What is bikram yoga and what are its benefits?
If you've never tried bikram yoga,it may be the perfect time to do so. Yoga, in general, helps improve our well-being, but bikram yoga, also known as hot yoga, is really fantastic for mental and physical health.
The benefits of bikram yoga are many, all of which will make you feel much better. It's about breathing well, using your strength, increasing flexibility, and sweating like you're near a volcano. Together, these aspects work to make your body healthier than you ever imagined. Let's talk about what exactly bikram yoga is and how it can help you achieve a healthier lifestyle.
What is Bikram Yoga?
Bikram yoga is a specific type of hot yoga, a type of yoga, created by Bikram Choudhury from India,which is performed in a room at 42ยบ with 40% humidity.
In this yoga class you do up to 26 different postures,and stiramientos and various breathing exercises,all of which help you improve your strength and your overall health. Yoga is known for enhancing balance, coordination, flexibility and much more,capabilities that develop best when the temperature is increased.
Benefits of bikram yoga Bikram
yoga is slightly different from normal hot yoga in that it is performed in a slightly warmer environment, plus the poses in hot yoga are a bit more fluid and dance-like. However, the benefits of hot yoga and bikram yoga are pretty much the same.
Detoxifies the body
One of the biggest benefits of bikram yoga is that the heat helps detoxify your body of toxins and chemicals. The high level of heat inside a class makes you sweat like you've never done before.
Sweating is beneficial for the body because you don't just lose water when you sweat. Along with water, you also eliminate a lot of toxins, chemicals, and other unwanted compoundsthat shouldn't be in your body. Next time, instead of doing a detox diet when you want to detox, you could do some bikram yoga sessions.
Increase flexibility
Another really interesting part of bikram yoga, or actually yoga in general, is that it helps to greatly increase flexibility. All the different postures and stretches you do in this type of yoga help increase your flexibility by slowly stretching your muscles to make them more flexible.
Having more flexible muscles also helps prevent injuries such as muscle pulls. In addition, a type of hot yoga such as bikram yoga is ideal for flexibility because the hotter your muscles are,the more flexible they become, which facilitates the performance of the various postures and at the same time reduces the chances of injury.
The heat makes your muscles more elastic by warming them up and delivering more oxygen. Being more flexible is not only good for successfully taking a yoga class, but it will also make your daily routine activities easier, not to mention that it can also help with athletic performance.
It is a form of strength training
Bikram Yoga uses 26 different postures, all of which work to make you stronger. Practically all postures force you to activate the muscles to maintain a certain position.
It's a form of bodyweight training, because you use your muscles to maintain your own body weight. Looking at some of the poses, it may seem like they don't train your muscles as much, but they really don't.
It takes a lot of strength to hold some of the positions for an extended period of time, especially when your body is sweaty, hot, and slippery. This type of yoga also works great for training all the major muscle groups in your body, giving you an excellent full-body workout that will leave your muscles tired from top to bottom. Some people even say that Bikram Yoga is a pretty decent substitute for weight lifting!
It is low impact
Another thing that bikram yoga is good for is the joints, especially if you suffer from knee pain and have weakness in your ankles. High-impact activities like running can strengthen joints, but this doesn't improve joints that are already injured or in pain because the impact can cause more damage.
This type of yoga does not include high-impact movements and is therefore a great way to get in shape and burn calories without putting undue strain on the joints. It is undoubtedly an excellent alternative to other forms of exercise.
It is a good cardiovascular exercise
Another thing that bikram yoga is ideal for is to exercise your cardiovascular system. The high level of heat combined with the intensity causes your heart to speed up. It may not seem like it, but this type of yoga is quite intense and will definitely train both your heart and lungs to be stronger and more efficient.
Of course, having good cardiovascular health is really important because a strong heart requires less effort to pump blood throughout the body, which reduces the chances of having high blood pressure. A healthy heart and moderate blood pressure are important for preventing heart conditions, artery disease, stroke, and other serious illnesses.
A healthy heart also makes daily life much easier and helps improve athletic performance. A stronger heart and lungs mean your muscles get more oxygen, allowing them to do more for longer.
Helps you lose weight
Because bikram yoga takes place in a hot environment and is physically intense, it can help you burn a lot of calories. A single 90-minute session can help you burn up to 1000 calories,like other forms of cardiovascular exercise. The various postures that you are forced to maintain, as well as the muscle contractions that are part of this type of yoga, make your heart pump and that translates into a significant weight loss.
In addition, the various postures that are performed in bikram yoga make your digestive system more efficient and also increase your metabolic rate. A faster metabolism means you can burn more calories and prevent those same calories from being converted into body fat. If you want to lose weight, bikram yoga is definitely a good option.