Squats can boost brain activity [video]
bbc.com
bbc.com
(Note: don't actually try to squat 2x your bodyweight unless you have some years of experience in squatting and know what you are doing)
For an absolute beginner, where I have no idea what level of fitness you have or what injuries you may be working with, I would recommend Iyengar. It is relatively gentle, and emphasizes careful development. A lot of people like Vinyasa, which can range from slow and gentle to as aerobic as running. I like Ashtanga, which is about doing the same set of poses every time, but doing them correctly. I wouldn't recommend it for absolute beginners, however.
Obviously, don't run out and do crazy stuff like headstands or intense backbends or balancing poses unless you have experience. But also be aware that even "normal" yoga can have positions that are risky for people when done incorrectly -- for example, men typically have tight hamstrings and hips, and compensate in forward folds by bending over from the lower back. This can be dangerous if you don't have a strong back (and it's never a good idea). It is helpful to have 1:1 instruction if you don't know the form.
If you want someone who I know is a good instructor and willing to teach via video, please backchannel me and I can recommend.
Yoga is great for core strength, getting rid of back soreness, and gently improving flexibility.
You'll also learn about your own body and develop greater self awareness when moving. Just take care that, though the risk is lower, you can still injure yourself by overdoing it. Listen to your body along the way.
For me it is not really a class anymore but supervised yoga. An instructor that walks around and helps me with my asanas and gives me hints to improve (aka Mysore). I can recommend it but it may be that instructors in Sweden are a bit more laid back when it comes to the weird stuff. And i can filter it anyway, when they talk about energies flowing through your head maybe they just wanted to say "keep a straight pose, it is good for you".
It really does wonders for my lower back. It just loves that kind of twisting and the core strength that comes with it.
But when I do it at home I use this one from Lesley Fightmaster. https://youtu.be/2wYN1IhnXT4
Swimming is the one thing that fixed chronic back pain for me which I acquired from rollerblading half pipe in my late teens and repeatedly falling on my ass in the transition from pretty high up. It trashed my lower back. Swimming fixed that - as long as I kept swimming. And the trouble is that I've moved around a lot and I've had periods of a year or more without a pool. And inevitably my back issues would come back.
Also with swimming, if I tried to do anything else that required using my full posterior chain (like deadlifts) I'd injure myself. I was fit and pain free, but I couldn't really push it when doing heavy lifting work.
Yoga, for me, has some major advantages over swimming. Firstly I can do it absolutely anywhere. I got this incredibly thin travel mat that you can stuff into a small backpack and I take that to hotels with me. As long as I can stand up straight and spread my arms wide, that's all the space I need. So I'm able to do it no matter where I'm living or traveling to. Secondly, it has massively improved my ability to lift heavy random stuff at awkward angles without getting injured, and with more strength than before. Nothing else has done that for me including lifting, swimming, etc.
Since you sound interested, I'd like to offer a few more tips:
Avoid classes. The social aspect of yoga can be a bit weird. You'll find people who think they breathe through their eyelids. Others that want to hug you a lot. There's the subtle pressure associated with the various biz models around classes. There is a hierarchy you'll discover. You'll also find that hot yoga is brilliant in it's business model because you can't do it at home - you have to go to a hot yoga class. Which is seriously limiting if you travel. I've mentioned the beachbody 3 week yoga retreat here which is what I use. But I'm sure there are a bunch of other apps and resources that are great, so find something that gets you from zero to yoga and then just keep doing a routine that works for you.
I have two routines that I do using the beachbody app. One is 20 mins and one is 30 mins. The 20 is called "flow on the go" and it's super fast and flowy. The 30 minute routine starts off slower and is more meditative. Depends what mood I'm in or I'll just randomly pick on.
I'd also recommend that you don't do yoga if you've been drinking heavily the night before. For some reason when I was starting out, I'd get injured doing that. Just a mild injury. I can only surmise that it's because my body was in an inflamed state from the hangover. THC/CBD the night before is totally fine and I find it actually makes yoga quite enjoyable the next morning. YMMV.
