Boost Your Weight Loss Efforts With Yoga
Well known for its ability to bring down your stress levels, promote flexibility and build and tone lean muscle, yoga is less known for its equally powerful ability to speed up weight loss. So you might be surprised to learn that it can actually help you burn calories.
Yoga is not though of as a particularly active form of exercise. While it conditions and tones your muscles, you’re not likely to work up a sweat during a yoga session. The muscle toning effects of yoga do let you burn off calories better, however. This means that a regimen of aerobic exercise in tandem with yoga will produce better results than if you were not doing yoga alongside of aerobic exercise.
An important component of yoga is discipline of mind and body, which will help you stay committed to your exercise program and healthy eating habits. Yoga reinforces the link between your body and your mind, increasing your desire to look after your body. Lack of motivation is a frequent problem among those who want to lose weight, so this is a very important benefit.
If you plan on using yoga by itself to help you drop some pounds, there are some new variations on the traditional practice of yoga that might be quite helpful. These forms of yoga can give you the traditional benefits of yoga along with a cardiovascular workout at the same time. Here’s a look at some of them.
Vinyasa – This type of yoga is based on movement from one pose, or asana, to another while practicing yoga breathing techniques. Sun Salutations are frequently used, but other poses are included as well. Vinyasa yoga is often practiced in a heated room to encourage sweating.
Ashtanga – This is an intricate approach to yoga, integrating six series of individual asanas. They increase in complexity as you progress, so you must perform them in order, improving your skill as you go.
Power yoga – This modern adaptation of yoga mixes active, high-speed actions with yogic breathing. It offers more of the heart-healthy benefits of aerobic exercise than the usual kinds of yoga.
While they may not give you as much of a workout as aerobics, these non-traditional styles of yoga combine weight loss and cardiovascular benefits with the muscle building and flexibility training of yoga. And they’re great for people who are too busy for more than one workout routine in their schedule.
Other than both being forms of exercise, yoga and aerobics seem to have little in common. However, yoga can enhance the benefits seen from aerobics and other cardio workouts and these alternate styles of yoga can combine the benefits of the two. If other workout routines have left you disappointed, adding or switching to yoga might be the answer you’re looking for
Tags: Exercise for Weight Loss