BikHead

I’ve been practicing regularly – 4 to 6 times per week – for 2.5 months. I can totally relate to ALL of the symptoms mentioned by BY09, including the inability to improve at the postures in spite of maintaining a very regular practice.

My thoughts…

First – I’m going to definitely look into the electrolyte pills. Seems like it can’t hurt and it makes a lot of sense. Normally, I take a multivitamin 2 hrs prior to class, but some runners I know swear by those electrolyte pills.

Second – Find the coolest area of the studio to workout and make sure they are doing something about the temperature/humidity. In my studio there are two late afternoon classes. If I attend the second class, the size of the class combined with the residual humidity from the prior class, makes the experience much more difficult to bear and the sweating is ridiculous. In those circumstances, I feel like I am just flopping around from pose to pose, incapable of pushing my limits on account of the inability to respirate and breathe properly. I actually weigh my wet towels after class once in a while and the amount of water I lose on these occasions is always more than 64 ounces, usually closer to 80 – that’s 5 lbs! When the conditions are closer to what they should be (105F and 40%), my ability to perform in class increases significantly.

Third – I’ve recently decided that 5+ times per week may not be very effective at allowing me to improve my practice. I am going to try to limit to a fairly strict every other day schedule. This is a big change for me – I used to accept the notion that a regular, almost daily practice, was best – that the proper approach was to always control breathing as a primary concern even if it meant you were not able to do much that day. That approach has not been helpful to me. I think going less frequently, giving yourself the extra recovery time – allows me to push more on the poses.

All that said, I’d like to reiterate BY09’s request to get advice from people who have experienced his symptoms and have been practicing longer than we have – say longer than a year. My guess is that this problem is unlikely to go away for people who have them, but it would be great if I were wrong about this.

There is a calculator for figuring out Bikram calories burned below. I’m skeptical of the results – It calculates that I would burn 1660 calories during a 90 minute bikram yoga session. Since I’m not always able to do all of the poses and I can’t even attempt standing head to knee or toe stand, I’m sure my actual calories burned is lower, but I really can’t even guess how much lower.

Link to calorie counter at the bottom of this forum topic

According to Bikram’s site, it’s 105F and 40% humidity which corresponds to a heat index of 121F.

Heat Index Calculator

I am restarting after taking a few hot yoga classes 5 years ago and I was interested in this thread because I want to be motivated to stick with a regular practice. I have to say, after reading the full thread; I really question the benefits of not taking a day or two off every week. It has been posted often – by Gabrielle and others – that even the original concept of the challenge was based on taking some time off.

I know this form of activity is not completely analogous to the resistance training workout many people are familiar with, but the fact is you do contract muscles during many of the poses and you are expected to hold this contraction for 30-60 seconds. This does damage to your muscles that only time can repair. I am not as familiar with the “damage” done when stretching a muscle, but it makes sense the some recovery time is necessary. Often one day might be enough, but not every single day.

I’m a newbie so I could be very wrong about this. I’d really like to know the value people get – physically or mentally – from practicing 7 days a week. Part of my problem may be that at 5’11” and 245 lbs, the routine is so taxing on me physically that it probably takes more out of me than others.