A series of extensions is one aspect the other is that is evolves the mind and marries the two ‚ it's a very complete healthy routine.
It is common knowledge yoga poses increases flexibility but some still question is how does it improve fitness.
YOGA FIT
There are many Yoga styles which can help you get fit and ready for action.
One example is Ashtanga Yoga it's a style which encourages powerful movements and transitions between postures.
It can be conducted as a very efficient cardio workout and isometric body weight bearing exercise.
World famous Madonna‚ practices Ashtanga yoga, she began to practice Ashtanga after the birth of her first daughter. That more than 12 years ago, she has a great figure for a 51 year old.
Boyer Coe (World Pro Grand Prix Champion) asserts about Yoga stretching ‚" It builds bigger, better-quality muscles"
The Noticeable Benefits are:
- Prevents postural problems
- Improves your range of motion.
- Enhances appearance of Muscle
- Lengthens muscles,
- Presents that lean, toned look
- Calms your mind and help you to focus.
The Not So Obvious Benefits are:
- Right after weight lifting it will minimise soreness, allowing for quicker recovery and superior muscle growth. It gets the blood flowing into those muscular areas that necessitate repair.
- It develops core strength
- It stimulates the circulatory, respiratory and neuromuscular systems. ( Heavy weight lifting damages the nervous system you will need to rest, Yoga will help greatly in this recovery).
In a study done at the University of California at Davis in the US, they scrutinized the relationship between yoga and fitness. The researchers examined the muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, and lung function of 10 college students before and after eight weeks of yoga training.
Each week, the students attended four sessions that included
- 10 minutes of pranayama ( breath control),
- 15 minutes of warm-up exercises,
- 50 minutes of asanas ( Yoga Poses),
- 10 minutes of meditation.
- After eight weeks, the students:
- muscular strength had increased by as much as 31 percent,
- muscular endurance by 57 percent,
- flexibility by as much as 188 percent,
- and VO2max by 7 percent
a very respectable increase, given the brevity of the experiment.
MORE PUDDING?
A relevant study done at Ball State University offers Additional evidence for yoga and it's fitness benefits.
This research looked at how 15 weeks of twice-weekly yoga classes impacted the lung capacity of 287 college students. All of the students engaged, including athletes, asthmatics, and smokers, greatly improved lung capacity by the end of the semester.
Jack England, an 81-year-old yoga and stretching instructor at the Club Med in Port Saint Lucie, Florida, says more than 30 years of yoga have kept him flexible, healthy, and strong.
He is the identical weight and height as he was in high school, and his all-star health continues to amaze his doctor.
He delights audiences at Club Med by practicing Shoulderstand and other poses while balancing on a float board in a water ski show. He is an inspiration to people of all ages, he says "I do things that 14-year-old can't do"
Stephanie Griffin, a 33-year-old director of business development for a pharmaceutical research company in San Francisco, discovered yoga after years of running marathons, spinning, and weight lifting.
Before learning yoga, she thought her extreme exercise habits had turned her into a poster child for health and fitness.
During the last four years, however, Griffin began doing more yoga and less running, weight lifting, and aerobics.
As she dropped back on her hardcore fitness pursuits, she worried she might gain weight or lose her muscle tone or exercise capacity.
She didn't, "I have maintained my fitness and even enhanced it through yoga," says Griffin, who no longer has a gym membership "And I like the way my body looks and feels now better than the way it did before,"
WHAT TO DO?
Always stretch after you warm up! Warm muscles extend much easier than cold muscles.
Best case circumstance is to stretch every single day for a minimum of 10-15 minutes.
At the least, 3-4 times per week. A 10-15 minute stretching warmup is preferable.
In addition, recuperation can greatly be accelerated when one stretches 10-15 minutes as a cool down.
Another excellent time to stretch is right before bed. It relaxes the muscles and will help you unwind from the tension of the day and have a good night’s sleep.
So if you are looking to become and stay physically and mentally fit, make sure your yoga exercise includes a balance of poses that build strength, stamina, and flexibility, along with breathwork and meditation to help develop body awareness.
In particular, include a series of standing poses in your practice. As your practice expands, add more challenging asanas such as balancing poses and inversions.
If you happen to be just doing 15 minutes of gentle yoga stretches three to four times a week, you will also need to do some other form of exercise to stay fit. You will need to do something in addition to yoga for a while until they can practice more dynamically.
Have fun what ever you do!
But the ideal form of exercise is anything you enjoy most and will keep on to do on a regular almost daily basis.
Yoga has a lot of benefits, so do yoga regularly and enjoy it.
Beyond fitness, yoga also offers many other gifts. It boosts your health, reduces stress, improves sleep, and often acts like a powerful therapy to help restore relationships, improve your career, and advance your overall outlook on life.
Further reading on everything about Yoga from the basic and advance poses, meditation, philosophy and history click here!
I run a holistic fitness blog called ZEN MY FITNESS. It's where we combine Zen, Bodybuilding, Yoga and nutrition to provide a new level of performance.
Please fee free to visit for free downloadable workouts and nutrition. I would to read your comments if you wish to leave any. Thanks.
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