Include Yoga in Your Workout Routines
When starting to live a healthier lifestyle through exercise, make sure you include yoga in your training. This ancient discipline uses different poses and exercises that help control stress. Additionally, yoga can also help concentration and help you reach a mental and physical balance.
Yoga allows us to develop strength and balance. The more we practice this discipline, we’ll also help strengthen our muscles. This is so because as we advance in the practice of yoga, we have to hold these poses for longer periods of time.
Therefore, these benefits are why we should include yoga into our workouts, either as a primary or complementary exercise. In this article, you’ll learn about certain elements of this discipline and how to include yoga in your training.
The different types of yoga
A little known fact about yoga is that there are actually many different ways to practice it. Some of these types will have more effect on your sports performance than others. And so, the most athletic styles are the ashtanga yoga and vinyasa yoga.
Hatha yoga is another style that is also physically demanding. However, this type of yoga also includes breathing and relaxation exercises as well as meditation. These hatha yoga sessions are usually divided into four parts.
The first part of the session is a brief meditation, then the second part includes some warm-up exercises. After that, the third part is a little bit longer, including a few posses that require some physical effort. And finally, the last part consists of a relaxation phase.
As you advance in the practice of these types of yoga, you start improving on the poses gradually. Also, you’ll start to hold the poses for longer as you improve.
At first, practicing yoga can be somewhat challenging but it’s important to understand that you advance at your own pace. However, you’ll start to feel the benefits almost immediately. And so, it’s definitely worth the effort to include yoga in your daily workout.
Yoga and cardio exercise
Although yoga is great for flexibility, balance, and coordination, it doesn’t incorporate much cardio. Even if the yoga session lasts for a while, this will never replace cardio exercises, such as running, cycling or swimming. However, if you include yoga in your daily workout, you’ll improve your cardiovascular health.
A daily practice of this ancient discipline will reduce your risk of suffering cardiovascular diseases. It does this by controlling stress. However, it will not, on its own, give you the slim body that you seek.
Therefore, make sure you include yoga to your daily workouts as an addition. A great way to combine yoga with your workouts is, for example, to alternate yoga and cardio every other day. This way, you’ll be training your whole body and health in a way that’s balanced and conscious.
Include yoga in your daily training: basic poses
To include yoga in your daily workouts if you are a beginner, you can follow a guide to some basic poses. You can do these poses separately or in sequence. And so, the mountain pose is one of those poses. It consists of standing up straight with the arms up with the palms of the hands together.
The spine should feel completely stretched out in this pose. Additionally, make sure you breathe deeply and be conscious of every part of the body. This pose is a good way to begin a yoga session.
Other beginner poses that you can improve as you practice more are the warrior pose and the tree pose. These two are standing poses. On the other hand, there’s the triangle pose and the down dog pose that are simple but require more flexibility.
Finally, we have child’s pose and savasana, which are relaxation poses. Practicing yoga will calm your mind through relaxation and breathing exercises. Make sure you include yoga in your everyday workouts to feel better physically and mentally.