I still mountain bike, stand up paddleboard, hike, occassionally do short runs while I'm hiking. But yoga makes all of that far more enjoyable, has reduced my injury rate and improved my balance, flexibility and strength.
Don't get sucked into the whole zen, mindfulness, meditation circle, speaking slowly in droning tones bull. Yoga is amazing. It's the cults and cultists that make it expensive, inconvenient, weird and just kind of awful. With yoga you get meditation free. As long as you're breathing and focusing on the breath while doing the movements, doing a flow or holding a pose, you're already meditating. The rest is just window dressing.
Best of luck.
My mom tried "hot yoga" and quit immediately, i was laughing, lost interest back then, now Covid makes swimming pool less attractive to me so i'm interested in yoga, at least I used to like gymnastic kind of things (e.g. round off)
Good stuff!
I was not born with an innate knowledge of how to do yoga :)
I recommend finding a class that speaks to you. A good teacher will make you get the right focus and postures.
That does not mean practicing by yourself is a safe or healthy alternative.
If you can't find good teachers in your city, do something else. But please don't blame a whole discipline for the poor quality of teachers and students.
Again, I'm absolutely not affiliated with them and I'm not even in the fitness space. I run a cybersecurity company. It's just worked really well for me for about 4 years.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Body
[2] https://www.alomoves.com/instructors/dylanwerner?instructors...
Some of the old texts may seriously alter perspectives, though it also need to be lived.
Any culture can redefine anything they want from other cultures. Just like most western yoga studios are LGBTQ friendly and many Hindus are not.
That is false. Please don't spread this myth. The homophobia is mostly a social hangover from colonial times. Steps are being taken to change that, and it should go away with time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_religion#Hin...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_India
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_India
https://time.com/5918808/homophobia-homosexuality-lgbt-asian...
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/11/asia/british-empire-lgbt-...
Also blaming pretty much everything bad on colonialism is a pretty tired excuse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs
Which guess what? Is just a variation of a Yoga move from India that the teachers used to give to improve cognition in children who were not focussing in class
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murga_punishment
The idea is that squats or moving your head up and down rushes blood to your head. Further if you hold certain activation points like your ears whilst doing it, it activates certain parts of the brain that improve coordination and brain power.
All ripped from Hinduism, what I suggest to those who love Yoga and feel they benefit from Yoga is explore the other types of Yoga mentioned in the Gita. After all, if the Rishis/Sages were right about Yoga, Hinduism is clearly onto something in the Gita about the other types of Yoga.
So, even if one thinks that cultural appropriation is a thing, the culture where Yoga originated is perfectly happy with the appropriation.
Is there something else that makes it unethical?
If the term doesn't clearly convey what it means, it's a shitty term, or it's designed to create friction rather than understanding. This is such a case, where those with identity-politics as a hobby and religion will talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Buzzwords are favored in media and op-eds because of their nefarious nature. We should dispense with them and communicate what we mean. Most of them share the same problem, e.g. "white fragility" ("well ackshuallyyy it just means that white people are uncomfortable talking about race" -- yeah? Then why call it that?)
Yes.
The main problems are around taking elements of a culture without providing proper attribution or butchering them.
Translated to FOSS, it's the equivalent of reusing somebody's software without attributing authorship (even if the license requires it).
Or a large company making a backdoored fork of Firefox called "FireFox" and misleading users into blaming Mozilla for it.
It gets worse when the copycat overshadows the original.
Besides, I met plenty of people, both from India and not, complaining about the butchering of Yoga.
What would be the appropriate means of providing attribution in case of Yoga? Would a rendition of Sare Jahan Se Achcha before each Yoga session suffice?
> Translated to FOSS
Applying copyright and trademark law to a practice that is a part of humanity's intangible cultural heritage is beyond farcical.
> Besides, I met plenty of people, both from India and not, complaining about the butchering of Yoga.
