Is Bikram Yoga a Strength Training Exercise? | Is Hot Yoga a Strength Training, as well?

Bikram yoga, or some others call it hot yoga, is a strenuous form of fitness activity where the practitioner does yoga postures, and may be difficult ones, in a hot room. The heated room is critical for this yoga. The yoga is practiced on hot yoga mats, in hot studios, or in hot hotel rooms. Now, we pose a question: is Bikram Yoga a strength training exercise? Is Hot Yoga a strength training, as well?

This type of yoga may be considered as a strength training exercise, as well. The workout poses are hard and somewhat intense. You may push yourself to your limits in order to execute the required difficult postures. As in martial arts, the idea is that you learn control by focusing your attention on your breathing. The breathing exercises give you the strength to push yourself without sustaining injuries on your part.

Unlike other forms of exercise, Bikram yoga^[1]Can Bikram Yoga Replace Weight Training? requires muscular strength, especially in your core. Many of the postures involve holding poses for an extended time. In Bikram yoga, you strengthen your body, not just stretch it.

The science of yoga practice is young, but the generation of yoga practitioners have been doing it for thousands of years. Modern yoga is a synthesis of traditional yoga and Indian gymnastics exercises.

Heated Room | Confined Space

Bikram yoga is generally performed in a room heated to 95°F – 105°F (31°C – 41°C). The hot air absorbs moisture and sweat from the body, and the sweat makes your body hotter. Your are now in a calorie-burning mode.

The hot room forces you to breathe more deeply, which helps regulate your breathing. The hot room also increases your heart rate, making you feel more energetic.

Bikram yoga is a series of 26 postures done in a heated room, as mentioned. Each posture is held for 30 seconds to 1 minute. The sequence takes about 90 minutes.

You’ll sweat, not only from the heat but also from the physical exertion involved. The elevated temperature during workout helps loosen your muscles and increase your flexibility.

This moderate heat helps to do a yoga practice. It relaxes the muscles and melts away fat. It increases the tone in muscles and gives the body greater flexibility.

It speeds up the metabolism and helps to burn calories. It increases circulation and stimulates the nervous system, helping to relieve stress.

The name comes from the Sanskrit word “bikram,” meaning “constant effort.” Another name for this yoga is “hot yoga.” You should sweat a lot. It helps burn calories.

In Bikram yoga, you lie on your back, arms and legs stretched out. Your feet may be together or apart. Your legs, torso, and arms are then stretched toward the ceiling.

At some point, your body is in a special position called “the lotus.” The lotus position puts pressure on your groin. The lotus position can strain your heart. Bikram yoga also involves a lot of stretching. It sometimes hurts.

Bikram yoga is also good for the body’s internal organs. The hot room helps the digestive system and the kidneys, and the toxins are eliminated faster. The high temperatures also strengthen the immune system.

The heated room helps the body by stimulating the nervous system. This stimulation helps the immune system to fight bacteria. With Bikram yoga you can also lose weight, detoxify your body, strengthen your immune system.

Bikram Yoga is a discipline

Bikram yoga is likewise a discipline, and it is important to follow the rules. Each class begins with a short series of breathing exercises called the pranayamas, which warm the body up.

Then the execution of postures will follow. This continue until all the yoga postures in the sequence have been performed once. It will be concluded by a relaxation.

What is Bikram Yoga?

Bikram yoga, or Bikram yoga, is a system of yoga developed by Bikram Choudhury, who taught yoga in a 105-degree room. Choudhury, born in Calcutta, studied yoga in India in the 1960s and 1970s and then opened his first studio in 1976 in the United States.

Bikram yoga is practiced in rooms heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, which is intended to replicate the heat and humidity of Bikram’s native India.

Choudhury began teaching Bikram yoga in 1980. The style became popular in the United States and throughout the world in the 1980s.

The practice requires practitioners to perform a series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises (called the “sequences”). As in hatha yoga, the postures in the sequence are practiced with ujjayi breathing.

