Good morning! If you’re here for my weekly “Wednesday Workout” post- sorry! Changing things up a bit this week. With good reason, though: I’m embracing another week of yoga at Corepower yoga. I’ve had another free week to use before the end of January and seeing how the next couple of weeks are really busy with lots of teaching, I figured this was the perfect week to take a step back and focus on a gentler way to workout.

While yoga can be a challenging workout, it can also be taken down a notch and made into more of a restorative flow so it’s a great recovery type of activity… one I’m actively trying to do more of this year.  With all the stress of wedding planning, teaching, etc., it’s so important for me to take time to take a step back and give my mind and body a little TLC, which is where yoga comes in.

So I guess that’s a long way of telling you that I don’t have a workout for you today because I haven’t done any sort of workout besides yoga since last Thursday, if you can believe it! I have to admit, so far I have totally enjoyed this break from my traditional workout schedule. I’ve always been a big fan of group exercise and class environments so the fact that all I have to do for yoga is change into my workout clothes and show up is awesome. No planning out a workout. No planning out a playlist. Just showing up. Which is sometimes the hardest part about working out, right?

The last time I did a week of yoga I shared some things that I learned throughout the classes I took. While some of those still reign true this time, one thing I noticed was that it was much easier to get back in the yoga groove since it hadn’t been as long between classes. Muscle memory continues to amaze me- we can go days, weeks or months without doing something and then when we get back into that thing, although it may not feel as good or easy as it did while you were frequently doing it, our bodies remember what to do. It’s pretty freaking awesome, if you ask me!

Even though I am ready to get back to lifting heavy weights and sweating not just because it’s 100+ degrees in the room, it’s been a welcomed week of lower intensity movement that both my mind and body really needed. It was also a nice reminder that it’s good to give ourselves a break every so often- whether it’s a break from working out or going out or working extra or whatever else you may have on your schedule that might be hard on your mind or body- sometimes we just need to slow the effff down and breathe. To shut down our thoughts or our to-do lists or work related tasks. To just be still and let our minds focus on breathing in and breathing out. It’s amazing how rejuvenating a simple act of breathing and slowing down can be for me!

Questions for you- When’s the last time you took a break from a normal activity in your life? Does the break happen easily or do you struggle with straying from your norm at the beginning? Have you done any workouts worth sharing with me for when I head back to the gym?