I've probably met a few orders of magnitude more Indians than you have, considering how I live in India. I have only heard of appreciation when foreigners adopt even superficial aspects of Indian culture. I don't see why Bharat Tyagis[0] get to be gatekeepers.
My Chinese colleagues were horrified by what is called Chinese food in India.[1] But the world would be a poorer place if we gave up this wonderful cuisine because of some misguided notions of appropriation. You can pry my manchurian[2] from my cold dead hands. Wait, did I just appropriate American culture and disrespect an impassioned defence of a cherished constitutional right?
If you still have a problem with cultural appropriation, please start with giving up the concept of zero and the positional notational system. Afterall, it's been butchered and misattributed to the Arabs for centuries.
0: https://devdutt.com/articles/hiss-of-the-pio-bharat-tyagi/
I never said to apply copyright and trademark to cultural heritage. I was making a comparison.
Besides, you just made a good example of appropriation: registering the name of a cultural item from another culture as your own trademark in another countries. It happened a lot of time with food.
> But the world would be a poorer place if we gave up this wonderful cuisine because of some misguided notions of appropriation.
I never said one should give up any cultural artifact. You are making a strawman after another.
You wake making some reference to attribution. You didn't clarify what would be appropriate attribution in this case though.
> registering the name of a cultural item from another culture as your own trademark in another countries.
Which is an entirely different issue. Let me remind you the discussion was originally about people from other countries practicing Yoga.
> I never said one should give up any cultural artifact.
But you did say that cultural appropriation was not ethical. So, we can continue with it as long as we feel bad about it?
Registering a trademark is a by-the-book example of claiming ownership of something. Especially when it goes together with introducing something to a population largely unaware of it.
> But you did say that cultural appropriation was not ethical.
Yes.
> So, we can continue with it as long as we feel bad about it?
No, and again, I never said that. I very clearly said that once attribution is given properly and mashups/variations are clearly identified there is no problem.
At this point I can't imagine that the attempts at arguing I'm reading are written in good faith and without an agenda.
I'm asking for the third time: What would be appropriate attribution for Yoga?
> At this point I can't imagine that the attempts at arguing I'm reading are written in good faith and without an agenda.
And what agenda would that be?
It doesn't really matter whether people want to call it yoga or not; we fundamentally have the right to practice whatever exercise we want, no matter our ethnicity or culture of origin.
Reading the very first 3 paragraphs of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation is enough to disprove your claims.
> butchering them
Not sure what this is supposed to mean considering that culture is not static, and all cultural elements as they are appropriated help create something different from their source of inspiration, by definition.
> Reading the very first 3 paragraphs
Read the first sentence.
I wouldn't put much stake in a wikipedia edit-war that sources op-eds from media as citations, but don't see anything explicitly contradicting what I said - it doesn't make sense to liken India as a "minority" culture. In the first place for being on the global sphere, not local, and in the second their population stands at 1.2 billion. There's nothing minor about it. And it's been independent since 1947. Add to the fact, most people in their respective countries are part of the "dominant" culture.
Calling something colonialism doesn't make it so. Colonialism has a very real meaning: power or control over another group through colonies. You can't just wantonly use it as a modifier. Likening yoga to an act of colonialism is disgraceful.
Proponents can just come out and be candid about the fact that this is really a pissing contest over have-not cultures, i.e. the Indigenous. The insult in a hypothetical appropriation stems not from appropriation itself, but because their sociological group still gets the shaft today in the West, which is being attributed to colonialism. Just about anything would provoke a reaction because of widespread discontent, it's just a power they can exercise, and who can blame them? No one can "own" the likeness of wearing a feather in their hair, and they know this - it's not about the feather.
The instructors are pretty good, and if you just want to try out Yoga for a week or two and see how difficult it can really be I can recommend it.
I normally do 15 minutes over lunch, and I can recommend the "Flamingo Flow" for balance, and "yoga core" for core strength
[1] Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fiton.andr... [2] iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fiton-workouts-fitness-plans/i...
