kind of scaring hearing everyone exhale so loudly and passionately. It sounded like a sound a creepy dead person would make in a horror movie.

It was interesting observing the people that do yoga. More than 75% of the people were women. Lululemon Athletica definitely dominates the market for female athletic apparel. Those tight black yoga pants were everywhere and my friend only didn't wear her Lululemon headband because she was already wearing Lululemon shorts and shirt.

The few guys that were there, besides me, were in their late 30s or early 40s. They looked like dads trying to stay nimble as opposed to yoga masters. There was one younger guy though who was clearly a yoga regular. He wasn't wearing a shirt and had some sort of black speedo-esque shorts on. The spandex wouldn't have been my first choice of shorts, but they seemed to work for him just fine.

The class wasn't super tiring physically, but the heat got to me in the last half hour of the class. I'm really inflexible and some exercises were physically impossible for me, like the "one leg squat wrap the toes of your opposite foot around your leg exercise."

Parts of the Bikram Yoga class were embarrassing because I felt like Johnny was picking on me. I didn't know how to do a lot of exercises and it seemed like whenever Johnny forcefully repeated the instructions they were directed at me. Not to mention the atmosphere of extreme concentration. You'd think that people would want to talk to distract themselves from the difficulty of the "crouching warrior" pose, but talking was frowned upon. So I was left on my own to endure agonizing stretches and the pools of my own sweat on the yoga mat.

Probably the worst two exercises were the "nut crusher" (my personal name for it) and camel pose. The "nut crusher" was a pretty basic exercise; you lie on your back and hug your knees to your chest. Pretty basic, that is, for girls. I don't see how the other guys in the class do it; my friend hypothesized that Johnny had a testicle removed to improve his flexibility. It didn't help that Johnny was telling me to pull my knees harder toward my chest while I was weighing the options of my future offspring versus doing the exercise properly.

What's worse, the "nut crusher" (apanasana) or camel pose?

The camel pose was equally difficult though. It was at the end of the class that Johnny had us go into camel pose. To do camel pose, arch your back as far as you can, looking towards the wall behind you, and cup the heels of your feet with your hands. You aren't allowed to rest your hands on your feet; they are just supposed to touch lightly while you push your hips out as far as possible. The stretch was a huge contradiction to me; how was I supposed to arch backwards while thrusting my hips forward?

Besides my fatigue at the end of class and the impossibility of the stretch was that Johnny decided it was a good time to help me out. He urged me (against my will) to arch back farther and pushed my hips out for me. I'm pretty sure the grunts I made during camel pose sounded like a dying animal.

By the end of the class there was so much sweat on my yoga mat someone could have made it into a slip-n-slide. I realized that the towels weren't for wiping sweat off your face; you're supposed to put them down on the mat to absorb sweat so your feet don't slide around. I did one exercise on my side and it felt like my ear was underwater. When I changed my shirt it was as wet as if I had jumped into a pool.

Just like spin class though, I felt amazing afterward. Bikram Yoga makes you focus in on the task at hand because of the heat and you leave feeling relaxed. Even better was gaining back all those calories by going to Sprout and eating through their whole kitchen.

Spin Class

I'm sure Office fans remember this scene. 

An excerpt of an interview in ESPN the Magazine of NBA basketball player Ron Artest. 


How are you keeping in shape this summer? 


Ron Artest: My secret weapon is spin class. It's crazy. My first time there, I'm like, "What the hell is this? A bunch of girls and old people on bikes? Easy." So I get on the bike, and within 10 minutes I wanted to quit. But I can't when these girls are hardly sweating. Can't quit. So I kept going. When it's over, I've got a pool of sweat under me. I've never done anything so hard in my life.

___

I consider myself to be in really good shape, even for someone my age. I'm kind of a compulsive exerciser and I eat a very healthy diet. I ran a sub 6 min. mile after about a week and a half of running. I only have 3.34% body fat. So yeah, I take a lot of pride in my fitness.

