There are millions of people who have given up hope for restoring their body to one that functions without pain. Whether they’re getting older or have experienced an injury that limited their range of motion or activity level, they’ve decided to just live with it instead of fixing the problem.
Sometimes, there is no surgical fix for a problem, but there are many who have used yoga therapy to heal their bodies and regain mobility and functionality. Yoga therapy combines various other forms of gentle fitness to repair your physical abilities.
The Rising Need for Healing Fitness
There are two reasons most people end up with broken bodies. The first is through injuries. These injuries can be caused by playing sports and damaging muscles, tendons, or bones or by suffering an injury in an accidental way, such as falling or being in a wreck.
If you’re like most people, you probably just keep pushing yourself without addressing the need for complete healing. This can lead to further injuries or limiting your ability to fully use whatever part of the body you injured.
Sometimes, though, a broken body isn’t caused by an injury. You end up with limitations because of aging. The loss of muscle tone can be an issue as well as loss of muscle fiber.
When older people experience these limitations, it can be common to start to baby or limit that area of the body. This can further weaken that muscle, flexibility or stamina.
There can be issues with obesity that can cause broken bodies, too.
When you’re overweight, it puts a lot of strain on the bones and muscles as well as the body’s organs. People who are obese tend to have a struggle with mobility issues. It can be difficult to walk, much less exercise.
But exercise is what you need in order to regain your mobility. Sometimes people experience so many physical injuries or have pain that makes it hard for them to even get out of bed.
What these people need is a workout they can begin that takes into consideration their limitations. Anyone who has a problem with exercising or with their mobility needs to have a fitness routine that isn’t like traditional exercise programs.
You need a strategy that doesn’t call for you to run or jump, since this isn’t good for a broken body. You also need a program that doesn’t call for you to lift heavy weights, because this can also be a problem for you.
Any type of harsh training is detrimental and instead of getting you in shape, it can cause more damage to your body. You want something that’s healing in nature, not counterproductive.
If you choose the right type of fitness, you can improve your quality of life. The right kind of exercise is going to require that you forego what you may have traditionally been told about fitness.
Exercise doesn’t have to be punishing in order to be effective. You don’t have to drive your body into the ground. You don’t have to push through pain. Instead, you can use fitness that strengthens and heals your body at the same time.
For example, you can do something like yoga that’s paired with rehab therapies. Not only will this help you be able to tone up and lose weight, but it’ll strengthen the body and allow it to recover from injuries.
This way of exercising can be done to help overcome the effects of aging on the body, too. It’s a formidable, yet gentle method of regaining your physical functions without further impairing you.
Yoga for a Gentle Body Tune Up
If you’re like most people, you may consider yoga to be something that’s performed more for inner peace or as a physical relaxation tool. You may not have been introduced to the effectiveness of using yoga as a body tune up.
Unlike most exercise programs, yoga is an extremely gentle, yet effective exercise. It has the ability to do more than you think for your body. Best of all, there are few if any limitations in place for those considering this type of healing exercise.
You can perform the moves whether you’re a man or a woman. Your age doesn’t matter, either. Those who are young can benefit from the healing power of yoga therapy exercise.
People who are older can, too. It doesn’t matter if you’re in shape or out of shape, you can still get started. It could be that in the past, a lack of money for equipment held you back from seeking the healing your body needs.
Or maybe you didn’t know how to use the equipment. Maybe it was too painful on your body. By using yoga, you don’t have to have any equipment. There are different types of yoga therapy to help your body.
Some of the routines you can use with yoga focus on weight loss. If you’re struggling with your body right now because your weight is causing health problems or mobility issues, then you can choose a routine that will help you shed pounds.
There are also yoga routines that you can try that help strictly with mobility issues and help your body to become more flexible. This routine is helpful for anyone, but especially for those who’ve struggled with losing flexibility due to aging.
Some of the yoga exercises that you can do teach you how to build up strength – especially core strength. When you use yoga to build up your core strength, you’ll find that you have more endurance as well as better range of motion.
It’s important to build your core, especially if you’re someone who’s active, since doing so can help to prevent injuries. There are also specific types of yoga therapy for helping you recover from previous injuries.
You might need help recovering from chronic back pain. Or maybe your weight issues have given you joint problems. This can be difficult when you experience this in a weight bearing joint, such as the knees.
Yoga can help with all of that. The type of yoga program you choose can not only help you overcome an existing injury, but it can strengthen your body against future injuries, too.
If you’re unfit and are struggling just to get through the day, yoga can help you with fitness and stamina. There are different ways that you can take part in the yoga therapy for your body.
You can sign up for group classes and benefit that way. Or, you can join an online workshop. Some people sign up on their smart devices and that way, they have an app they can use anywhere they go. Or, you can order DVDs that will walk you through the program you’ve chosen.
Pairing Yoga with Calisthenics for Improved Fitness
If you’ve used calisthenics before, it means that you’ve performed a workout that involves using your major muscles. These workouts are known to give you power, but at the same time, may now wreak havoc on your body.
You may not have considered that you can combine the effectiveness of calisthenics with yoga for a powerful workout that’s still gentle on the body. When you use calisthenics and yoga, you’re following a workout routine that doesn’t need anything but your body in order to start.
You also won’t need anything but your own bodyweight as you level up and increase the intensity of your workout. You can use this combination of yoga and calisthenics to work on your core, strengthen your muscles and lose weight all at the same time.
