A lot of us who haven’t tried yoga think of yoga as far cry from a strength-training workout. In reality, yoga allows you to use your own body and body weight to develop strength. Each yoga pose focuses on strengthening individual muscle groups. There are different types of yoga.
Hatha:
This type of yoga is slow-paced, gentle and focuses on breathing and meditation. Hatha originated in India during the 15th century. It is widely accepted as Beginners yoga with basic poses and relaxation techniques. Hatha is good for relieving stress, improving breathing and for providing physical exercise.
Vinyasa:
Vinyasa is a variety of Hatha yoga, and it comprises of a series of 12 poses where movement is matched to the breath. This particular kind of yoga covers basic poses and breath-synchronized movements, emphasizing much on Sun Salutation. Vinyasa also helps the body in building lean muscle mass.
Asthanga:
Asthanga yoga focuses on bodily alignment, with greater emphasis on standing poses often held for longer periods of time. It helps in improving balance, speeds up recovery from an injury, and builds bodily strength.
Bikram:
Practiced in a room temperature of 95 to 100 degrees, it is a series of 26 poses that allows the loosening of tight muscles and sweating. This variety of yoga helps to flush out toxins and to deeply stretch the muscles. It also helps to speed up recovery from an injury, enhances flexibility, and cleanses the body.
Iyengar:
It is known as the purest form of yoga, which is done using the aid of props like blocks, straps, harnesses, and incline boards, to get you more perfectly into positions. This variety of yoga systematically works every part of your body, giving you a great muscle definition, not mass.
What ever the categories are, there are no complete fitness guides, because everyone is different. But, if you want to get started with yoga, then the first step will be to find a reputable yoga studio, with certified yoga instructors. Make a time commitment to yourself and be patient.
The Benefits of Yoga
Yoga is more than the history and the poses it contains. Yoga comes with many health and fitness benefits. Some of those benefits are as follows.
All-round fitness:
One can be called fit when he/she is physically fit, and mentally balanced. This is where yoga helps – postures, pranayama and meditation are holistic fitness package.
Weight loss:
Sun Salutations and Kapal Bhati Pranayama are some of the ways in yoga to help reduce weight. It helps to keep your appetite under check, and gets you more sensitive to the kind of food your body asks for and when.
Stress relief:
A few minutes of yoga is a great way to get rid of stress. The various poses help to de-tox the body and de-stress the mind.
Better flexibility and posture
Regular yoga practice stretches and tones the body muscles and provides you with a body that is strong, supple, and flexible. It also helps you to improve your body posture when you stand, sit, sleep or walk. A better posture can help you gain confidence. It can also help in carrying yourself in front of the society in a better way. Let it be Indian sarees or Indo-Western outfits – you will be able to try every new fashions and trends in the market.
Increased energy and improved immunity
A few minutes of yoga everyday can make you feel fresh and energetic all day. The yoga poses are capable enough to massage your internal organs and strengthen the muscles.
Featured images: Image author owned
Jenny Chetner, a yogi, a passionate traveler, and a blogger is blessed to live in four countries. While living a healthy lifestyle, she love to share her knowledge of yoga with anyone who will listen.
consciously listen to your own birhntaeg, if it helps to start with intentionally breath louder than usual, inhale deep through your nose, and blow out of your mouth not fast just hard.and the really difficult bit, look at the blackness on the inside of your eye lid, sounds odd, and is extremely difficult especially if you have a vivid imagination like me but with practice it works, don’t let any images enter your head,totally clear everything from your mind, when you are thinking about nothing, no mental images or thoughts, and the only thing you can hear is your birhntaeg your pretty much there, do that for a while if you can maintain it you enter what i can only describe as a at peace statethis is how i meditate and i have kind of developed this method myself (it may have been done before) im sure there will be other methods out therehope this helpexperience