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april / may 2017yogajournal.com.sgGet a man past his reservations about asana
time with the ladies and he’ll still have a well-
founded reason to drag his feet to a studio:
Yoga can be painful.
Men, it seems, are naturally tight. Boys
and girls may be born equally limber, with an
ability to comfortably put their feet behind their
heads. But by adolescence, boys generally lose
flexibility faster than girls, and as boys become
men, the differences in flexibility tend to grow.
Researchers have noted this gap, although
they can’t specifically link it to differences in
hormones, musculature, or connective tissue.
“It’s hard to attribute to any one thing,” says
Lynn Millar, a professor of physical therapy in
Berrien Springs, Michigan.
PHYSICAL HURDLES: Overcoming Groins and Gray Matter
Yoga has something for
everyone. Two of my most
inspiring teachers were older,
one 77 and another 101, and both
were doing poses I still can’t do.
What we do (or don’t do) now
will impact how we experience
the future. You don’t want your
kids changing your nappies
when you’re old because you
neglected your health now.- Copper Crow, lead teacher,
Pure Yoga Singapore
I do yoga as a lifetime practice.
It helps me to become who I am.- Duncan Wong, yoga teacher
in Kyoto, Japan
Whatever is to blame, the typical man’s
pursuits and lifestyle, from sitting at a desk all
day to grabbing beers after a twilight softball
game, put little importance on flexibility.
Lasater says stretching takes a back seat in
a male’s life as early as high school. “Look at
the way they stretch in football—they push
on each other and bounce. It hurts,” she says.
“How could anyone emerge from that with a
positive view of flexibility?”
“Sports are fun when we’re young, but there
comes a time when the pains outweigh the
benefits,”says Copper Crow, lead teacher atPure Yoga in Singapore.“ I see a lot of guys
turning to yoga to heal from injuries sustained
during other forms of training, like sports or
cross fit.”
Barry Zito, a former American baseball
pitcher and musician, serves as a role model
for any jock who’s determined to stay injury
free. Building up muscle mass and repeating
the same athletic motions day after day and
year after year only adds to a body’s tightness.
Which is all the more reason why Zito bragged
about a statistic other than wins and losses.
“I’ve never missed a start,” he says.
Zito began practicing yoga in 1998, when
he heard about an off-season training program
in Southern California that entwined baseball
skills with yoga—“I’ve always been open to
alternative forms of training,” he says—and
he’s been doing asanas ever since.Zito’s daily regimen has included groin and
hip openers like Pigeon, Frog, and Warrior
poses, but he has found it hard to convince his
male friends to join him.
“Some guys aren’t willing to do the things
required to keep their health,” Zito says. “I’m
not judging anyone. I just know my own
experience with yoga, and it’s been really,
really good.”
Zito might have an even harder time
spreading the gospel of yoga if men knew that,
when it comes to life on the mat, their brains as
well as their bodies are working against them.
Science hasn’t concluded that women have
higher IQs. But women can boast about their
mirror neurons.
What are mirror neurons? These are brain
cells that receive signals from another person
and trigger similar reactions in the observer.
Watching someone cry, for example, might
more easily cause you to cry. While mirror
neurons often detect emotions, they also help
an observer match posture and breathing. “You
use mirror neurons to watch and imitate your
yoga instructor,” says Louann Brizendine, the
author of The Female Brain.
For men, says Brizendine, the catch is
that they don’t respond as well as women
to such transmitted signals. Scientists are still
speculating whether women have more of
such cells, or just more active ones. “Females’
mirror neurons are more easily activated,”
Brizendine says. “On average, women can
mimic better than men.”“Mobile phones and wrong
postures can lead to misalignment
of the cervical vertebrae. Yoga
helps to ease knots in affected
areas, and regular practice keeps
those tension points away.”- Manoj Deshwal, owner of
Trust Yoga in Singapore