Both are great workouts separately, but together, they can do so much more for your body. You’ll be able to use this approach as an effective way to give you a complete body workout or you can work certain muscle groups.
Some people alternate days of a full body workout with days where they just focus on upper or lower body. You’ll rely on the various yoga poses to accomplish your workout and couple that with resistance.
What this will do is allow you to start your workout at any fitness stage and you can take what works and discard what doesn’t as you customize this program to suit your needs. You might find that you like certain parts of it more than other parts.
It’s okay to focus on what works for you. When pairing the combination, you would rely on repetitive movements at the same time you perform yoga moves. It’s your bodyweight – not additional tools that helps turn the workout into one that builds strength and fitness.
However, you can use exercise tools if you choose to. At the same time that you’re gaining strength and getting fit, you’re also improving your balance and coordination.
Some of the calisthenics you might use along with yoga are things like performing lunges during a pose.
Or, you might be in a pose and perform sit-ups at the same time. Pushups can also be part of the combination. You can use the workout so that the movements flow seamlessly from one pose to the next.
This workout can help you make necessary changes to your fitness so that you gain control over your health and your life. By focusing on your health, you can make these positive changes.
This will enable you to take back your body from health issues that are limiting you while at the same time working to prevent future health issues that occur due to a lack of fitness.
Adding Yoga to Your Resistance Training
Yoga has a long and trusted history of being beneficial for the body. By making yoga part of your exercise therapy, you can heal and improve your body. When you use yoga, not only will you notice that you’re able to move easier and that your body feels and looks more toned, but you’ll notice that your posture improves, too.
You’ll notice relief from things that stress you out and because of that, you’ll experience lowered blood pressure. You’ll feel calmer because you’ll have more inner peace. Your body will be able to do more and handle more.
You can go for longer periods of time without getting tired. You’ll also notice mental improvements, such as better concentration. If you have injuries that cause you pain, especially in the joints, you’ll see an improvement there, too.
All of these benefits happen because yoga as exercise strengthens and heals at the same time. You may not realize that yoga is something that help you build your strength when you use it as part of your resistance training.
It can build muscle all over as well as in focused areas. The reason that yoga is able to help build your body like this is because of the use of bodyweight as the main part of yoga poses.
When you’re going through various poses, you’re having to hold up your body. It might be your arms and abdominal muscles that are supporting your body or it might be your legs.
Because you’re making the muscles do the supporting, this is part of bodyweight or resistance training as well. When you practice this with the poses repetitively, your body will improve in strength, toning and in weight loss.
You’ll notice that you have more endurance and a greater ability as you go through the various exercises. You’ll see a difference in how you’re able to handle the exercises and you’ll also notice that you’re leveling up faster than when you were using exercise alone.
Using yoga and resistance training can help anyone improve their health and strength, regardless of the kind of physical shape you may currently be in. If you’re an older person, you can use yoga and resistance training more easily together than trying resistance training alone.
The reason it’s helpful for anyone – but especially seniors – is because the movements of the training during yoga are in line with how you would ordinarily use your body. The way to use resistance training with yoga can be as simple as repeating the poses that you perform, much like repetition in exercise sets.
You can also customize the poses that you perform. Instead of doing a warrior pose alone, you would add lunges or, you would add time to the length of the hold. This creates resistance as well.
Getting Cardio in While Doing Yoga
Cardio is aerobic exercise that elevates your heart rate. It can also improve lung function, lower your blood pressure and help you lose weight. Most people haven’t associated yoga with cardio, but you can use it in a way that makes it function as a safe cardio workout.
The key is found in how fast you perform the yoga movements, which are also known as dynamic movements. One way to achieve this is to increase the pacing during your yoga routine.
You would concentrate on going through as many poses as you can within a certain time frame. During this time frame, you would also concentrate on the amount of time that you hold the poses, and these can be counted as repetitions.
When you use poses that cycle through to the next pose faster, you end up using more calories than you normally would during a yoga routine that’s void of cardio. The effectiveness of the workout is found in the pacing.
When the pace is sufficiently fast enough, it can give you the same benefits as if you were doing a high-intensity workout. Using a high intensity workout has you performing intense movements, followed by less intensity or periods where there’s no exercise.
These intervals push the body into achieving better heart health along with better physical health. You can choose a time limit for your cardio workout. The recommended amount of cardio per week is 150 hours, or 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.
You can break this up into sprints or routines however you like. Most people choose yoga moves and combine them with high intensity moves so that they end up burning calories at the same time they’re boosting their strength.
Some of the cardio moves you can build into yoga include squats, rollups, lunges, burpees and more. You can add planks to turn this pose into a cardio workout. There are three things to remember when you’re using a yoga-cardio combination.
You need to remember that when combining yoga with cardio, it’s the intensity level that needs to be raised. You should sweat during the workout or find that it pushes you to the max.
If you don’t feel challenged, the cardio focus isn’t strong enough. The length of time matters, along with the intensity of the workout. How many times you perform the movements is also important.
It doesn’t matter where you are right now in your fitness journey. You might not even be able to imagine handling a difficult workout when you feel like just walking is a triumph. But you can find the right path to healing and physical fitness through yoga exercise therapy.
Start out with yoga by itself and master the poses and movements before you begin to add other fitness strategies to elevate the workout into something a little more robust and healing for your injuries or physical setbacks.
