How Can Yoga Keep Me Fit?
Yoga can help you to maintain a healthier lifestyle. Most people are in the groove of not wanting to spend any time at all in maintaining their bodies and then wonder why the body deteriorates at a rapid rate as they age? Yoga can be practiced even with a hectic busy lifestyle. Yoga involves your body and mind so that your become fit in both. When becoming fit there needs to be an emphasis on action, in taking a step to become physically active. To be fit means that all of your organs and body parts such as your muscles, joints, glands, tissues, blood circulation, respiration, secretions, excretions, your nervous system and even your reproduction are all working the way they are designed to. Yoga allows your body to be fit by developing techniques that involve the movements of your joints, specific postures, deep breathing, relaxation and also meditation.
Sandhichalana is a technique of moving the joints of the body in sequence and allowing for full movement of each joint. There is movement of the hands, neck, lower limbs, and knee joints.
There are many levels of fitness within the body and yoga addresses them all including cardio respiratory fitness, muscular fitness, flexibility, and body composition.
Muscular fitness is your muscle strength regarding how heavy of an object you can safely lift and muscle endurance is how long you can lift it. If we do not exercise and live a sedentary lifestyle we will lose muscle mass. Loss of muscle mass results in muscle weakness. Muscle also plays an important role in metabolism. So with muscle mass our metabolism speeds up and we lose weight. Without muscle mass our metabolism slows down and if we continue to eat the same or eat more foods, we can gain weight.
Flexibility diminishes as we age because of shortened muscles and tendons. The tissue that connects muscle to bones (tendons) becomes stiffer. This occurrence reduces our range of motion, which in turn prevents us from moving our knees, shoulders, elbows, spine, and other joints in the fluid motion necessary for many daily tasks.
Body composition is the percentage of body made up of fat instead of muscle, bone, organ, or other nonfat tissues. You can use body composition as a gage of how fit your are and how healthy you are. Too much fat and too little muscle raises your risk for diseases. You are able to move with more flexibility when you have better muscle mass and less fat.
Although there have not been any proven studies on yoga and the effect on fitness there have been studies on tai chi and the two practices are very similar in elements. Most who practices yoga know and experience the fitness benefits and has no doubt that yoga does indeed have long-term fitness benefits. There are numerous individuals who have experienced both physical and emotional health while practicing yoga. Part of the fitness ability of yoga centers around the maximum oxygen capacity that increases muscle endurance because the yoga poses increases lung capacity. Yoga is aerobically challenging, continuously increases your heart rate, increases your balance through the yoga poses and tunes your senses so that you are more aware of your body and can better coordinate the actions of your body’s parts. Through yoga you become one with your body, mind and spirit giving you maximum fitness potential.
