Quote Originally Posted by kimikaw View Post
Absolutely agree. I'm a huge proponent of yoga, as an important piece of anyone's fitness routine. The core and balance work is great for MTB, and the flexibility work (esp. hip opening) is very helpful for cyclists. But the piece often overlooked, and I think perhaps most important is how a regular yoga practice (esp. with a well trained instructor guiding/correcting your poses) is the increased mind/body awareness. I think this is a big part of my improvement on the trails. Just the sense of where my body is relative to the bike, and an increasingly unconscious ability to make minor adjustments. Believe me, I know I still have tons to learn, and plenty of room to improve - but at same time have made giant jumps in what I can do - and in my confidence in trying Heck, I even was going over little dirt jumps over the weekend. Not getting very airborn, but trying.

The winter before last in addition to my normal yoga practice, I took a couple of series of classes that were either bike/yoga or bike/strength training. Indoors on compu-trainers with a local tri-athlon instructor. First 45 minutes was on trainer, last 45 minutes either yoga or a circuit training session - both designed towards a cyclist. Hope to do same this winter.

(and do you like reformer work? Never have tried that...have done mat classes)
You are preaching to the choir when it comes to the mind/body awareness that yoga brings! I'm really happy to hear that my yoga practice could prove helpful on the trail. I'll take all the help I can get!

The reformer is hard. Really hard. I've only taken a few duet sessions, but I am amazed at how difficult some of it is. It is very, very good at isolating muscles. For me, that is significant to the extent I've developed some muscle imbalances over the years. It's very easy to compensate with other muscles, but the reformer will flush that out pretty quickly. It also takes a ton of concentration, which I really like. My mind will wander too easily otherwise. That's one of the reasons I like yoga, too. It requires you to be present. I get a whole lot of stress release out of things that require me to leave the rest of my life at the door.

I gotta say that, so far, I am SO jazzed about mountain biking. I really hope my husband remains ready and willing to go to BCSP frequently while I get my feet wet. He got away from MTBing himself for a few years because he just got tired of always having to drive to the trails. I understand where he's coming from, but I've been less than enthusiastic about road riding since moving from Indy in late 2009 (I miss riding with my friends, and we're just far enough away now that it's somewhat inconvenient to meet up with them on a regular basis), and MTBing is helping me get my groove back. Granted, I could go out there by myself, but (a) I like spending time with him and (b) I'm not quite ready to be out there without him.

Let me know when you're in town next. If you'd like to take a duet reformer session with me at my downtown studio, I could set that up.