That's Fit

If stress, tension and anxiety have been bugging you, yoga pro Stacy McCarthy will teach you a quick and simple technique for instant stress relief. Check out more great mini fitness videos at The Active Health Network.

I dusted off my easiest yoga tape late last night and popped it into the VCR. Yes, this tape is old -- the VCR, mind you. I haven't done yoga in four months. No boos from the fit-crowd, I have a legitimate excuse -- I ruptured my achilles tendon on May 3. I'm healing well, but a yoga-less existence made this bod tight, brittle, and sore. Aaaahhh, for 30 minutes I gently stretched, modified positions as necessary, and felt the glory while reaching my arms to the sky in a series of sun salutations.

Too lazy to roll up that purple yoga mat, my kids were greeted with a bright, squishy rectangle this morning. They also spotted the battered yoga tape lying next to the TV. The clutter elicited a positive response -- my three-year-old daughter put in the tape and immediately began gentle spinal twists, sun salutations and a Namaste gesture. She used to be my yoga buddy. She'd missed it, too.

I saw the proof this morning. Modeling fitness to your kids is a promotional strategy. So leave the 3 pound barbells and yoga mat lying around. Invite your kids to occasionally workout with you. Until puberty, they pretty much want to be with you most of the time. By the independent teen years, perhaps they'll go jogging before the party.

I purchase all my yoga tapes through Gaiam, a trusted source serving yogis of all levels, even kids.

Most yogis have a pretty good knowledge of the Sankrit words for their favourite poses. That's because most yoga teachers (a least I've found) use both the original and western names of the poses. It's a good lesson for people like myself who don't know Sanskrit or much about the history of yoga -- now that I've been going regularly, I know that Adho Mukha Svanasana means downward dog, Tadasana means mountain post and Utthita Trikonasana means extended triangle pose.

Fitsugar has together a short tutorial on Sanskrit in yoga ... you probably won't need to worry about memorizing the names of poses unless you're becoming a teacher, but it can't hurt, right?

What's your favourite Asana?

I've heard people say that yoga isn't a very good workout, in the sense that it doesn't burn many calories. My reaction? Pffffftttt ... they obviously haven't tried the yoga class that I go to. It is hard. I've been doing it for a long time and I still feel sore after every single class. I sweat buckets. I often collapse halfway through a plank pose in utter exhaustion. The class moves through poses very quickly and it's hard to keep up at times. And before you disregard my claims by thinking I must be weak or lazy, I can assure you that I am in pretty good shape. But it made me think: Perhaps it's not the best for burning calories, but yoga is challenging at the best of times and it's certainly done wonders for my body.

Power yoga is basically what I described above. It incorporates traditional yoga moves that are higher in intensity and proceed faster than regular, more traditional yoga. Yoga is supposed to be about meditation, but in Power Yoga there's little time to relax because, as I mentioned before, the poses are intense. And while they're held for about 10 breaths or so, there isn't really time to get used to them too much.