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There’s a reason I don’t believe in running streaks. As in, committing to putting on my running shoes and heading out every single day for a certain number of days or months regardless of what it takes to keep the streak going. It just isn’t right for me and my body. A streak means ignoring aches, pains, or even cravings for different physical movements or, at times, no movement at all. I credit listening to my body and carefully heeding what it’s telling me for my longevity in terms of being able to run, practice power yoga, and engage in multiple other athletic endeavors for literally decades.
Perhaps irrationally, I thought a power yoga streak, or, challenge would be different. It’s yoga, after all. Balance. Breathing. Core strengthening. Finding stability in my joints. I figured doing 20 minutes on top of whatever else I’d done that day—running, snowboarding, swimming, Nordic skiing—via an app on my phone would make me stronger and maybe even better at all of it.
Also, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to envisioning a more ripped version of myself. A stronger version, inwardly and outwardly. A more balanced version, both in my body and how I spend each waking moment of my days. Or maybe I was just buying into those Instagram ads targeted at women of a certain age.
Anyways, I decided to switch things up.
What Happened When I Practiced Power Yoga Every Day
Days 1-10: Digging It
For the past 25 years, I’ve intermittently practiced all styles of yoga, and for the past five years, I’ve practiced a 60-minute power yoga class every week or so. So I landed on power yoga for my challenge. I have hypermobile joints, so I figured the focus on strengthening might help keep me from overstretching.
I’d never been concerned with which day of the week I unrolled my mat. Instead, I’d listened to my body and practiced yoga when it felt needed. A Monday after a big weekend of running. A Thursday when I wanted to slow down and focus on stretching and strengthening. A Sunday evening when I needed some quiet mental space.
But here I was, committed to 20 minutes a day, no matter what.
On days one though seven, I felt like a badass. On Day five, I outlasted my husband and teenage sons while snowboarding deep powder in Steamboat, Colorado. In fact, I had to beg my 16-year-old to head back out with me after lunch. Riding in powder basically requires a one-legged squat, and I single-legged Utkatasana’d the shit out of those powder runs.
Shortly after the lifts closed, I hit the gym with my phone and headphones and cranked out 20 minutes of power yoga. The twisting and balancing of my muscles felt great. The additional strengthening—and working though my fatigue—after a long day of activity was empowering. The soreness in new places made me feel like I was doing good in my body. And sticking to the commitment—and all the yoga-ness—did the same for my mind.
Snowboarding and yoga felt complementary to one another. Swimming and yoga, not so much. When I got in the pool a couple days afterward, I felt like I was in someone else’s body. My shoulders and lats were so tight, I couldn’t extend into my stroke like usual. And I definitely couldn’t glide.
I fought my way through a slow 1600 yards in the pool and then practiced 20-minutes of core yoga that evening, all the time thinking about all the damned Chataranga Dandasanas I’d been doing. As I begrudgingly did another Chaturanga and recalled my clunky swim stroke from earlier in the day, I told myself, “It’s okay. I’m stronger. I’m tighter in a good way.”
Days 10-15: Feeling Invincible…At First
I may do a shit ton of various outdoor activities, but I’m a runner at my core. Though I’d been sidelined from putting in as many miles as usual due to being sick (which somewhat inspired the challenge), I was surprised at my stamina when I headed out for a slow run with my dog and then, the next day, went out for four miles with a friend. We weren’t breaking any records, but I felt more cardiovascularly capable than I’d anticipated.
After both runs, I did my 20 minutes of yoga. I felt invincible.
The next day, I decided to join another friend for a run that climbs roughly 1,000 feet in one mile against my better judgement—I rarely run three days in a row. She’s faster and fitter than me and I’ve been chasing her up mountains for 20 years. Since we usually talk nonstop, I had to keep up. Toward the end of the run, I felt a sharp twinge in my calf.
That evening, I told myself Downward Dog would be a useful calf stretch and settled into my 20 minutes. I needed to adjust some poses by bending my knees and moving extra carefully, and kept paying attention to my calf. I started to notice my hamstrings feeling more stretched out than maybe ever before, a good thing for most, but not me. I filed that away in my brain and continued with my challenge.
In the meantime, I became somewhat obsessed with a new pose: Side Crow. I’d been dialing up various 20-minute power yoga options from my app, based on what I felt like (I didn’t entirely abandon listening to my body), so one night I found myself doing a class focused on arm balances. I had zero experience doing Side Crow, but was able to get some hang time and felt my upper abdominals fire up. I loved it.
I found another session a few days later that let me play in that pose again. Turns out my commitment gave me a small gift—a pose I wouldn’t have found otherwise.
By Day 15, despite focusing on newfound poses and a stronger core and stabilizing muscles, I started noticing flexibility in places I hadn’t had it before. My forward folds felt bendier (high hamstrings, behind my knees) as did my Upward-Facing Dogs (low back). My twists were twistier. I started to worry. I’m naturally bendy and have learned that tension in my body is good for me. Too much pull on my joints tends to throw me out of alignment, most often in my hips. The stretchiness made me feel vulnerable. I felt less durable than I had been in a while.
Days 15-20: Rethinking Things
Winter in Colorado, for beach volleyball players, means gathering with friends in a warehouse filled with sand. I hadn’t played in months and the niggle in my calf had gone away by the time I showed up at the volleyball gym.
Serving the ball still hurt due to a loose shoulder I was working on strengthening, but all other movements—even flailing across the court to dive for a ball in the sand—felt good. My mobility was there. My quickness was, too. It seemed the consistent yoga had kept all of my parts needed for volleyball—side body, muscles in my feet—engaged.
That night, exhausted from volleyball, I chose a restorative yoga session. I was pleased to find that I wasn’t all that sore the next day.
But a couple days later, my right knee began to ache. I was still able to run, lift, and do my 20-minute sessions, but I started to wonder what I needed to adjust. The pain felt similar to what I’d experienced with a torn lateral collateral ligament (LCL) and hyperextension on that same knee years prior. It had healed with a PRP injection, strength training, and time.
Was it the Warrior 2s that were aggravating my knee? Was it something in my hip, a tight gluteus medius perhaps, pulling my knee out of alignment? Or were my hips out of whack and my knee the victim? Do I need more yoga? Or do I need less?
Skate skiing in my local park on Day 20 of my yoga streak gave me my answer. As I glided around the park, my body coiling, then releasing and gliding, coiling and then gliding, it hit me: My body needs to coil more than it needs to glide. My hypermobility calls for strengthening and tension as glue. Too much glide, too much stretch, pulls at the glue. I realized that night, as I struggled to find comfort in my knee in Child’s Pose, the most comforting of all poses for many, that I needed to stop my streak.
On Day 21, I decommitted. I learned what I already knew—streaks are bad for me. Adjusting each day for what I’m craving, both in mind and body, is good.
I’m back to listening.
So You Want to Practice Power Yoga?
There’s a style of yoga for everything, and power yoga tends to emphasize cardio as well as strengthening and stretching.
What makes it yoga isn’t the shape of the pose but the awareness to your body, your mind, and your breath
as you make the shapes. Here are some practices that support all of the above.
15-Minute Power Yoga to Help You Wake Up
20-Minute Power Yoga Practice
30-Minute Power Yoga for a Full-Body Flow
30-Minute Feel-Good-Yoga for When Simply Want to Move
