Yoga for Men

Posts Tagged ‘Yoga Men’

Whether it’s something like Yoga or Pilates, your core is vital to maintaining a healthy posture and a strong body. More and more men are taking up yoga as recommended by their physios and GPs as a way to strengthen and tone their bodies. It’s almost becoming a craze and there are many professional male athletes who are turning back to this ancient form of exercise to enhance their physical condition. The likes of Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Georges St. Pierre, and Evander Holyfield spring to mind.

There are numerous famous actors out there who are also improving their bodies through Yoga, proving it’s not just something that women should be doing and in fact, going back through history, it was actually men who were the leaders of yoga. Matthew McConaughey, laballed as a Hollywood Heartthrob swears by yoga and judging by the state of his toned and muscular body, it’s definitely worked for him. OK, so he doesn’t just perform yoga but he claims it has had a major impact on his physique.

It’s not surprising that sportsmen and male Hollywood actors are taking up Yoga more and more. Not only does it have a physical benefit but it also soothes and clams the mind. So, for male athletes it’ll help them focus on their goals and targets, honing their mind to their body and ensuring they are fully committed to the task at hand, whether it’s a Football match, boxing fight or just a daily training session that needs their 100% focus. Actors go through extreme stress, with many continuous days of long hours and a stressful work atmosphere, so ensuring their mind is cleansed is vital to learning lines and performing to the peak of their ability.

Yoga should not be overlooked by men and it’s about time that men stopped believing that it’s meant just for women. Men invented Yoga. Use it for your benefit.

There seems to be a stigma kicking around that yoga is only for women and guys constantly questioning, “Is yoga for men?”. Well, simply put, the answer is YES! There is no reason why men can’t do the yoga techniques that women carry out. OK, so women are deemed as, in general, more flexible than men, however it’s time for these stigmas to be pushed aside.

Yoga is fantastic for improving your strength, fact! There, as a guy reading this I’ve hopefully caught your attention. Did you know that? Well, now you do. Yes it’s great for flexibility and focus, but it’s fantastic on greatly improving your strength and improving your core.

The Strength of Yoga

Yoga For Men is coming to the fore increasingly in recent years and it’s a fact in the yoga world that after practicing yoga consistently for a few months, you can feel twice as strong as previously. Yoga can make an overweight man handle his weight with a greater degree of efficiency, putting doubts in the minds of those who arguing against yoga for men.

Rodney Yee is a well known expert, worldwide in promoting strength yoga and has created an exceptional DVD entitled “Yoga For Strength”, and is great yoga for men material. His techniques teach you methodically and will improve your endurance, enabling your muscles to let go more efficiently without collapsing to the response of stretched tendons.

What Customers Say About “Yoga For Strength”

“This is a great DVD taking you through basic prep poses. I totally recommend this product to anyone interested in yoga.” – speedylegs

Here’s a quick summary of some of the techniques that could be under the umbrella of “Yoga For Men”.

Iyengar Yoga

This yoga style is perfect for beginners and gives you the foundations to move on to the more advanced yoga techniques, for example power yoga.

Power Yoga

Perfect for improving your strength (read below this section for more on strength yoga), this is not for beginners and it is recommended that you learn the basics under Iyengar Yoga first.

Bikram Yoga

Building stamina and burning calories, this form of yoga is carried it in very hot (95 – 102 degrees) rooms. It’s perfect for those who need sweat to feel like they’ve done something good.

Try the DVD out, what have you got to lose? I certainly will be and will be happy to start promoting yoga for men from this day forward.

Most men think of Yoga as something for women, or something only new-age types really get into, so that there are a lot of biases against men using Yoga as a way to get fit. That is an image that should be dispelled, because Yoga for men can be a fantastic workout that any man can integrate into their lives. Yoga can build flexibility, muscle control, stamina and will go to great lengths towards building up the endurance that will serve any man well as they go about their day, or go into other styles of workout.

Despite the relaxed, calm demeanor of those long-time practitioners of Yoga, don’t forget, Yoga is hard work! Yoga centers on taking poses that the body naturally does not like, so someone practicing Yoga is constantly in a battle between their natural sense of balance, the stresses of unfamiliar muscles being used heavily and even the force of gravity to maintain their position. That means it takes someone willing to tough it out through the harder, beginning stages of Yoga before being able to take on some of those high level, advanced poses that prove how good you are and how long you have been working on your body.

Yoga is not some cult trying to convert practitioners to Hindu, or Buddhism or many of the other spiritual or religious doctrines attached to it. Practicing Yoga has long been on the recommended exercises as ways to keep the body fit and healthy. Many Yoga instructors do ascribe to one of the more popular  spiritual tenants behind Yoga, but when you get past that, to the core exercises, you will see that if the spiritual component is not for you, you can just ignore it Most often you can use the teacher’s talking as a focus point for your breathing and movement. Ignore the message, pay attention to the pacing; most often they have a very deliberate way of speaking that matches the motions of Yoga. It is a way to keep in the same rhythm as the rest of the class, and a way for you to ignore that hot woman in the second row with her leg above her head!

You also don’t need to worry about some special uniform or clothing for your Yoga class. Normal workout clothes are fine, in many cases a beginner Yoga practitioner should wear tighter clothes, so the instructor can tell when a muscle is in the wrong position, or you may be straining too much and potentially injuring your body. You should buy your own mat though, not only are gym mats usually beaten up and packed down, to you really want a surface that who knows how many people have sat, stood and sweated on?

Don’t think that Yoga is for wimps, it is a huge challenge to a person’s physical ability, tone, and balance. It is a place that men can find a better way of improving their health, and their physical abilities. It is also a way for a guy to build up a good old fashioned sweat in a new way. When you incorporate Yoga into your workouts, and into your daily life you can say that yes, Yoga worked for this man.