Can Yoga Replace Weight Training For Muscle Gain?

Everyone knows of yoga as a holistic regimen that encompasses physical health, mental health as well as spiritual health. However, not many would connect weight training with yoga or vice versa. No matter how many yoga poses you practice on a daily basis, no one ever connects muscle gain with yoga. Most people would connect yoga with flexibility. When you head for Yoga teacher training in Rishikesh, you will learn a few aspects, that are otherwise unheard of. Let us find out more about them.

What About Weight Training or Strength Training?

The truth with yoga is that it can double up as a weight training or strength training exercise. And why not? Are you not lifting your body on your legs and arms? Some of the poses like Kukkutasana or Mayurasana require just that. If we have gone too far, with floating poses, wait. We have something easier as well. It is the Chakra asana. Don’t you lift the maximum weight of your body on your hands or palms? Now, you know the truth. When you contort your body into various shapes, you are actually toning the muscles and also increasing muscle size. Join the 200-hour yoga teacher training in Rishikesh understand it in detail and inculcate it into your life. You will still need to practice a lot more to be able to achieve the physical fitness to contort your body or lift yourself on your palms. Moreover, you also need a lot of determination, to be able to do so.

Difference Between Lifting Weights and Doing Yoga

If you want to build muscle mass, undergo weight training in the form of lifting dumbbells and using resistance bands. It builds a lot of bulk, in the true sense of the word. The main science behind this approach, is that you need to put excess pressure on your bones and muscles to make them develop. As you add more resistance and weight, the muscles and bones become immune to the previous ones and keep getting stronger by the day. So, you can also increase the challenge day by day, and gain more strength. That is the simple reason, weight training is also called strength training.

Now, you must be wondering, in what manner yoga can fit in. It is a known fact, that with regular practice of yoga, your body becomes flexible and less resistant to movement. It is a sort of functional exercise that makes everyday tasks a breeze. In yoga, you use the large and small muscles in various directions. It is quite elaborate that what you would do in a bicep curl. Moreover, yoga tones and massages the entire body, whereas, bicep curls only build muscle in the arms. So, it is localized in nature.

You will be amazed to know how yoga works on the muscles. It is a bit different from weight training and strength training. The muscles stretch during yoga practice and lead to elongation. It also increases flexibility. In weight training, the muscle gets shorter. This gives the muscles that bulky feel. You can also build a lot of endurance when you hold one single pose for a long time.

So, you can replace weight or do strength training with yoga. Furthermore, you can do a bit of both. The more variety you incorporate, the better it is for your overall well-being.

Yoga Poses That Build Strength and Muscle

You can perform some arm balance and inversion poses, to strengthen your muscles. The reason is clear, and it seems to be the fact that the poses work out the smaller muscles to support the body weight. The Warrior pose and Triangle pose are a few examples as well. You can perform them as a beginner as well. When you do the Tree pose, it adds muscle to your legs and tones them.

The plank pose also helps you to build weight. It is an amazing upper torso strength builder. Moreover, it can also develop the core, like ab crunches. If you are new to yoga, it will be better for you to start with the standing poses. Then, as you get more comfortable, you can switch to the more difficult poses involving arm balance. Some of them, include plank, Kukkutasana, Mayurasana and Bakasana.

You need a lot of dedication to reach the level, wherein you can practice such poses comfortably, without props and support. Now, you can look for yoga classes, that help you develop weight and muscle. It is right there in Rishikesh.