What Makes Yoga so effective?
In Yoga, we stretch and strengthen muscles from different angles using different intensities, which makes it different from the standard stretching exercises. This helps to counteract muscle imbalances and improve range of motion. Strength is defined by how strong you are at the beginning, middle and end range of motion with control. Yoga is strength.
Yoga develops functional core strength, which is essential to move well. Your core is your foundation, which is everything. If you have a weak foundation, the beautiful temple your momma gave you is going to crumble making you feel old as dirt and probably constant pain.
Yoga uses mostly bodyweight unless you’re like me and like to experiment with poses by picking up surrounding objects with a little weight to them, i.e. my fur babies and create new challenges. Yoga not only targets isolated muscle groups but also works to condition the smaller stabilizing muscles, tendons and ligaments in feet, ankles hips, core and shoulders, all areas that also need some TLC, it’s not all about that bass here.
Any good yoga flow will have an intelligent sequence that is strategic to a specific objective and makes sense with a beginning, middle and end. Sometimes it can even look like a dance and I like dancing!
Getting bendy in yoga isn’t just for fun
But it sure is a pant-load of fun! Yoga forces one to move out of habitual movement patterns of today’s (very scary) sedentary society and explore what the body can do in twisting, bending and balance positions. It’s amazing how the body can adapt to be the most efficient in its current lifestyle. So if your lifestyle is sitting at a desk all day, you will have all sorts of muscle imbalances and postural dysfunctions that yoga can fix! The postures and sequencing help correct the postural dysfunctions and activate underused muscles as well as release tension in overactive muscles.
There are yoga postures/poses (asanas if you speak Sanskrit!) and there are yoga flows. That is where it starts to look like a dance and you move through the yoga poses with fluidity improving joint health and by improving range of motion with a yoga flow, you are able to move safely, with more control of your body.
Body awareness is the main focus in yoga
With more control of your body, you can then restore the coordination between upper and lower limbs that gets lost over the years from just sitting on our butts and not moving as our ancestors did, it’s a cognitive workout too. Mind Blown.
The amount of tension and stress we put on ourselves can do serious damage to the body. Something else yoga can improve on is it incorporates and teaches you to relax and focus on your breath. This will reduce stress, improve fitness, posture, focus, pain relief and make you feel a hell of a lot better about life.
Those are just a few reasons to get your yoga on.
Namaste!
Crystal from Pure Strength & Movement