That was why it was so surprising to me when a bunch of middle aged women, people who I normally would scrape in any sort of athletic or fitness test, absolutely put me to shame in a spin class I did this morning.

Even my own Mom was making fun of me in the car ride to school today. My sister and I poke fun at her slow and methodical way of exercising and even she couldn't resist a few jabs.

Dang.

I woke up at 5:20 AM so my mom and I could leave for Vivre by 5:35. We get there and all the clothing racks are chic female workout clothes. I took a peek into the gym part of Vivre and immediately noticed the pale green walls and pink, purple and blue exercise balls. Instant negative points for realizing that this is a chick gym but it boosted my self esteem. This couldn't be so hard could it?

I got set up with a bike in the far corner (all the better situated bikes were "claimed") and people started to file in. I think the first sign I was in for a rough time was when the instructor said I shouldn't feel bad if my butt got too sore or I was too tired and had to get off. But I just popped in my iPod headphones and started to tune people out. I'd just do my thing on the bike , listen to some music and get in a good sweat.

Once the workout started though I had to stop listening to my iPod because I couldn't hear the instructor and she was playing music. They turned off the lights which was cool. It was so early it was still dark out and the only light was a small purple lamp. When I was talking with my nanny later we concluded that this purple light must be what you see when you're dying.

The second ominous sign was when a tiny blonde woman in her mid 40s said that most kids don't last more than one class and that she and the others were "crazy." I wasn't about to let a 5' woman with arms half the size of mine tell me what I could or couldn't do. Are you kidding me? I probably outweighed this little fairy by like 40 pounds. Whatevs.

My legs were motoring to start off the beginning of class and I was feeling good. The instructor kept telling us to ratchet up the resistance and I kept powering through. We did some "climbs" and I got a nice burn going. I glanced over at the guy next to me and saw that I was spinning was faster than him. Sweet, I got this. I was feeling good so when we did the fast intervals, I really pushed myself.

I hit a wall thirty minutes in. The hard thing for me was that I had never cycled before so my body wasn't used to this type of exercise. Also, since I don't cycle I'm not accustomed to biking for more than like 20 minutes. I remember when I was absolutely dying, in an "up and out" extended interval. I looked at the clock and we were halfway done. My thighs were burning, I had a pool of sweat that had dripped onto the floor and about three more of this mini climbs left.

It was so demoralizing seeing that tiny woman in front of me barely sweating. I hunched over in hangdog mode with a scowl on my face, just trying to hang on, and here she was all chipper, pedaling with no hands. And then there was the 70 year old guy in the back, my mom and my friend's mom all doing it too.

There are a few things that make spinning so hard to a beginner like myself. First is that your body just doesn't have the muscles it takes to ride a bike. Even if you're in great shape you still aren't used to this type of exercise. Since you probably on bike when you bike to school or to go over to a friend's house you aren't used to biking for longer than half of an hour.

Reason número dos why spin class is so brutal is the resistance. About every two minutes you turn the knob to make the ride harder. Even when you're climbing and on like your 5th "up and out," the instructor still tells you to turn it up. It never gets easier, its a tough combo when you are getting more and more fatigued and have to keep making it harder.

Third, there's no breaks. This to me is an aspect of spin class that is more difficult than cycling. When you're biking out on the street, or if you're like every parent in the Bay Area, if you're out cycling in Woodside, you probably coast a lot of the time. On flat parts when you're taking a sip of water. When you're descending a mountain. When you're stopped at a light. But in spin class you're pedaling for the entire hour. You're never allowed to stop.

Lastly, the class is just hard. The instructor works you hard and whenever you're out of the saddle it kills your thighs.

But, like any great work out, you feel great afterward. Since I had been up for so long I was completely awake for my morning classes and was just in a good mood in general. Plus, Fraiche is right across the street and I got a large yogurt with three toppings. Mmm.