When we say we do yoga, most of us imagines just the traditional exercise but in past years yoga became a whole new thing with plenty of different variations on this great work out. One of the most popular ones is hot yoga or hot bikram yoga.
You can find more and more yoga studios and online yoga videos that offer hot yoga as an eventuality to traditional yoga.
What is Hot Yoga?
You will practice the usual yoga positions but in conditions way different from what you are used to. Hot yoga uses higher temperature to make the most of the work out.
The temperatures is usually somewhere between 100 and 108 degrees Fahrenheit (38 to 42 degrees Celsius) and just being in such a hot room makes you sweat. So is it all just about sweating? Definitely not. The main reason for this is the fact your body gets much more flexible in higher temperatures, your muscles are suddenly able to stretch more and your joints let you go further in the position than in normal environment.
But even the sweating is supposed to have a great effect on your body. It lets your pores open wide and in deeply clears not only your skin but it helps your body to get rid of the toxins, too. Detoxication is a huge benefit of hot yoga for sure, how often do you usually find time to clear your body in your busy schedule? Hot yoga is the perfect way to combine stretching your body and do the detox at once.
Hot Yoga Dangers
You may ask if it is more exhausting than normal yoga or even dangerous due to the high temperature. Obviously, it is a little bit more Presseure on your organism but if you are a normally healthy person, there is nothing to worry about, you can only benefit from it.
However, hot yoga isn´t recommended to people with high blood pressure, heart conditions or inflammatory conditions of their organism. It is necessary to ensure there is adequate fluid intake while practicing Hot Yoga. If you feel Lightheadedness during lessons or headache it may be a sign that exercising in the heat isn´t working for you. If you do it right and your body is fit, all you get from it is a good feeling, more energy and stronger health!
Health Benefits of Hot Yoga
As any other variation of yoga, hot yoga offers many benefits, from strengthening your immunity to relaxing your mind. Hot or bikram yoga has some other effects that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Thanks to the high temperature it cleans the lymphatic system and stimulates the endocrine glands which can prevent you from some serious illnesses. Bikram Yoga increases lung capacity, strengthens heart activity and improves blood circulation. This can be beneficial especially when you grow older – it is a good prevention for heart diseases. If you have no health issues stopping you, it is the right time to start with Hot Yoga!
Weight Loss with Hot Yoga
If we challenge ourselves to practice hot yoga and weight loss in the higher temperature, it for sure makes us feel much better about ourselves in the end of the class but in fact, we do not work out any harder than while doing traditional yoga.
People usually think that the amount of sweating is directly dependent on the quality of training.
According to experts, however, the amount of calories burned is not related to how much we sweat. Scientists monitored two dozens of healthy adults during regular yoga session and during hot yoga. Between the two 60-minute lessons there was no difference in the increase in body temperature and heart rate among visitors of both types of yoga exercises.
Hot yoga definitely is an interesting variation to traditional yoga and it´s worth trying! You may be surprised by all the great effects it has on your body and your mind!
