Strength building is important and most people think of those weight machines or lifting barbells or dumbbells. They don’t normally think of building strength with yoga. You do lift when you’re doing yoga, but you’re not lifting metal weights, you’re lifting your own body weight. Holding positions requires strong muscles.
Yoga isn’t for sissies.
Yoga may look easy, but once you try it you’ll change your mind. There are a lot of different types of yoga, which may vary from Hatha yoga and chair yoga for seniors to power, Vinyasa or other strength building yoga. While it might not seem like moving slowly and exercising without lifting actual weights may seem like a breeze, it’s absolutely not!! It builds muscle tissue, but not big bulky muscles. For that, you need to add more weight.
Yoga builds flexibility as it builds strength.
If you want to reduce the potential for injury, while building your strength and muscle tissue, yoga is perfect. It helps build your body and conditions it for daily types of movements. You’ll be improving your overall flexibility as you build strength, which won’t necessarily happen when you build by lifting weights. It provides a type of functional fitness training, moving your muscles in many different plains as it works it. It has built in flexibility training that extends the range of motion to prevent injury.
Try to hold a pose. It’s tough.
If you want to work on endurance, while boosting strength and flexibility, hold a yoga pose for a while longer each time. It won’t take long before you’ll be ready for a rest if you aren’t used to the workout. To make it even more difficult, you don’t just hold that pose once, but often several times throughout each session. There are a variety of different types of poses that build each muscle group in different ways. Many work multiple muscle groups at once, making them extremely effective in overall fitness.
- The difference in the type of muscles built by yoga and weights comes from how the muscles contract. In yoga, it stretches while it contracts, developing sleek, sinewy muscles. When lifting weights, it gets smaller as it contracts, providing the bulky look.
- Since yoga is good for building muscle, while also promoting muscle coordination, flexibility and endurance, it’s a good compliment to lifting weights and other strength building exercises.
- If you’re a boxer, you’ll benefit from the balance and coordination that yoga brings to your workout, as well as the strength building. People who don’t box can benefit from those attributes as well.
- Our gym offers many options for healthy workouts from boxing to yoga that can help you boost your energy, build your strength and improve your overall appearance and confidence. Our introductory offer even includes nutritional advice.
Want to Learn More?
If you want more information about yoga, contact me here today.