Obtaining Your Aerobic Exercise Through Hot Yoga

>> Monday, September 5, 2011

By Grace K. Everett


Hot yoga is a kind of exercise accomplished inside a room heated to 80-105 degrees F and features a number of different yoga poses to help balance and rejuvenate the entire body. Many individuals try hot yoga in the hopes of dropping extra pounds of fat, but some are doubtful of whether hot yoga can serve as a cardiovascular type of exercise. After all, other types of cardio generally entail high degrees of movement, so how can undertaking poses while staying in place do any kind of good? In case you wrongly believe hot yoga cannot contend with the likes of running and other kinds of cardio, read on.

Immediately when you step into a hot yoga practice room, the intense heat will start to warm your body. This can take some getting used to, but it will also allow you to more easily stretch your muscles during the poses. In addition, heat helps to raise your metabolic rate. When you are flexed in a difficult position, with muscles straining to hold yourself in place, you will soon find that your heart rate is shooting through the roof - possibly even higher than in other cardio exercises! This is what allows for weight loss and certainly qualifies hot yoga to stand with the rest.

The reason certain individuals may believe that hot yoga does not provide these benefits is possibly due to the fact that some of its practitioners provide an incorrect reason for their weight loss, casting hot yoga in an equally dubious light. An increased heart rate allows your blood to circulate more quickly and causes your body to work harder resulting in weight lost, as mentioned above, but some think that sweating alone causes fat loss. You can lose pounds "miraculously" after one hot yoga class, it is true, but this is only due to lost water weight rather than excess fat. Staying hydrated throughout class is actually very important as you will certainly sweat, but sweating in itself is not what allows for long term results.

One other aspect of hot yoga to take into consideration is how easily you can or cannot reach an optimal heart rate. Individuals need only maintain 60-70% of their max heart rate to drop weight, so if you find that your heart rate is actually too high during hot yoga, you may want to train with other activities in warm weather to get acclimatized to the additional stress on your system. If you have a high heart rate during yoga then you will still benefit from an improved respiratory system and better endurance, but if fat loss is a primary goal then you may need to tone things down a bit.

Different people can gain various benefits from hot yoga and should adapt the exercise to their individual practice, as with any type of workout. If you'd like to delve even deeper into hot yoga, then becoming an instructor and assisting other students to get the most out of their workouts may be a great choice. Regardless of what you choose to pursue, whether individually or with others, avoid pushing too hard beyond what is safe during hot yoga and maintaining a calm mental state.




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