Yoga Versus "Exercise"

Is Yoga just another form of exercise?  Do I need to run or bike or do Pilates in addition to yoga?  These are good questions and I don't blame people for wondering about yoga and its health benefits as compared to other types of exercise.  

It's not a cut and dry issue. There are different types of bodies, temperaments, and yoga.  Generally, most people exercise for one reason--to lose weight.  Whether yoga helps with weight loss depends on the type of yoga.  A Vinyasa yoga or power yoga is going to burn more calories than a gentle level class.  However, based on studies, those that did restorative yoga (a really gently level yoga), actually lost weight.     

Exercise is important. It can help us live longer, lower our risk for heart disease, reduce the risk of diabetes, help with depression and anxiety and make us feel an overall sense of well-being.  Our ancestors didn't really have what we call "exercise", they called it living.  I'm guessing their days looked very different from ours.  With our sedentary lifestyles most of us need to carve out time for purposeful movement and to mimic the "hard days work" our fore bearers might have put in on any given day.

Here's where I see yoga differs from other types of exercises:

Yoga addresses the entire body.  Unlike biking, running, skiing and surfing, which use particular major muscles, yoga does it all.  We play with our toes, activate our pelvic floors, and stand on our heads.  Try to do that on the golf course!

We bear our own weight without barbells, weights, machines, pulleys, or tires.  This goes a long way to keeping us safe.  But, that's not to say yoga is easy. Using our own weight may mean balancing the weight of your body (let's say 160 pounds) on one hand and a sliver of the foot.  Try that with a 160 pound weight at Gold's.

Yogis breathe through our nose, even in the most strenuous vinyasa class. There are lots of ways to build cardiovascular health.  Mainly it's getting your heart rate up and keeping it up.  Like the muscle it is, the heart it gets stronger with some stress.  Certain types of yoga will increase your heart rate, like thirty minutes of sun salutations.  Actually, by maintaining a closed mouth as you increase your intensity, the body learns to deal with more CO2 and over the long run and according to Dr. Roy Sugarman(1) creates a more calming effect.  Yahoo!

It's no secret that there's a lot of stretching in yoga classes.  In fact, it's the main excuse why people do NOT do yoga--I'm too stiff!  Yoga has gotten the reputation that you must put your foot behind your head to be any good at it.  Stretching is important.  Stretching reduces muscle tension which helps increase range of motion in the joints, it helps with muscular coordination and it increases circulation to various parts of the body. In yoga we stretch muscles you didn't know you had into positions you've only seen Cirque du Soleil.

We pay attention to the breath.  Besides breathing through the nose, we purposefully pay attention to what our breath is doing.  It's an instant gauge of our physical and mental activity.  Ever notice that when you do something challenging, like standing on one foot, that you instinctively hold your breath?  We move with the breath, making sure it's full, rhythmic and constant.  If you're not breathing, you're not doing yoga.

We balance.  We take ourselves off-balance in order to find the sweet spot of equilibrium.  Every position requires balance whether it be on our fingers and toes, chest, butt, cheek and head. Enough said.

We know how to take it easy.  The missing link in today's busy world is rest.  Rest increases mental acuity, reduces stress and allows the body to heal.  Almost all classes end with Savasana, or corpse pose, which is like playing dead--laying super still without moving a muscle except for the slight movement of the chest with each breath.  There is no other sport I can think of that honor the importance of rest.

(1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/breathing-techniques-exercise_n_1521630.html