Hot Yoga: 6 Reasons To Sweat It Out
Hot Yoga: 6 Reasons To Sweat It Out
Are there really health benefits to hot yoga?
Before you commit to turning into a pretzel in a 90-degree room with strangers, there better be some major health benefits to that. Hot yoga, also known as Bikram yoga, is a great exercise that offers a number of benefits to the yogi. This style was developed by Bikram Choudhury in the early 1970s.
His fixed regimen of 24 yoga poses and 2 breathing exercises are purported to improve health and fitness. The breathing and stretching exercises are performed in a room heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, which is approximately the temperature in Bakersfield 90 days out of the year. That’s a lot to sign up for! The relative humidity of the room is maintained at 40%, which makes hot yoga an amazingly different experience.
How Hot Yoga Fits Into other types of Yoga
If you are interested in learning how to do yoga, there is no reason to exclude hot yoga as an option. The style of yoga for beginners is a matter of personal choice, philosophy, goals and your very own physical condition. The benefits of yoga, regardless of style, have been proven. Each style requires varying degrees of physical ability. Some forms emphasize the spiritual, others place their emphasis on breathing exercises and yet others emphasize the yoga poses themselves. And yes, there are those that utilize some combination of the three. Hot yoga adds a new element to this.
Practicing yoga in a room that is heated up to above your body temperature does not only make you sweat. It gives you an entirely new experience and shows you how your muscles and circulation react to an environment that you would normally not choose for working out. Sounds weird? Be warned Hot yoga can be addicting, and that is not exclusively because of health benefits.
What are the Benefits of Hot Yoga?
Yoga is a unique form of exercise that bears little resemblance to the Western concept of exercise. Western exercises consist of running, weight lifting, push-ups, jumping jacks and the like. Yoga is different. Hot Yoga is beyond that. There are two significant factors differentiating hot yoga from other variations of yoga discipline.
1. Fewer Injuries
The high temperature in which the asanas and breathing exercises are performed
reduces the likelihood of injury.
2. Fewer Toxins
Hot yoga cleanses toxins from the body due to profuse sweating. The cold towel at the end maybe your favorite part, but toxin cleansing is an added bonus.
3. More Lung Capacity
Like other types of yoga that focus on breathing exercises, hot yoga advances lung capacity through breathing pranayama.
4. Better Circulation
You can almost feel it while you’re doing it. Hot yoga is excellent for your circulation It is a great cardiovascular workout.
5. Stronger Immune System
This effect has been known for a long time. Exercising in a hot environment improves your immune system and elevates the body’s regenerative capacity.
6. Weight Loss
Hot yoga supports weight-loss even more than regular yoga because you are sweating excessively. That’s a lot of toxins to get rid of! Hot yoga addresses all aspects of physical fitness including muscular strength, endurance, flexibility, and weight loss. While certainly not the easiest yoga path to follow, it is a great style of yoga for the beginner and the guru. The most unique benefits of hot yoga are detoxification (cleansing) and reduced injuries due to the greater flexibility of the body in a hot environment.
There is no other style of yoga that addresses the overall health of the body in such a comprehensive way. If you are interested in the physiological benefits of yoga and not so much its meditative aspects, the benefits of hot yoga are clear. Look at our online schedule to find the perfect time to try this unique sweat session.