The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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A month and a half ago I started a new exercise routine and I've stuck with it longer and better than I ever have before in my life. However, I've noticed that squats cause me lower back pain. I have a pretty pronounced lumbar curve, and at a glance I might have mild lordosis. I tried focusing on making sure my core was tight while squatting and that seemed to improve it, but only slightly. I'm 25, work in retail and use good posture when lifting. Most of my leisure time is spent at a computer. I get 8 hours of sleep a night, usually sleeping on my side or back. I'm 5'7", 137 lbs. My diet is mediocre - I stay away from chips, soda, fried foods, and hydrogenated oils but have a mild protein bar addiction, drink an average of 2 alcoholic drinks a day, and have too many simple carbs. Does the motte have any idea how to fix the back pain, or failing that, any good leg workouts that don't use squats?
Deload, work on your form, build back up. Split squats are a good call for legs while you work on form for the full squat.
Do the full 30 Days of Yoga, it will improve the way you move permanently if you haven't done it before.
As daunting a prospect as that yoga routine looks, it would probably be hugely beneficial. I spent the first 20 years of my life entirely sedentary and I am positive it has resulted in problems that I don't even know the full extent of. Have you tried it? Is it pretty brutal on someone who hasn't done yoga before, or is it manageable?
100% manageable, I did the whole thing during my 2L winter finals. And you don't seem like you have a big ego, about this anyway, so you won't have a problem being open to using offered progressions for how a pose can be done, or drop into child's pose/down dog. It's not necessarily about hitting the hardest progression when you aren't ready for it.
Everybody is different. My wife and i go to hot yoga together multiple times a week right now, and there are poses where she crushes it and I suck, and poses where I crush it and she sucks. Sometimes it's whole categories (I suck at balance poses), sometimes it's physical quirks (she can't do plow due to... nature's Endowments), sometimes it's seemingly random (I can hit a bind in one pose, but not another).
Don't feel bad that you're not hitting the hardest version of the pose, just do what you can and make progress. The 30 day program is good because if you stick with it until the new year you will definitely notice a difference in eg your down dog and tree by the time you finish. And if you ever want to pick it up again or go to a live class you'll be competent.
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