Yoga for Beginners

Yoga is beneficial for us all. We could all benefit from a dose of this ancient activity and the health benefits are abundantly clear. If you take fitness seriously and have never attended a yoga class you should really get yourself down to a local class now! There are a number of yoga styles, and finding the right one will help ensure that you’ll want to come back. For some, a more fast-paced practice, such as power yoga could be a perfect option. For others, perhaps Bikram (hot) yoga would be more appealing. Hatha yoga is good for beginners because of its slow pace and introductory poses. And Vinyasa focuses around the mind-breath connection and works the body with aggressive stretching.

Many people do yoga for different reasons but below are 5 clear health benefits that no one can argue with.

5 Benefits of Yoga

1. Relaxation.

Yoga has a reputation for relaxation and for relieving stress and this is well deserved. Yoga employs a number of relaxation techniques, which, with regular practice, can make you calmer overall. Just a few minutes a day can make a big difference. It can also be used to help with sleep. If you suffer from stress or anger then a dose of yoga could work wonders.

2. Flexibility.

Most series of yoga asanas (physical postures) include one or more spinal twists to loosen the many joints that make up your spine. This flexibility is almost universally useful for any sport or physical activity. It is also associated with detoxification and good digestion.

3. Muscle Gains

Yoga is great for increasing your strength, especially your core muscles. Yoga widens your range of motion and increases access to more muscle fibres, allowing for more substantial hypertrophy in any given muscle group. Hypertrophy is when a muscle is enlarged because its cells are enlarged (it’s basically muscle growth on a cellular level). You would struggle to find a sport that wouldn’t benefit from yoga. Many rugby teams have now even started using yoga to help their players increase their abilities.

4. Prevent Injuries.

Injuries are common in sport so being able to reduce the chance is very important. Yoga is great for reducing injuries and helping muscles recover. Yoga also gives your body a complete workout, helping to strengthen smaller muscles which can also help prevent injuries.

5. Social

Yoga classes can be great fun and a chance to meet similar like-minded people. The yoga community is very supportive and if you want to get involved there will be plenty of opportunities in your local area.