What is Bikram yoga? Is practicing bikram yoga really good for your health? These are probably the questions that make many people hesitate to make the decision to choose this type of exercise.
Have you ever practiced bikram yoga? Do you know what bikram yoga is? Practicing yoga in general and bikram – a form of hot yoga – in particular is really good for your health and spirit. There are many benefits of bikram yoga that involve proper breathing, use of physical strength, increased flexibility and sweating. All of these aspects are working to make your body stronger. So what exactly is bikram yoga? How does this type improve your lifestyle? Let’s find out with easyhealthylive.com right here!
What is Bikram yoga?
Bikram yoga is a type of hot yoga (hot yoga). As the name suggests, this type is done in a really hot room that makes you sweat. More specifically, bikram yoga was created with Bikram Choudhury in India.
This type of yoga includes 26 different poses, stretching and various breathing exercises. All of them have the function of improving your strength and overall health. Yoga is known for enhancing balance, coordination, flexibility and more. This effect will be better promoted when the temperature is increased. The temperature in the bikram yoga class is around 40°C and the humidity is set at around 40%.
Bikram yoga is different from normal hot yoga because the practice environment is hotter and the poses in normal hot yoga are more flexible and dance-like than in bikram yoga. However, the benefits of hot yoga and bikram yoga are quite similar.
Bikram yoga is done in a room with high temperature
Benefits of Bikram Yoga
1. Detoxify the body
One of the biggest benefits you can get from doing bikram yoga is that the heat will help flush out toxins and unwanted chemicals from your body. The high temperature inside the gym makes you sweat a lot.
Sweating is great because your body doesn’t simply excrete water. Sweat contains toxins, chemicals, and compounds that are not good for your body.
Practicing bikram yoga helps to detox through sweat
2. Increase flexibility
A clear benefit of yoga in general and bikram yoga in particular is to help increase flexibility. All the different poses and stretches help your body improve flexibility by slowly stretching your muscles to make them more flexible. The more you do specific poses, the better you can do.
Besides, having supple muscles helps prevent injuries like cramps. When doing bikram yoga, the warmer your muscles are, the more flexible they become.
Heat makes muscles more elastic by warming them up and delivering more oxygen to the muscles. Being more flexible is not only good for your yoga practice, but it also makes your daily activities easier, not to mention also helps with sports activities.
Bikram yoga exercises to improve flexibility
3. Breathe properly
One of the undisputed benefits of bikram yoga is that it helps you learn proper breathing techniques. When doing bikram yoga, the heat level rises, making it very difficult to breathe. Therefore, you must breathe properly to maintain the exercise.
Proper breathing is helpful in everyday life, especially when it comes to things like climbing stairs or even playing sports. Proper breathing technique helps you get more oxygen. Getting enough oxygen means you won’t get out of breath during your workout. Your muscles take in more oxygen and can move harder.
In addition, this type of yoga is quite intense and it also works the respiratory system. Just like any other part of the body, the more you practice it, the better it gets. In this case, bikram yoga trains the respiratory system to work effectively, with little exercise, but still helps you breathe better. The specialized breathing techniques in bikram yoga can even help prevent shortness of breath, asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, and other respiratory conditions.
Bikram yoga teaches you how to breathe properly
4. Low impact
Practicing bikram yoga is also good for your joints, especially if you suffer from knee and ankle pain. High-impact activities like jogging can strengthen joints, but it’s not for injured or sore joints because such a strong impact can make pain worse.
This type of yoga does not include high-impact exercises and is a great way to stay in shape and burn calories without putting undue stress on the joints.
Bikram yoga has low impact on joints
5. This is a form of strength training
Bikram yoga uses 26 different poses and all of them make you stronger. Nearly all movements force you to combine muscles to keep the position fixed.
Of course, you could call this bodyweight training because you use your muscles to lift your weight. It takes a lot of stamina to hold some bikram yoga poses for long periods of time, especially when you’re sweating, hot, and slippery. This form of yoga also targets most of the major muscle groups in the body. Therefore, a full-body workout will tire the muscles. Some people consider bikram yoga to be a good alternative to weightlifting exercises.
Bikram yoga is a full body strength training exercise
6. Good cardio exercise
Bikram yoga is a good form of exercise for your cardiovascular system. The high heat combined with the intensity of bikram yoga makes your heart beat faster. Bikram yoga is quite intense and will definitely train both the heart and lungs to become stronger and more effective.
Having good heart health is really important because a healthy heart requires little effort to pump blood around the body. This will reduce your chances of having high blood pressure. A healthy heart and normal blood pressure are important in preventing heart disease, artery disease, stroke, and fatal conditions.
7. Lose weight
Thanks to the heat and intensity, bikram yoga can help you burn a lot of calories. A 90-minute session of bikram yoga can help you burn up to 1,000 calories. The variety of poses you are forced to hold and the contractions of your muscles really get your heart pumping and help you lose a lot of weight.
Besides, the movements in bikram yoga make the digestive system more efficient and increase the body’s metabolic rate. A higher metabolism means you can burn more calories and keep new calories from turning into body fat. If you are looking to lose weight then bikram yoga is definitely a good choice.
Practicing bikram yoga helps you lose weight and maintain shape
8. Better Concentration
One undisputed benefit of bikram yoga is its enhanced concentration. It takes a lot of effort and mental focus to perform and hold some of the most difficult poses in this type of yoga.
The brain is like any other part of the body. The more you practice, the better it gets. The intense concentration required to do bikram yoga will make your daily life easier.
9. Stress relief and happiness
There is no scientific proof that this is actually related to bikram yoga but logically it is true. Exercise causes your brain to release endocannabinoids and endorphins – chemicals in your head that have a positive effect on your mental health.
These two substances create feelings of happiness and euphoria and help reduce stress, the effects of depression and anxiety. Endorphins can also reduce physical pain.
Bikram yoga moves to help you focus and relieve stress
10. Wound healing
The ultimate benefit of bikram yoga is to help relieve pain from old wounds. Much pain is caused by weakness and lack of flexibility, especially when it comes to old trauma. Bikram yoga makes you more flexible and can help alleviate various pains.
In addition, bikram yoga uses something called the tourniquet effect – blocking the blood supply from certain areas. After performing specific postures, nutrient- and oxygen-rich blood rushes to the injured areas, helping with wound healing and scar tissue treatment.
Bikram yoga is a great way to get fit and healthy. However, you need to be aware of the problems arising from very high heat levels. Pregnant women should not practice bikram yoga because it can cause complications for the fetus. In addition, you need to be careful to stay hydrated before and after doing any type of hot yoga. People with pre-existing heart disease or high blood pressure should not participate in bikram yoga because it has a strong impact on the heart.
Above is all the information about bikram yoga. Hope the article helps you decide whether to pursue this type of business or not. If readers need any more information about the process of training and nutrition, don’t forget to download easyhealthylive.com right away to connect with a yoga 4.0 coach and be guided to practice properly.
Reference source
11 Benefits of Bikram Yoga That Will Have You Running For Your Yoga Mat https://www.fitandme.com/benefits-of-bikram-yoga/ Accessed date: 22/06/2020
John Alen was born in 1971 and is a doctor in the healthcare and psychology fields with many years of experience. He is currently working at easyhealthylive.com, a leading health and psychology blog. Having studied at Y1 National Medical University named after IM Sechenov, John Alen is using his knowledge and experience to help improve the physical and mental health of people in the United States.