I would argue that if building strength, clarity, and focus is someone's main goal then this could be just as easily achieved by regular routine exercise like a calisthenics or bodyweight program with a healthy diet to boot. At least this way you can realise the benefits much quicker than a year or two.
I can't speak to the rewarding 'zen' nature of Yoga. After close to a decade of full-time weightlifting though, perhaps it has conditioned me into treating it as a sort of routine, mental therapy.
While yoga-as-meditation seems to have a long in India:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga#History
Yoga-as-exercise was a much more recent phenomenon started by Westerners:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_as_exercise
> Goldberg is the author of The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West. Her book traces the modern Western practice of yoga to a Russian woman named Indra Devi, who was born in 1899 with the birth name Eugenia Peterson.
* https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/06/01/4112024...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra_Devi
Regardless, if it gets people off the couch, then to a certain extent who cares which is "better": the perfect is the enemy of the good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatha_yoga
lol
As someone who used to lift and absolutely loved it, I wanted to try to explain the difference between lifting and yoga.
Lifting is awesome and I used to absolutely love it. I also found it somewhat meditative. It was my unwind time. I miss it. What I didn't get from lifting is the diversity that yoga brings in terms of strengthening far more muscles, while also giving you flexibility.
I'm trying to think of a pose I can give you, but I worry that if you just dive in and try it you could injure yourself. The good yoga routines will start you off very slowly with breath, then some light stretching, then sun salutations, and then into the harder poses. It is those harder poses that give you this kind of "diversity of strength" I'm describing.
An example of a pose that isn't that hard to do, but strengthens muscles that lifting rarely works is half moon pose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardha_chandrasana
Yoga is usually a flow, and a well designed flow will alternate between exerting muscles and then stretching those same muscles that you were exerting while exerting the ones you were stretching. That way you get strength and flexibility.
I don't have a gym near me anymore (I live on a small island) but I suspect that the combination of yoga and a killer lifting routine could do unbelievable things for your strength, flexibility and overall aesthetics, while helping you lift way heavier while avoiding injury. Just a thought. Best of luck!!
Hard to get into a debate about this because lifting does an amazing job of exercising just about everything. It just does it in a very different way with, I've found, higher risk of injury.
Funny how people become obsessed with specific movements, specific exercise styles, etc.
I am about to start lifting again after being away for a couple of years. Back then I was training at a Starting Strength certified gym. I also did a seminar with Mark. For me this was an eye opener. Up until I was introduced to his book I failed at anything having to do with lifting.
I actually did yoga at a studio a couple of decades ago. I think they called it hot yoga or something like that. It was hard work. I definitely enjoyed it.
I am puzzled about the potential combination of Starting Strength style training with a supplement of the right kind of yoga.
I used it for about 6 months and I followed a couple of other programs (5/3/1 was the longest at nearly an year and a half). The emphasis on squat / deadlift / press / bench has all paid off years later and the only time I really learn a new movement is when I'm doing an isolation exercise.
I DO think the attitude Rip has towards movements like rows, Romanian deadlifts and machines (especially cable machines) was bad for my mindset, but I learned a lot by having my field of vision narrowed; I find a lot of the other criticisms of him to be irrelevant to his beginner-focused exercise program.
TL;DR - starting strength got me to the strongest I’ve ever been.
It got me stronger than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m 45 now and started when I was 32. I went from 180ish pounds to 230ish pounds in 19 months. I went from squatting the bar (45 lbs) to squatting a bit over 500 (502.5 was my personal best). Deadlift went from 135lbs to 612lbs (I bought those half pound and 1 pound change plates to carry with me to the gym just so I could say I was always adding weight to the bar).
So I think I was strong. I wasn’t competing in powerlifting strong (although I did compete. And in my age group I could usually at least place), but I was strong.
