Can yoga replace weight training? Most people's mental image of strength training is of weight training, in which the muscles are repeatedly contracted against a fixed amount of weight. If you've ever experienced muscle soreness following a particularly challenging yoga session, you may have wondered whether or not yoga can be considered a form of strength training.
Strength training is the best way to prevent bone loss, according to many medical professionals, and experts recommend doing it at least twice a week to keep your metabolism in top shape.
Many of us picture ourselves as eternally chained to our gym's weight machines, dumbbells, and resistance cords when we hear this. So, instead, how about you try some yoga?
DOES YOGA REALLY HELP YOU BUILD MUSCLE?
Rodney Yee, a renowned yoga expert, says, "Don't you lift weights?" "Inside my head, I'm kind of giggling and saying, 'Yes, I lift my own body weight!'"
To paraphrase what Yee says, "You're putting your body in positions and orientations that you ultimately have to support with your muscles" when you do yoga poses. So, you've taken up weightlifting.
Yee, like many yogis, isn't particularly interested in talking about the physical benefits of the practise. They don't want their students worrying too much about how they look and more about yoga as a way of thinking, feeling, and being.
Even so, Yee and his wife, Colleen Saidman, have such toned arms that you can't help but wish you were having yoga poses for breakfast with them.
The upshot is that yoga has the potential to boost both muscle tone and definition as well as overall muscle size. It may require more skill, time, and perseverance than lifting weights because you can only "lift" your own body weight.
According to Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, "Yoga can be just as effective as weights in building a stronger, more impressive physique." Yoga may be sufficient as a strength training method, but experts agree that this will depend on the individual.
For mass gain, nothing beats lifting weights.
DiNubile recommends weight training if your goal is solely to increase muscle mass. In fact, "exercising with progressively heavier resistance for the purpose of strengthening the musculoskeletal system" is how the American Council on Exercise describes strength training.
Though the phrase "progressively heavier resistance" stands out here. Basically, you need to overwork your muscles and bones if you want them to keep growing. Traditional weight training requires you to increase the weight you lift as your muscles adapt to the resistance and become stronger.
You can theoretically keep adding weight to your routine and increase your muscle mass and strength indefinitely.
YOGA PROVIDES A MORE BALANCED APPROACH
The practise of yoga offers a more well-rounded approach to strength training for a number of reasons:
You can condition your body to walk, sit, twist, bend, and lift groceries with less risk of injury if you practise yoga regularly. Yoga is a form of functional fitness because it involves movements that the body was meant to make. In yoga, for instance, you don't just work your biceps in a forward-back motion on a flat plane like you would with a bicep curl; you also work your abdominals, back, and other muscles in a variety of ways (twisting, arcing, etc.).
The stretching and strengthening exercises of yoga work the muscles of the entire body together in harmony. Most weight-lifting routines focus on isolating and flexing a specific muscle or set of muscles.
To achieve that lean, elongated look and boost mobility in the muscles and joints, yoga uses eccentric contraction, a process in which the muscle stretches while contracting. In contrast, the physical principle behind weight training is concentric muscle contraction, in which the muscle shrinks as it contracts. If you don't stretch regularly, your muscles will heal in a compact, bulgy ball.
As you hold each pose for longer and more times during your yoga practise, you build muscle endurance.
DO BOTH OR EITHER FOR GOOD GENERAL FITNESS
We recommend that clients who aren't interested in bodybuilding but still want to exercise regularly do a combination of body-weight and resistance-based routines. Extensive research shows that the more you switch up your workouts, the quicker you'll start to see results.
Keep in mind that traditional callisthenics like pushups, squats, and other similar exercises count as body-weight exercises as well.
We always tell our clients to mix up their exercise routine and try new things, even though the most important thing is to find something they enjoy doing and can see themselves sticking with for the rest of their lives. You'll develop as a fitness enthusiast and as a person if you incorporate a wide range of exercises into your routine.
Which yoga positions help build strength the most?
Yee explains that different yoga postures have different effects on muscle tone.
He says, "Challenging arm balances and inversion poses are very effective for building muscle strength because they flex groups of smaller muscles — not just the major muscles you work with a weight machine, to support the body's weight during the pose."
"Standing poses like the Warrior Poses and the Triangle Pose are great for strengthening the leg muscles," he says. And because your entire weight is on one leg in balance poses like Tree Pose, you're strengthening that leg just by bearing your weight on it.
Holding poses for longer, performing more repetitions, and learning new yoga poses are all ways to increase or decrease the difficulty of your yoga practise, just as they are with traditional bodyweight exercises like squats and lunges. If you want "cut" arms quickly, don't jump to advanced yoga videos and poses like arm balances. Get your feet wet with some beginner yoga at a studio or at home with a DVD.
WHICH TYPES OF YOGA ARE BEST FOR STRENGTH BUILDING?
You can't generalise from one yoga class to the rest of the practise. Think of yoga as an umbrella term, like "sports," because there are hundreds of sub-disciplines within it that are incredibly diverse.
Hatha, Yin, and Restorative yoga, on the other hand, are gentler forms that emphasise introspection, restoration, and passive stretches to increase mobility. On the other hand, Ashtanga, Dynamic Yoga, and Vinyasa Flow all focus on muscle development through the use of body weight, repetitions, and prolonged holds.
Think about these options if you want to get stronger:
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Ashtanga
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Dynamic Yoga
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Vinyasa Flow
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Rocket Yoga
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Power Yoga
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Acroyoga
IS YOGA AN ALTERNATIVE TO LIFTING WEIGHTS?
Bodyweight training, balancing, and core exercises all help build strength and stability. By incorporating a wide range of motions such as backbends, twists, and forward folds, they condition the whole body rather than just specific muscle groups.
Therefore, yoga may be a more practical alternative to weight training. The variety of exercises helps reduce the likelihood of injury while performing common activities like tying shoelaces and lifting car seats.
Yoga, of course, is not a beauty contest. Yet, because of the emphasis placed on eccentric contraction by the various exercises, with consistent practise, toned, elongated muscles can be achieved (muscles stretch as they contract).
The concentric contraction used in weight training (in which the muscle gets smaller as it contracts) causes the muscle fibres to heal closer together, producing a more rounded and compact appearance after weight training.
Your training plan's end goal is to be fun. Although yoga can be used in place of conventional weight training, many people find that they benefit more from doing both.