Is It A Good Idea to Replace Strength Training with Yoga?

Many experts advise some form of strength training every week to keep the body fit, the metabolism running and even prevent bone loss.

If like most people, strength training makes you think of weight machines and dumbbells, try Yoga.

Well, why would you want to lift ‘weights’, when you have your own body weight to lift!

In yoga poses, your body is subject to positions and orientations that require muscle support, just what happens when you lift weights.

To answer the question in the title, "Is it a good idea to replace strength training with yoga?", the answer is – It depends.

If you only want to build muscle, by all means, go for weight training. But do not forget to exercise with progressively heavier resistance.

Why?

Because in traditional weight training, your muscles adapt to the resistance and become stronger. The weight, you were exercising with, no longer remains a challenge, and you stop seeing results. So, you must add more weight to achieve the same results, over a period of time.

However, yoga is a more well-rounded approach with several additional benefits that traditional weight training does not offer.

Here is a look at some of the most important ADDITIONAL benefits of Yoga.

• Regular yoga practice prevents injury. It also prepares your body to be better at everyday movements, such as twisting, bending, and carrying groceries. Yoga poses make you use both large and small muscles and movements in different directions, as opposed to simply a single movement, as in a bicep curl.
• Yoga tones all your muscles, big and small, while maintaining a balance with each other. By contrast, most weight training exercises work with only one muscle group at a time.
• Traditional weight training doesn’t allow for proper stretching, giving the muscle a compact, bulging look while Yoga provides your muscles a sleek, elongated look as well as increases flexibility.
• Since you have to hold Yoga poses for some time and repeat them several times in a Yoga session, it increases muscle endurance.
• By holding Yoga poses longer, doing more repetitions, and adding new yoga poses to your practice, you can make your regular Yoga practice more challenging with time.

So, you are not replacing strength training with Yoga, you simply move to an improved form of strength training, one with more advantages and one that keeps you more fit and healthier, in the long term.

To learn more about yoga for strength training, get in touch with the leading life coach in San Francisco, CA, The Big Yogi, Nick Palladino, at nick@thebigyogi.com or call 707-293-5415. Nick inspires, teaches and leads others towards their own light and life purpose.

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