I was also completely out of shape :)
If you follow Starting Strength as written - the training and the diet - you will get strong, and unless you’re blessed with an amazing metabolism, you’ll get “fat”. At my strongest, I was obese according to my BMI. I couldn’t walk up 3 flights of stairs without getting winded.
To the Starting Strength crowd (back then; maybe it’s changed), the only cardio you needed was enough lung capacity to maintain bracing for a set of 5. Anything more than that would “kill your gains”.
So stick with Starting Strength? Absolutely if you’re getting back into it. Beginner gains are awesome. But don’t follow the program to a T. Do real cardio (not just more squats. not just high intensity. Do the slow and steady stuff as well). Do mobility work (yoga is good). Do corrective work (also known as pre-hab. I find Indian clubs and maces are phenomenal for shoulder health). And realize that if you talk to a true zealot of the Starting Strength world, they will tell you aren’t following the program and all the other stuff you’re doing is “killing your gains”.
The not doing the program sub-chapter seems to focus on hitting calorie targets and bar weight targets. Presumably "cardio" means you burn even more energy, but as long as you eat enough, I think it's within scope.
Your advice is solid though. Rippetoe focuses on increasing strength, so any other goals or constraints are up to the trainee.
For example, I went to one of his seminars in 2008 (I think. It’s been a minute). And someone asked about slow running in Maffetone zones, and he said paraphrased - “Look. You do what you want. But don’t come whining to me that your squat keeps stalling. I’m just going to tell you to stop running and eat more food”.
Depending on what you do for cardio, it will have an impact on the muscles. It’s not just calories. If you run/jog, the impact on your joints will accumulate with the lifting impact on your joints. And I think this is because beginners gravitate to Starting Strength. They try to do everything. They don’t know how to do things in moderation. So (IMO) it’s easier for the Starting Strength world to just say “No. Don’t do cardio”. Just some of the coaches are very, very draconian and less than flexible about it.
Yes, I got stronger than ever in my life through Starting Strength. For me, someone who had never really done any kind of serious weight lifting, the gains seemed impossible. Being at a certified gym was very useful because you could watch others do the work while you were resting and learn from the corrections and advise they were receiving from the coaches. It was also very useful because being told you could actually lift the weight you just failed to move off the ground meant you didn't quit --something that can easily happen on your own if you don't know what you are doing. This is where I learned just how much of "I can't move this" is actually in your head.
The other thing it did for me is remove the pain and the barriers of the many failed attempts over the years. I just didn't know what I was doing. Lifting just 150 lbs off the ground without any notion of proper technique was at times painful and impossible. That's how I ended-up at a Starting Strength gym.
And yet, just as you mention in your note, I was getting fat. I was stronger than 99% of the people I came into contact with on a daily basis (including at my regular gym) and yet, I was putting on fat. This is why I walked away. The coach kept telling me that we would start addressing that once we got to a high enough plateau of strength. I wasn't comfortable with continuing along that trajectory.
My thinking at the time was to slim down and restart from a better BMI. I had a less-than-ideal BMI when I started. I don't think this helped. I also needed to learn how to eat better. Your dietary needs change with age and we don't always make optimal adjustments. Aside from that, a change of focus to a balance between a moderate strength gain slope and healthy body metrics seemed like a better idea.
I am now about 10 lbs from where I want to be to restart. I hope to get there within the next three months. Diet only, no heavy exercise at all other than some walks and going rowing a couple of times a month. I needed to understand how to modulate body metrics with food rather than insane exercise regimes that are simply not sustainable in the long run.
I can't tout any of the claims I see online about exercise helping, well, anything. I do like my bike rides, though. And, the odds are stupid high that one of the first things you will learn about me, will include the type of ride I prefer.
I can buy that. Running is my big thing (also HEMA), which surprised many not least myself when I realised I _liked_ it a few years ago![†]. It helps me keep healthy in body, it helps me burn off nervous energy, sometimes it is social[‡], sometimes it helps me get away[*].
