Yoga_Journal_USA_Your_6Week_2017

YOUR 6-WEEK YOGA GUIDE TO BUILD STRENGTH YOGAJOURNAL.COM 17

FEWER JOINT

ACHES

Every time you practice yoga, you

take your joints through their

entire range of motion (ideally).

This can help prevent degenerative

arthritis or mitigate disability by

“squeezing and soaking” areas of

cartilage that normally aren’t used.

Joint cartilage is like a sponge,

McCall explains: It receives fresh

nutrients only when its fluid is

squeezed out and new nutrient-

rich fluid can come in. Without

proper sustenance, neglected car-

tilage can wear out like a brake

pad, leaving bone exposed.

HEART HEALTH

When it comes to cardiovascular

fitness, things are a little less clear. On

one side, those with a heart-thumping

practice swear up and down that they

get plenty of cardio work. “If you

take my yoga class, you don’t need

additional cardio, because your heart

rate will reach a healthy max within

the first 30 minutes of the 90-min-

ute class,” says Lisa Black, owner of

Shakti Vinyasa Yoga in Seattle.

Other experts say that’s wishful

thinking. “I don’t care what people

say. Yoga isn’t cardiovascular exercise,”

Rountree says. “Even a fast-paced vin-

yasa practice won’t challenge the

heart in the same way as running,

swimming, or even fast walking.”

What does the research say? The

best study on the subject of cardiovas-

cular fitness and yoga came out in

2007, in the journal BMC ComplemenĦ

tary and Alternative Medicine. For

the trial, researchers enrolled 20 in-

termediate-to-advanced yoga practi-

tioners. Each person donned a

heart-rate monitor and took a 56-min-

ute beginner Ashtanga Yoga class.

The session included 28 minutes of

Sun Salutations, 20 minutes of stand-

ing poses, and 8 minutes of seated and

supine poses, including Corpse Pose.

The bad news is that, during the

56-minute yoga class, the students’

mean maximum heart rate was 49 per-

cent, which is way short of the 65 per-

cent recommended for heart health in

a fit person by the American College

of Sports Medicine.

Lead author Marshall Hagins, an

Ashtanga Yoga practitioner and an as-

sociate professor of physical therapy

at Long Island University Brooklyn,

elaborates on the findings: “Yoga

changes the general rubric of how

your body deals with stress. You get

less revved up, meaning your body re-

leases less of the stress hormones, like

cortisol, and the heart becomes

healthier for it.”

RESPIRATORY CAPACITY

Everyone agrees the breath is central

to fitness. In a review of the medical

literature supporting yoga’s impact on

fitness, published in 2002 in The JourĦ

nal of Alternative and Complementary

Medicine, overwhelming evidence

showed that people who regularly

practice yogic breathing (pranayama)

increase their maximum oxygen con-

sumption. That means more oxygen

from the lungs reaches muscles during

exercise; more oxygen to the muscles

means that less lactate builds up; and

less lactate in the muscles translates

to greater endurance.

In the UC Davis study, volunteers

increased their maximum oxygen con-

sumption by 7 percent. That’s signifi-

cant, says Chrys Kub, a physical

therapist and yoga therapist in Char-

lotte, North Carolina, because it nor-

mally takes 15 to 20 weeks of physical

activity to see gains in lung function,

but after just 8 weeks of practicing

pranayama, these subjects were

breathing better.

Using the breath during a more

conventional workout gives you the

best of both worlds, says Ed Harrold,

former director of yoga and sports

training for the Kripalu Institute for

Extraordinary Living in Stockbridge,

Massachusetts. “Bringing yogic tech-

niques into the gym paradigm is a nat-

ural fit,” he says.

But is the inverse also true? Can

you come to the mat with an expecta-

tion of simply building fitness? Yes,

says Lee—everyone receives “F-word”

benefits from yoga, dedicated yogis

and gym rats alike. “Asana practice is a

codified set of physical exercises that

helps us be radiantly healthy by de-

sign,” she explains. “Besides, if you’re

just using it as a workout, are you

really hurting anyone?”

Catherine Guthrie is a health writer and

yoga teacher living in Bloomington, Indiana.

EVEN BLOOD-

SUGAR LEVELS

McCall notes that yoga lowers LDL

(“bad”) cholesterol and boosts HDL

(“good”) cholesterol, improving blood-

fat profiles for all practitioners. In

people with diabetes, yoga has been

found to lower blood sugar in several

ways: by lowering cortisol and adrena-

line levels, encouraging weight loss,

and improving sensitivity to the

effects of insulin. Get your blood-

sugar levels down, and you decrease

your risk of diabetic complications.