weight lose 7 benefits of Bikram yoga

We know the well-documented yogic promises of improved flexibility, balance and core strength. But what’s the benefit of adding heat?

Bikram expert Amy King of Bikram Yoga Victoria and Lucinda Mills of One Hot Yoga in Melbourne state their claims. The rest is up to you.

Improve your » Weight

Bikram

Known for burning anywhere between 500 to 1,000 calories a session, Bikram yoga warms muscles to help burn fat easily.

Hot Yoga

Weight normalisation is about finding balance, and all the work we do on the mat helps you become exquisitely self-aware, but also wonderfully balanced and deeply content. This helps transform your relationship with what and how you eat.

Improve your » Muscle Tone

Bikram

Tone is developed through all the postural movements of the body. Rather than being a flowing or vinyasa style of yoga, the Bikram series is more static as the body is moved into and held in a particular position resulting in isometric contraction of the involved muscles.

Hot Yoga

Yoga has amazing deep core work; we refer to it as bandhas, meaning lock, hold or tighten. Our slow flow sequence is designed to create extremity to core connection. People are often surprised by the strength work in hot yoga. They think it is all about stretching – and there is a lot of mobility work – but we also focus on toning the core, as well as the triceps with push-ups, and legs with squats and lunges. The result? A long and lean body shape.

Improve your » Heart health

Bikram

Your heart works harder in the heat, which causes your arteries to dilate and blood to thin so more blood flows as your heart is challenged to get nutrients and oxygen to every cell. When you move your body in and out of stretches and twists, you dilate and constrict tissues, which pushes old and stagnant blood out and invites oxygenated blood into your tissues. The standing deep breathing technique also teaches you to expand your lungs to their full capacity, which increases circulation to your whole body, waking everything up and preparing the muscles for action.

Hot Yoga

Your heart is a muscle and, like skeletal muscles, it responds to demand. When you are halfway through a class, dripping in sweat, deep in the standing sequence, your legs are burning with effort and your chest is pounding – that’s building your heart muscle. One of the best things about hot yoga is the way it increases your heart health and blood circulation. Your core temp doesn’t rise while you are in the hot room, because your body moves blood to the periphery where it can cool down, making the entire vascular system more efficient.

Improve your » Skin

Bikram

Bikram yoga acts as anti-ageing and preventative medicine, keeping your body young and healthy. Often referred to as ‘the Bikram glow’, your eyes become brighter and your skin becomes more clear and soft. As you sweat, your pores are opened and cleaned, allowing natural lanolin to release through the pores, softening and preserving your skin’s elasticity.

Hot Yoga

Personally, I think it is the happiness yoga helps to build that has your skin looking younger, but it’s also due to the way hot yoga improves your circulatory system. We also see a big improvement in skin tone, including cellulite. Combining hot yoga with body brushing or skin scrubs is a great way to look and feel younger.

Improve your » Immunity

Bikram

When you move your body through the postures, which include a lot of twisting, you accentuate the detoxifying affects gained from sweating by literally wringing out your organs. It is suggested that the elevation of your core temperature during class may also create a healing response in the body, perhaps in the same way a fever creates an immune healing response when fighting illness.

Hot Yoga

Detoxification is one of those words that doesn’t actually have a medical or scientific meaning, but resonates deeply with people. Immunity is a complex function of a healthy body. It is improved when there’s less stress on your heart and digestive systems – and yoga assists optimum function of both. It’s anecdotal, but our One Hot yogis often tell us they suffer fewer colds, have more energy and feel more emotionally robust than they did before starting out.

Improve your » Nervous system

Bikram

Physiologically, regular Bikram yoga practice harmonises the nervous and endocrine, or hormonal, systems – two systems that figure heavily in your emotional wellbeing. The Bikram series focuses on spinal integrity and alignment, which ultimately helps to remove irritation to the neurological communication between your brain and your body.

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Proprioception falls into this category – your ability to know where your body is in space. As you spread your toes, electrons travel from your brain, through your central nervous system, to the tip of every toe. With time, the process becomes more efficient, but also the richer the detail becomes of your body’s map held in your brain.

Improve your » Mental strength

Bikram

Bikram guru Bishnu Ghosh said, “Mental stress and strain is the cause of all diseases, even infectious ones.” When performing Bikram yoga, your fight-or-flight response is turned off and replaced by a feeling of balanced wellbeing. Regular classes can lower cortisol levels, calm the mind, increase mental clarity and release and reduce stress and tension. Classes also require intense focus and concentration. As you build mental discipline and determination, your level of self-esteem and self-confidence will rise.

Hot Yoga

Hot yoga improves steadiness of the mind, emotional stability and peacefulness. Each session concludes with savasana, a guided relaxation, to restore energy and offer the opportunity to experience the profound peacefulness for which yoga is famous. The idea of mind/body split is a misconception. Emotional stability is intricately bound with physical wellbeing. So, hot yoga works simultaneously on your mental and emotional habits while building the physiological architecture necessary for happiness.

weight lose 7 benefits of Bikram yoga