[†] after losing some weight I tried various gym things to get what was left into better shape, we have heart problems in the family line and I wanted to reduce my chance of “being next”, fell into a pattern of dynamic movements to warm up, row a bit, move some weights around, then treadmill to finish, and a friend (who also runs) encouraged me to try running off the mill.
[‡] I find there is a certain camaraderie in trail events, and similarly at parkruns (a movement that has probably done significant good to overall fitness, in the UK at least)
[*] a long weekend herfing myself around the Dales while training for an event earlier this year was the most relaxed I'd felt for a prolonged time in quite a while
If you start from zero, doing anything a little bit improves your body, but it's also very easy to overdo it and break your body. If you then switch the activity, your body is already much stronger and better prepared for a new activity and is not as likely to break.
Maybe the lesson is that variation is the key? Do all sorts of physical activities and switch them occasionally?
While you can certainly do yoga at home I would highly recommend trying a class. In particular I would recommend Mysore style classes. This type of class isn't lead by a teacher that you have to follow along. Instead all students do yoga on their own and the teacher is dedicated to correcting and helping students. A good experienced teacher can make a lot of valuable corrections and can help you get into positions that you can't do alone (yet).
Nothing transformed my life more then serious strength training. Everything from sitting behind a desk to running uphill is a hundred times easier.
I'm sure you can achieve the same strength with yoga, but it seems to me its very inefficient. You can do strength training 2-3 times a week for an hour and it just works.
There's absolutely no way you can stress the nervous system and build muscle and bone density as efficiently as with lifting weights.
Calisthenics, which is what Yoga is, body weight exercises, can never achieve the same results. You can come close in a lot of ways, one legged squats etc, but ultimately, you cannot work your back and your core as effectively as with a 1.5x body weight dead lift.
Same goes for stretching as well. A good stretching routine is going to get you much more flexible faster than doing yoga. Yoga has stretching in it, but again, it's unfocused and tends to have a very poor sense of progression.
Yoga is probably more akin to a sport. You can keep fit by playing sports, depending on how much work you put into it. But if you're trying to build strength, cardio, or flexibility, you're going to get much better results with a routine that focuses on those.
Note on bias: I do calisthenics...and weightlifting (https://www.instagram.com/p/CScdKCjr_0c/)
However spending hours a day doing gymnastics is plenty to maintain that level of physical strength and even slowly improve.
No knock on weight lifting though, it's great. But for most people getting on a yoga mat and doing some calisthenics is a lot more approachable than learning how to use a gym properly for their bodies.
For me I saw 10x better results with calisthenics than intermediate powerlifting because the amount of volume I could get in was much much higher on compound exercises.
It's only when you get to an advanced level of strength, where advanced calisthenics exercises don't quite cut it, and almost no one gets to that level.
I'm not sure about that - have you looked at the strength required for some of the exercises people do on gymnastics rings? Things like ring planches, maltese, victorian cross (once thought to be impossible) etc.
That of course assumes that building huge or strongest muscles is universal goal. It is not.
It's hard to compare the two though because one might day that, in old age, being able to do a handstand is less important than being able to haul groceries along uneven terrain standing up.
I lift on the regular, train with a PT that specializes in mobility and strength who works with pro athletes. If I don't adhere to a nightly, consistent stretching regiment before bed that includes a bit of yoga and a number of other key movements, I sleep like poo.
Highly recommend the book; Becoming a Supple Leopard [1]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Supple-Leopard-2nd-Performan...
So I do stretch and do mobility work especially hips, legs, shoulders, and take care of my posture and feet etc.
But it is a time commitment, and I do think that strength training is the first thing someone should focus on. Fixing issues from constant sitting is also a whole other topic.
It's hard to imagine it couldn't be a bit more simplified.
It's impossible to get people to stick to diet plans etc. in actual scientific studies. The number of variables in a regular lifestyle mean it's impossible to draw any conclusions from anecdotal evidence. Add to that the inability to remember what you felt like years ago and compare it objectively with what you feel like today, the placebo effect etc. etc.
