When we get into a training regimen, our movements become instinctive, and the body adjusts rapidly. This is known as muscle memory. While teaching your body how to properly execute squats, push-ups, and crunches is beneficial, relying just on these exercises to regularly increase gains will not produce the desired results. This is because the muscles function the same way every time.
Simply put, they aren't "surprised," thus they become lethargic.
Supplementing your routine with flow yoga is a great method to surprise your muscles, especially if you're new to the yoga practice and have never attempted the postures. It's like driving home on a different road than usual. Science has discovered that doing so creates new neuropathways in your brain. The similar thing happens in your muscles when you start a new routine.
How Flow Yoga Boost Your Gains in Your Workout Routine
Think about your current workouts.
When you lift weights, you use external equipment to activate your various muscle groups. Over time, your shoulders, legs, or biceps will become accustomed to the weighted plates or dumbbells in the familiar repetitions.
In flow yoga, we use our bodies as weights. When you combine gravity with hundreds of various postures and combinations, you get a workout that works the same muscle areas in a variety of ways.
A plank stance works every muscle in the body to hold it in one single line. While it is a stationary pose, it requires muscle control and action, leaving little opportunity for passivity.
A Flow sequence, on the other hand, encourages your muscles to quickly transition from one pose to another, resulting in a more balanced and healthy utilization of your primary muscle groups.
Not only can these positions and routines revitalize the body, but they also allow you to learn something new, which is beneficial to the mind.
Bottom line? Adding flow yoga to your workout routine is similar to clicking the shuffle button, as it uses your muscles in ways that "surprise" them, boosting their growth and effectiveness.
Energizing Flow Yoga with Added Cardio
Flow yoga is also known as "Vinyasa." Vinyasa, the sacred language of the practice and its Indian roots, loosely translates to "one breath, one movement."
This guideline, first and foremost, improves your breathing and teaches you how to transition from our typical shallow, chest-only breathing to a deeper, belly-chest breath that uses the full respiratory system.
Not only is this useful for a variety of health reasons (fighting allergies, eliminating pollutants, reducing stress, and relieving anxiety), but it also has a significant impact on our muscles and thus our workout.
Flooding your muscles with rich oxygen will only keep them healthy, while the cardiac boost will prepare you to tackle the more difficult postures in a flow yoga session. This prevents harm.
The Sun Salutation sequence is an excellent example of invigorating cardio in flow yoga. Each pose is completed on an inhale or exhale, until the sequence is complete. One complete cycle can be performed numerous times, urging you to take longer and deeper breaths. The cycles warm up and loosen the body, preparing the muscles for prolonged stationary positions.
Here's how to perform the Sun Salutation Flow:
Sun Salutations prime and prepare the muscles for an energetic breath, rather than throwing them into a hard workout.
Why is this significant, you ask? Because happy muscles are warmed-up ones.
The Best Thing About Flow Yoga
What's the best part about practicing flow yoga? You are developing strength and flexibility.
Strength and flexibility are like the pinnacle of a healthy fitness regimen. Before we get into why this is essential, let's have a look at how these two stack up individually:
Meet Strong Stan
Strong Stan is in the gym, performing bicep curls with enormous dumbbells. His muscles have reached their maximum size, which he proudly exhibits.
While he enjoys lifting weights, Strong Stan frequently skips stretching and warm-ups. He doesn't understand how that can help him maintain his muscle gains, so he immediately begins a strenuous workout regimen.
Stan's muscles are suffering, but a bystander wouldn't notice. Stan's muscles are shortening and tightening because he lacks flexibility and does not stretch deliberately. Unstretched muscles have a limited range of motion, which eventually leads to joint problems .
Big muscles are a solid sign of strength, but choosing not to prioritize flexibility puts them at risk.
Meet Flexible Fiona
Flexible Fiona is in a flow yoga session, easing into a backbend. She smoothly enters the position and "hangs" there for a few breaths while the teacher signals the students.
Even though the teacher advises the students to engage their glutes and remember that this is an active pose, Flexible Fiona chooses to relax into the posture, sacrificing the strength she should be developing.
Many in the class would consider Fiona's backbend execution to be a success, even something to envy. However, Fiona is unaware that her great flexibility is actually harmful to her joints.
Tony Gummerson, a Martial Arts instructor, defines flexibility as the "absolute range of motion". For persons who are naturally adaptable, the line of absolute range is frequently blurred and, in practice, missed.
Fiona's flexibility parameters are substantially wider than those of Strong Stan in a similar stance, therefore she can easily go over and beyond her range of motion.
Fiona must push the limits of her flexibility because she does not feel the stretch in the same degree of motion as the rest of the class. This puts too much strain on the already overworked joints and overstretches the muscles, which are now prone to rip.
Your goal is to create muscle and joint balance and wholeness.
Strong Stan and Flexible Fiona have one thing in common: they both lack essential muscular knowledge.
Stan's muscles are heavy and tight, and they need flexibility. Without it, Stan would not only reach a plateau in his gains due to an unavoidable injury, but he would also miss out on the slim and toned muscles that we all desire.
Fiona's overstretched muscles are not getting any exercise at all. Rather, her tremendous flexibility puts strain on her joints, resulting in definite harm.
If you're a Stan who dislikes stretching, improving your flexibility is essential. You will extend your tight muscles and develop new muscle memory by doing exercises that are unfamiliar to you and your muscle groups.
If you're a Fiona who despises strengthening, making this a top priority is critical. Your muscles are accustomed to being passive while stretching, so changing things up and pushing them to work will not only keep you injury-free, but will also bring you closer to the muscle gains you've been seeking.
Final Thoughts
If you're serious about adopting flow yoga to augment your workout program and increase your gains, enroll in a session at your local gym or yoga studio. There are several types of yoga to explore, but as we've described in this article, the Vinyasa style is the ideal fit to supplement a moderate fitness plan.
Many studios offer beginner-style Vinyasa sessions in which the instructor explains the fundamentals and breaks down the sequences at a tempo appropriate for beginners. From here, the learner can improve their practice by enrolling in more rigorous, fast-paced sessions like Power Flow or Ashtanga.
Working out is a way to teach your muscles. The gains we make are the consequence of that experience, and it all boils down to programming our bodies in a healthy, efficient, and balanced manner.
With a practice like flow yoga, we may augment our existing regimen with new, rejuvenating, and "surprising" ways to strengthen our muscles. This strategy will keep our muscles toned and slender as long as we prioritize a healthy balance of strength and flexibility. It is essential for our muscle growth and overall wellness.
Reference
| [1] | Ausmed: Exercise-Induced Neuroplasticity – Creating New Neural Pathways | |
| [2] | Gaia: What Is Vinyasa Yoga? Intelligent Living Rhythm | |
| [3] | Breathe (Sheff): Your lungs and exercise | |
| [4] | Harvard Health Publishing: The importance of stretching | |
| [5] | Yoga Journal: Yoga Backbends | |
| [6] | MIT EDU: Flexibility |
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