In both hatha and Bikram yoga, the postures in the sequence are commonly grouped into eight series, called “hot” and “warm” sequences. Members of the Bikram community refer to particular poses as “hot” or “warm,” depending on whether they are practiced in a hot or warm room.

Hot yoga is best for who? Why?

One of the benefits^[2]The Benefits of Hot Yoga for Runners of yoga is that it makes you feel good. What does hot yoga do to make you feel so great? For one thing, hot yoga makes your muscles burn.

The harder you work, the more your muscles burn. That is a good thing. But hot yoga also makes you sweat, and sweating is a good consequence, as well. Sweating is a way that your body flushes out toxins and wastes.

Hot yoga’s positive consequences

For older people, toxins and wastes are the biggest problems. Hence, doing hot yoga is a good thing, not only because it makes you feel good, but also because it helps you flush out toxins. Somehow, hot yoga may assist you to life in comfort.

Many people today opt for hot yoga over traditional yoga. This does not mean that hot yoga is better than any other form of yoga. It is just that more people feel comfortable with hot yoga than with traditional yoga.

Unlike traditional yoga, hot yoga is practiced in a room heated to about 95°F – 105°F (31°C – 41°C). The benefits of hot yoga are numerous. Hot yoga can be performed even by individuals who have cardiovascular, circulatory, and respiratory problems, and those who have scoliosis, osteoporosis, arthritis, and asthma.

Hot yoga can be beneficial for those people who work in an office or in a computer environment. It may also benefit those who suffer from migraines or headaches.

The heat causes muscles to contract and relax in a pattern similar to stretching. The muscle trauma caused by hot yoga can strengthen the muscles, which in turn increases flexibility and strength.

Therefore, hot yoga has many benefits, such as increasing flexibility, decreasing pain, increasing one’s endurance, and improving one’s posture.

Hot yoga, like every kind of physical fitness, has its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• Hot yoga is good for flexibility and strength.

• A regular practice can help you develop the kind of fitness that allows you to be physically active without getting injured.
• The heat can make yoga easier to do.
• If you can practice yoga in a room heated to about 100 degrees F, you don’t have to pay as much for studio space, or travel to a studio.

Disadvantages:

• The heat can make yoga harder to do.
• The heat can cause your muscles to burn.
• Hot yoga can be unpleasant for beginners.
• If practiced with the idea that you’ll become more flexible, yoga can be harmful.
• The heat makes yoga less enjoyable.
• The heat can make it harder for older people to do.
• The heat makes yoga more unpleasant for older people.
• The heat makes yoga less enjoyable for older people.
• Stretching and yoga in general can be unpleasant for some of us.
• The heat can make yoga less enjoyable for some of us.

Benefits of Bikram Yoga

The benefits^[3]11 Benefits of Bikram Yoga That Will Have You Running For Your Yoga Mat of this yoga include: increased energy, weight loss, better sleep, better muscle tone, improved digestion, stress reduction, increased self-confidence, and so much more.

Bikram Yoga helps the body burn calories. The postures and breathing techniques performed help the body build cardiovascular strength and endurance.

People who practice Bikram Yoga on a regular basis can burn between 500 and 1,000 calories per hour. Bikram Yoga helps increase the body’s metabolism.

Bikram Yoga assists to increase flexibility too. The postures and breathing techniques make one stretch himself to the fullest extent of his ability to do so, thus, increasing flexibility.

Bikram Yoga can build muscle strength. The postures and breathing techniques help the body build strength.

Among others, here are the lists of benefits of Bikram Yoga:

• It strengthens the muscles, bones, and ligaments.
• It tones the internal organs.
• It improves the lymphatic system and blood circulation
• It reduces stress, anxiety, and depression.
• It improves mental clarity, concentration, and alertness.
• It improves posture and body alignment.
• It enhances flexibility and mobility.
• It acts as a preventive measure against many diseases.
• It helps in weight loss.
• It helps in detoxification.
• It relieves muscle tension and joint problems.
• It reduces blood pressure and cures insomnia.
• It improves digestion.
• It eliminates toxins from the body.
• It increases metabolism and energy levels.
• It helps in treatment of asthma, arthritis, bronchitis, and other respiratory problems.
• It helps in treatment of diabetes, ulcers, and hypertension.
• It helps in treatment of skin conditions.
• It improves heart function and strengthens the heart.
• It reduces fatigue and invigorates the mind and body.
• It relieves aches and pains.
• It tones the reproductive system.
• It relieves menstrual problems.
• It strengthens the immune system.
• It makes you look lean.

