The Hangover and the Eagle

Yoga!

My least favorite aspect of aging by far is the way that my body now responds to hard workouts the day after.  I woke up this morning with blinding pain in my right eye, caused in an immediate sense by sinus pressure from the shit air-quality that we tend to get locally on peak electric load days as well as by a nasty knot in my neck.  It took me a minute to get myself going, and even after a couple of Advil, I still didn't start to feel better until Sally, my amazingly awesome wife, rubbed my neck to get that knot to calm down.  I then realized that the knot in my neck had been caused by another knot down in my upper back, which had pulled on the muscles in my neck overnight and triggered everything else.

How do you get a nasty knot in your upper back?

Sprint butterfly, followed by reverse flys supersetted with upright rows.  Argh.  

This is why I hate getting older.  It's also why it pays to be an athlete and to have a bit of working knowledge of both anatomy and yoga.  Granted, I am a mere shadow of my former self, but I at least know enough to know that the stretch/pose you're looking for in this case is the Eagle.

Nevermind all the crap she's talking about with the Chair pose and the quad work/balance pose aspect to this.  The point of the upper half of this pose is to pull the shoulder blades apart, stretching the muscles of the upper back.  It's the best stretch I know for loosening muscles that are otherwise very difficult to manipulate.

I went from the Eagle to the Front Fold and then the Twist--that's the Half Lord of Fishes for those who prefer the fancy names--which I always twin with the Eagle Spinal Twist to keep my knees from locking up with IT band pain.  Twenty minutes later, I feel enough like myself to write about this before I start working on breakfast for the kids.

Question: How do non-athletes survive?

If I didn't know all this crap, I'd be face-down in misery right now.  Seriously, getting older is hard enough, but the amount of time and energy I spend trying to keep myself feeling basically good has become a serious commitment.  I know that most people don't do serious commitment, so...  

What do they do when they wake up feeling like garbage?

Take care of your bodies, folks.  Otherwise, I think you're making life harder than it has to be.