I do think there is a place for Yoga in giving our bodies different kinds of movements so we experience our body in different ranges of motion and positions but Yoga is nothing like compound barbell training (whether it's powerlifting or olympic weightlifting).
I've tried them all too, and found success from most for my mental health.
I effectively meditate when exercising, and that is what I think gets these results.
It's basically mostly flexibility focused gymnastic with extra lore. Pilates is similar.
Personally I just didn't get strong with yoga, albeit retaining some decent strength and I eventually transitioned to just gymnastic (focusing on rings in particular). I got pretty strong in terms of techniques I could do, but not in terms of amount of weight I could move. Then I got injured, spent 10 years doing random sport activity (circus training, climbing, weight lifting) and staying relatively weak.
The only way I got stronger was when 3 factors aligned: - Progressive overload - Sleep - Not being stressed / depressed - Caloric surplus with high protein intake
After I peaked at linear progression in terms of strength, periodization became a good way to squeeze some more strength and I'm still there (probably for life).
Starting strength was admittedly the first that worked for me in order to get stronger, but I failed it a good 3 times before over 10 years (mainly because of diet / sleep / stress). In my experience it's hard to get progressive overload without weights or without a good calisthenics coach. Sleep and diet are also incredibly hard to get right because the rest of your life gets in the way.
Claiming that yoga alone will make you strong depends on your definition of strength. If you have back pain (probably because of muscular weakness), probably any kind of full body exercise will fix that.
Also, is someone doing handstand pushups at 70kg stronger or weaker than someone over head pressing 70kg at 90kg? That's a very personal choice. I'd say weight lifting is great to increase strength in specific movements, calisthenics is great for moving all around. Different kind of freedoms and equally important.
I would recommend this kind of programming for someone looking to get stronger and then adapting it to whatever exercising style you like: https://youtu.be/1CM7wI3k7KI
I also stopped running - the benefits of Yoga are sine parallela. It's truly an ancient art. No wonder Alexander never conquered them and Oppenheimer read the Bagavad Gita.
*this post is a work of fiction. However, this is the level of magic the parent is ascribing to something that's not a bad general mobility routine. Taking a nap at the end of the session is nice too. Namaste.
Decades of doing Yoga poses to help my restless legs and bad back left me in constant pain(except for some temporary relief from stretching).
I finally stopped all that, did the "McGill big 3"(*) a few times a week, and at 46 I'm feeling better than I have in years.
I have respect for Yoga. Friends have had great luck with it, but for me, my body and my goals it isn't a good fit.
I also did the Rippetoe thing, and have a copy of Starting Strength if anyone wants it. Deadlifts were absolutely amazing for my lower back, until they weren't. I guess I could try again post-McGill, but I think strength training for me just wore out my joints while leaving me tired and required a lot more time than what I can accomplish with basic equipment at home(kudos to anyone who has a power rack at home though).
* Along with biking, hiking and a light strength training program. I've done that for years as well though. The difference was stopping stretching beyond some brief, limited shoulder mobility work.*
Cardio - Keep your heart health up and for endurance
Weights - Strength training
Yoga - A neurologist I was talking to mentioned yoga, because it builds balance, something that as you get older gets worse, especially in older people where most injuries are because of falls. Besides that I just like doing yoga after weights to stretch.
If you want to take it to the next level, look into the [power] clean (and press) or the snatch. These take the power profile of a squat, and add explosive speed to the mix. If you think simply engaging all your muscles is good, wait til you add in the speed component and/or the upper body... Definitely higher-risk exercises, but you get what you pay for in my experience. Just think about the kinematics of moving a barbell from the ground to as high as you can possibly hold it within 1~2 seconds. These are the most incredible exertions your body can possibly make. Some athletes can put out in excess of 4kW of power [1] when performing these movements. Imagine the adaptations the human brain would have to make in order to properly manage this amount of power.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7392903/- I'm benching all the time, but I can't get past 275.
