When we’ve set ourselves a goal, perhaps a target weight or an exercise milestone, it’s easy to think that it’s all about sweating it out performing aerobic exercise and building muscle mass by carrying out resistance exercise and strength training. But, as much as fat burning and muscle building exercise is important, stretching exercises are just as important, none more so than yoga.

Yoga has many health benefits including its ability to help us de-stress, sleep better and become more mindful, but it has multiple benefits to our fitness regimes too.

First up, yoga makes us more flexible and improves our balance. It also helps to improve our body alignment, posture and range of movement. Together, this means that we can put a little extra into our other workouts, making them even more beneficial. Better exercise performance means that we can get closer to our goals more quickly!

Being more flexible and having better balance also means that we’re less likely to sustain an injury such as a pulled muscle (or grazed knees from toppling over) when we’re exercising. Nothing poses more of a setback than an injury putting us out of action for a while, meaning that we have to take a break from exercise putting our goals further out of reach.

Practicing yoga can also make us feel more confident as we get stronger and better able to exercise, which has the serendipitous benefit of pushing us even further. Confidence in movement is especially beneficial for the older members of our OYG community, who may be more prone to trips and falls. 

Yoga also teaches us to be more patient and focussed, which can also help us with our aerobic and strength workouts. It can help to drive us forward if we feel like giving up or like we’re not progressing quickly enough.

When we’re carrying out yoga moves, we’re carrying them out slowly and purposefully, and we’re holding certain positions for a while. This helps to activate the slow twitch muscle fibres which helps us to build endurance (which is opposite to when we lift weights and we activate our fast twitch muscle fibres which helps us to build our power and speed). Endurance is important in exercise to help us work out for longer periods of time.

Yoga helps us to relax and de-stress which in turn helps us to sleep better. Getting more quality sleep means that we’re more energised which benefits our workouts, making us perform better and stronger.

Stretching our limbs and muscles helps to build longer, leaner muscle fibres helping us to achieve a longer, leaner physique, which for many of us, is the ultimate goal of exercise!

The yoga classes OYG Davina offer include those for complete beginners to those for the advanced yogi. We also have handy, in depth tutorials that teach you how to perfect important moves in yoga, such as the cobra and downward dog. So roll out your yoga mat and get practicing, you’ll soon see the rewards!