Is Bikram Yoga an anaerobic exercise?

Bikram yoga is not aerobic because you have to breathe in as deeply as possible. This is clearly anaerobic. But the idea that Bikram yoga is anaerobic is not a new idea; it was even recommended as a complement to weight lifting.

The muscles breathe. The muscles get heat shock from working so hard. The heat makes them sweat.

Sweating is how the body cools itself at low temperatures, and is one reason people sweat a lot at low temperatures (which is the reason you usually sweat more while running downhill than uphill).

Bikram yoga also stresses the cardiovascular system. It forces the heart to work harder to circulate blood to the muscles. All this means that Bikram yoga is a very good exercise for people who need to strengthen their hearts and lungs.

Cultivating Strength

Bikram yoga involves repeated and sequential movements, which activate many different muscles. The sequence of postures and breathing exercises is designed to mimic the natural flow of energy in the body.

This emphasis on strength has another benefit: it eliminates stress. Many traditional forms of yoga emphasize physical balance, alignment, and breathing. These qualities aim to promote a sense of peace; they move the mind away from negative thought processes.

On another point, strength is the ability to keep doing what you want to, no matter what. Actually, strength results from the muscles. They are the thing you flex when you punch somebody. Example is the calf muscle that runs up the back of the leg. It is much utilized when you run.

Strength is power. It is the ability to keep doing something, like expanding or contracting your muscles. It is the thing that makes your muscles do what they need to do.

Building strength means learning to use your muscles properly. The body is an amazingly complex machine, and muscles are one of its most important parts.

But muscles are weak unless they are used. It is the muscles that do the work. The only reliable way to make muscles stronger is to use them, but that means doing what you do every day. You have to use your muscles all the time, no matter what.

Building strength means practicing. It means doing the things you like to do, and doing it more.

In Bikram Yoga, the sequence, or asana, is a cycle of 26 poses. Each is designed to strengthen a particular muscle. The sequence is repeated twice every week, for a total of 52 sessions. For 26 weeks, you do the 26 poses twice every week, for 52 weeks. That’s 3,600 repetitions.

Now imagine that you have one weak muscle. Every workout, you have to do the 26 poses twice. Then, you have to do them every day. While you’re practicing those poses, you may injure yourself. You may cut yourself, or sprain a joint, or strain a muscle.

If some part of your body is injured, you can’t do the poses, and you can’t practice yoga. Your body has a natural tendency to fix itself. But in order to fix it, it pulls on your body, and pulls on your muscles, and pulls on your bones, and pulls on your tendons.

You heal, and your body is stronger. Eventually, you’ll have 3,600 repetitions of 26 poses, 26 times. If you do the poses correctly, and if you don’t injure yourself, your body will be stronger. You’ve added 3,600 new repetitions to your body’s natural capacity.

Final Thoughts

In yoga, we exercise all the muscles, including the small ones and the big muscles. Our muscles work in pairs. A muscle moves by pulling against another muscle.

When we run, for instance, our leg muscles pull against our arm muscles. In performing regular yoga workout, you are able to exercise these muscles in opposition. That makes it a strength training exercise.

Yoga also exercises the “core” muscles. The core muscles are the muscles that keep your body upright. The core muscles are your abdominal muscles, your lower back muscles, and the muscles in your trunk.

Yoga also exercises the muscles of our arms, legs, and torso. Strength training exercises these muscles in opposition, too. Therefore, yoga is also strength training.

This kind of exercise revitalizes us; hence, it may be a form of restorative yoga.