Fitness Yoga

• Increase strength
• Extend cardiovascular capabilities
• Improve the body’s core

Why Fitness Yoga?

New trends in fitness and yoga are focusing on total body fitness. The benefits of a consistent yoga practice alone are extensive. However, as busy lifestyles force people to choose carefully what falls into the exercise timeslot, there is a greater request for body motion activities to produce more results in health.

Additionally, many athletes are looking for a way to expand their range of motion from their usual sport without sacrificing a quality workout.

Incorporating outside resistance training into yoga is, by most accounts, the best way to build up from an existing foundation of using your own weight as resistance. The centering and meditative qualities of yoga are still a part of fitness yoga as well, but not the main pursuit.

However, many exercisers, particularly the power athletes, state that those elements are still very much present in a fitness yoga routine, especially when compared to the other sports in which they participate. Many also claim to feel very rejuvenated after performing fitness yoga, instead of worn out.

Nevertheless, many established yogis frown on forcing yoga to become a spandex/legwarmer type of exercise. They caution that if yoga practitioners are always aiming for the proverbial destination, they’ll miss the very important journey of the mind/body/spirit connection yoga provides.

Getting Started

Fitness yoga practitioners use outside resistance tools such as body bars, hand weights and straps. The flow routines are designed to allow individuals to deepen into poses longer and move more quickly from one asana to another. Yogis may also focus more on working from the body’s core, similar to Pilates.

Performing this type of sequence elongates both major and minor muscles groups, providing a greater band of total muscle development. Some yoga classes claim to isolate and improve a particular body part, but that type of muscle formation often only happens after the whole body has been developed to a fine point of fitness. As with most things, strive for balance.

Choosing the right resistance tools is key to any fitness yoga practice. Most practitioners at the beginning or intermediate levels of yoga in general start with two- or five-pound dumbbell and ankle weights, holding them during normal asanas. Remember, there is already some body resistance already. The point is not to power weight-lift.

Many advanced yoga postures involve headstands, handstands and arm-balancing poses. However, for beginners and intermediates, it’s the lower body that gets the most workout. Using light weights in a fitness yoga routine helps build upper-body strength.

Find a Class or DVD

• One of the leaders in fitness yoga instructor training is YogaFit. You can search their Web site by state to find a certified yoga teacher near you.
• Instructor Wai Lana, whose yoga program is on many PBS stations in the United States, has a series of fitness yoga DVDs called Hello Fitness Yoga.
• The Iron Yoga DVD workout is led by Ironman triathlete Anthony Carillo. As an endurance athlete, he needed yoga to help him recover and re-energize. He followed many other instructors, including Rodney Yee and Baron Baptiste, before developing this challenging 54-minute yoga series.
• Cross-training athletes with yoga flexibility and strength is also the thought behind the DVD Yoga for Endurance Athletes, developed by triathlete coach and swimmer Steve Tarpinian and yoga instructor Mary Angela. This fitness yoga DVD takes into account the athleticism of the viewer and provides an alternative to improve range of motion. Only 30 minutes long, it can easily be done many times throughout the week, without props.
• Yoga for Athletes targets 16 sports with 12 specialized yoga routines to help reduce injury and improve flexibility in that sport-specific area. Barbara Benagh, a yoga teacher and road cyclist, provides guided voice instruction on this DVD for the 12 routines ranging in time from 20 minutes to one hour.

Conclusion

Fitness yoga may be just what you need to amp up your current yoga practice. As with all forms of exercise, check with your health practitioner before starting any new routine.