- How often do you squat?
- Huh? I'm talking about bench press!
But I’m past the point of worrying about it. I’ll never get rid of that last 3 or 4% body fat. But as long as my cardiologist is happy, I’m happy.
I was really good at doing 5x5 squats... Then I tried doing 10 reps of a lower weight and nearly died.
Can't wait for the next time one of these stories to pop up on my feed so I can get motivated to do another set.
But in all seriousness... my problem (as is the case with almost all the proactive things I should be doing in my life) is that I lack motivation.
6 - leave work 6 - 6:15 Get dressed and drive to (very nearby) gym 6:15 - 6:30: Warm up 6:30 - 7:30: Lift 7:30 - 8 Mobility work 8:00 - 8:30 Shower, change, etc
More food needed, more meal prep, more sleep. Staying fit seriously cuts into "real life" - I could be passing an extra cloud / K8S / ML exam every 3 months if I studied instead.
Of course, lt health benefits, getting out of chair, etc all make it "worth it", but there is a huge cost.
I get up at 6:30, leave home at 7:15, get to the gym at 7:30, 30 minutes of cardo, 1 hour of strength, then get back home and quickly shower, starting work at 9:30 (WFH benefit right there). I do that 3 days per week.
On any given day, I cannot find the self-motivation to go to the gym and do a real workout. Even if I have a good gym in the building I live in.
But once I'm paying someone- pre-paying no less- for training sessions, then I do not ever miss a day. So all I need is the motivation to get fit one time, and then drop a huge amount of money at that one time.
Oh, what's that? Sunk cost fallacy you say? Doesn't seem to impact this process in me and I'm not about to convince my lazy brain that it should.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs
Which guess what? Is just a variation of a Yoga move from India that the teachers used to give to improve cognition in children who were not focussing in class
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murga_punishment
The idea is that squats or moving your head up and down rushes blood to your head. Further if you hold certain activation points like your ears whilst doing it, it activates certain parts of the brain that improve coordination and brain power.
All ripped from Hinduism, what I suggest to those who love Yoga and feel they benefit from Yoga is explore the other types of Yoga mentioned in the Gita. After all, if the Rishis/Sages were right about Yoga, Hinduism is clearly onto something in the Gita about the other types of Yoga.
My guess is increased BDNF and maybe neurogenesis(scientifically disputed)? I heard sleep is a mechanism in which the brain clear out debris, so that might be a potential benefit of doing squats.
This is not a prescription to drop your exercise routine and only do squats, it’s really just pointing out that squats are a good first choice for sedentary people who want to keep their brains healthy.
There were a few people in the video squatting with their knees way too forward rather than squatting like they're sitting down. It's a pretty common beginner mistake. I agree that they're easy enough--it's not like they're suggesting the snatch.
I bet that’s the real secret to it’s supposed brain boosting. It just knocks you out enough that you have to sleep. And sleep definitely boosts your brain.
My tables are normalized like you wouldn't believe..
Your body temperature has to actually drop a bit lower from normal before all your regular sleep cycles can kick in.
This adaptation means that when you work out you increase blood flow to your muscles _and_ brain, this would have made sense in a primordial scenario where you would be hunting or fighting for your life.
The positive benefits described in the link could just be a cascade of consequences from this increased blood flow and exchanges.
https://www.nifs.org/blog/powerbuilding-the-middle-ground-be...
Edit: for a balanced approach, the Youtuber Jujimufu is a great watch. He's a bodybuilder who also does acrobatics and competes in powerlifting, and will often spring a backflip after a really impressive lift (https://youtu.be/_ydPYzYCpgU). Truly impressive.
Once weekly: Squat, Press, Deadlift.
This has done wonders for my back, especially my upper back, and my posture.
But on a more serious note, I find that I'm able to push myself significantly harder when I am able to get myself into the right mental state. This may look like hyping myself up before working out or working out with friends who "have no chill".