Yoga exercises will increase muscular strength and muscular endurance. As a strength-training workout, yoga can be done with little to no cost in the privacy of your own home. Strength gains can be achieved without weight-training equipment and expensive health club facilities. Workouts are efficient and provide training for all major muscles.
Significance
Consistent yoga training will provide gains in strength, endurance and flexibility. Reaching beyond physical benefits, yoga integrates your mind and body, bringing an awareness to your body from the inside. While weight training for strength gains fatigue and break down your muscles, yoga has a different effect. Workouts provide the body with additional energy and decreased stress and anxiety. With weight training, you are encouraged to push and punish your body. With yoga, you are instructed to respect your limits and allow time for improvements to occur, quite different from the "no pain, no gain" attitude.
Benefits
Yoga exercises place your body in an extended stretch or position. Your muscles contract to hold the position for five full breaths. This type of muscle contraction is referred to as an isometric contraction. Muscle fibers are recruited to contract to keep the body in a stretched position for an extended time. Bringing muscle fibers to 100-percent recruitment causes a slight trauma to the muscles. During the recovery time, this healing causes the fibers to gain strength. Muscles contractions while muscles are stretched, or elongated, actually help more muscle fibers to be recruited, resulting in improved strength gains.
Types
Hatha yoga is a physical yoga practice that places your body in many poses that require strength. There are many types of Hatha yoga that enable your body to acquire increased strength through participation. Iyengar yoga is beneficial for beginners. Props, or training aids are used to enable students of all levels to participate. Ashtanga yoga is a physically demanding practice that provides students with opportunities for continued strength gains. Vinyasa yoga is a continuous workout that brings a muscular endurance element to the practice. Increases in muscular endurance allow participants to work for an extended period of time.
Misconceptions
Typically, gains in strength result in gains in muscle size. Yoga students usually do not acquire bulky muscles. Muscles are lengthened and toned as they strengthen, which may give the illusion that you're not achieving strength gains. Holding your body in positions where your body weight is being used as resistance does, in fact, increase your strength.
Considerations
Strength gains can be achieved with yoga to a degree. At some point, a strength plateau may be reached due to the fact that your body weight is not further increased for additional gains to occur. For a beginner, the strength gains may be sufficient.
References
- "Yoga for the Joy of It"; Minda Goodman Kraines & Barbara Rose Sherman; 2010
- "Primany Yoga: Official Certification Manual"; Fitness Instructor Training; 2003
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