24 Hour Fitness offers a dizzying variety of ways to improve your well-being. There are machines, weights, trainers, and Group X classes. We all need a mix of these to stay in top form, but which ones and why? I am no authority on any of the machines and am certainly not a certified personal trainer, but I'm an avid Group X participant. I take most of the Group X classes (in fact, my trainer has called me a "Group X groupie")! I like 'em all. Between the intense cardio offerings (24 Cycle, Zumba, Salsa Moves, Turbo Kickboxing, Aerobics, S.E.T.), the strength classes (S.E.T., 24 Lift, Abs), and the mind/body classes (Pilates, Pilates Fusion, and soon-to-be PiYo), what does Yoga offer that the other classes don't?
If you measure athleticism by the amount of sweat and misery involved, yoga is dead last. There's neither groaning nor pain. However, if you don't believe that you get a good workout when in a yoga class consider this: My trainer and I took a yoga class together last year. She left halfway through the class, as the up and down of the vinyasa sequence (downward facing dog, plank, chaturanga dandasana, up dog) were too much for her. She certainly wasn't out of shape. But because she'd never had an exercise regime such as yoga, she was exhausted. All the muscles that she worked while weight training weren't being used in the same way. She had spent hours and hours shortening her muscles; yoga required that she lengthen and stretch the same muscles. Her abdominals were strong, but her lower back wasn't used to being moved within such a wide range of motion. She developed a deep respect for the folks in the Group X yoga classes who were apparently just "standing there." It wasn't as easy as it appeared.
Yoga is different. The poses can be challenging. Yoga requires that we practice new ways of standing, sitting, balancing, and even thinking. Consider this--in yoga, where your body goes, the mind follows. Yoga has been a mind/body discipline for centuries. It not only trains the body, it focuses mental energy. When you practice Group X yoga, you pick up the energy and enthusiasm of those around you. It's an experience that is both positive and confidence-building. Your practice is yours alone, but you are not alone.
Yoga works the physical body by keeping it fit while strengthening and elongating the muscles, it also helps the nervous and circulatory systems by purifying and balancing them. In the past, traditional healers used yoga postures as a method for healing emotional disorders and illnesses. As a result of regular practice, many benefits will occur. This includes greater endurance, flexibility, deeper breathing, and an overall improvement in mood and emotional well-being. Yoga provides powerful physical results. Yoga's hard work can silence a mind overstimulated by the near-constant demands of email, cell phones, family, workplace accountability, and all the other demands of everyday life.
The practice of yoga poses, or asanas, promotes flexibility of the muscles and strength in the bones and tissues. It also massages the organs, brings balance to different internal and glandular functions, promotes the flow of vital energy, prana (also known as qi in Chinese, or ki in Japanese). Asanas are techniques that promote awareness, concentration, meditation, and relaxation through the physical body. As the practice becomes more regular, there are significant results. Such results include good mental and physical health through stretching, massage and the stimulation of the energy channels of the internal organs.
Yoga promotes energy and health. Our bodies have a tendency to build up and accumulate poisons like uric acid and calcium crystals, just to mention a few. Regular yoga practice can cleanse the tissues through muscle stretching and massaging of the internal organs. This brings the waste back into circulation so that the lungs, intestines, kidneys, and skin are able to remove toxins in a natural way. The time spent in savasana, or final relaxation, is vital for this process.
Yoga allows the luxury of maintaining mental spaces in our lives, of creating focus on the "present moment." While balancing in half-moon, it's darn-near impossible to worry about the grocery list or other little distractions that sap our positivity. Despite all our affluence and possessions, there's one thing that we cannot purchase--time. When we walk into a Group X yoga class, we have the opportunity to give ourselves a full hour of time spent without interruption, without judgment, without competition, and with full acceptance of our selves. For many of us, that's the best hour of our day. The focus on the physical self, the sense of being in the here and now--those are opportunities for our busy minds to relax, to unwind, and to attain equilibrium.
Namaste,
Nancy
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