I Hate Yoga

I really hate yoga.... but dont stop reading there...

I don't hate yoga because I am a man and I like to hate things that seem feminine. That is not it at all. I actually hate yoga for a completely sensible reason.

Around the new year everyone is having some sort of sale on anything that stores think they can get people to buy. History tells us that the most widespread new years resolution is that people want to work out more. They want to get skinnier or join a gym or some crap like that.

Under normal circumstances I just judge those types of people for being insecure and move on, but this year was a bit different. My friends and I are planning to hunt hogs this year and I was told that it is some grueling work. I am not old, and I was active at one point in my life, but I have gotten a bit fat after marriage so I decided to make an effort to work out, so that when I go hog hunting it is I who is hunting the hogs, and not the hogs hunting me...

So I looked around and found that Amazon had a deal on the P90X thing. I would like to assume that everyone knows what that is, but just in case, P90X is an extreme home workout. they provide a bunch of different DVDs and you watch them and follow along. It is basically guaranteed to give you a heart attack the moment you touch the box, no matter what fitness level you are at...My wife and I, of course, are only into one kind of fitness... fitness food in our mouths... so we were pretty sure we were going to die immediately, and we did...

Anyhow, to the point of my story... One of the videos is yoga. This is my least favorite video that we have done so far for a few different reasons... The first, is because I cant seriously tell my friends I am doing yoga without getting some weird looks... but that is the least of my worries... the real reason I hate yoga is because it is hard... especially when you are fat...

This is the longest video of all of the ones we have seen so far at an hour and a half. most workouts are 45 minutes to an hour with the ab rippers being a super intense 15 minute workout...

When I was 18, I could do 30 pushups without a second thought, and could probably pump out 50 good ones before my form became crap. I was a basketball player and a pole vaulter in high school. I was 5'9" and no matter how much I ate, I could not get over 135 lbs. since then, I got married and have gained 90-100lbs, putting me in around 225 depending on what day I weighed myself.

My muscles, joints, and tendons are not used to having an extra 100lbs to push around actively. When you add in the crazy positions they put you in, and how long you have to hold those poses... There is no way I can continue to do that...

They make us do a position called the twisting triangle pose... basically you do warrior 2 and then straighten your front leg, put your back hand on the floor next to your front foot and put your other hand up in the air... My belly rolls literally act like a wedge and I cannot squish them enough to get around far enough to do this position correctly...

Then they do things like the plow, which sounds like it would be an awesome sex position, but it is, again, impossible to do when you are fat. you basically do a shoulder stand, except instead of your feet going straight in the air, you continue to drop them behind you... They make it look so easy in the video that they can just bend their knees and straighten their arms... they have to be contortionists or something...

slightly less difficult, but still just as annoying is the balance poses... As I mentioned, I have gotten a bit fat... It is really hard to keep this much mass centered over one foot for very long, and when you ask me to get into a superman sort of pose as well... I get a bit wobbly... I also never realized how much muscle it takes to keep balanced... the arches on my fee really really hurt...

anyhow! TL:DR summary... Yoga is a fantastic way to exercise... If you are skinny already! I dont care if you are a man, woman, both, or neither, yoga is fricking tough!