■ Don't go into the misunderstanding of yoga.
Many beautiful women also advocate yoga, and their slim figure is the best proof of yoga. Surprisingly, not everyone advocates yoga. Although people like Patro, Christie and Madonna all have perfect bodies, many people still don't understand the charm of this ancient sport. The American Fitness Committee points out that practicing yoga may have other benefits, but it is not good for your health. General yoga class training increases the heart rate and burns fewer calories than walking slowly. Even action yoga is not as effective as light aerobic exercise.
Dr Susan Slivos, a fitness physiologist at Loughborough University, said: "If people think that yoga can help them lose weight and keep fit, they are really wrong. Yoga can improve the flexibility of the body, but it doesn't help much elsewhere. " According to statistics, in recent years, yoga is very popular in Europe and America, and many people regard it as an important means of fitness. In Britain alone, there are 1.5 million people practicing yoga, mainly yoga qigong. In the study conducted by the American Fitness Association, some women were sent to take 55-minute yoga qigong classes three times a week, while the rest were asked not to take part in what the researchers called "active fitness".
At the beginning of each yoga class, there are 5 minutes of relaxation and yoga breathing adjustment, followed by 10 minutes of warm-up time, followed by 35 minutes of yoga posture practice, and finally 5 minutes of relaxation time. However, in this eight-week study, the researchers found that women who take yoga classes only consume 65,438+044 calories per class, which is equivalent to the calories consumed by a 55-minute walk.
■ Yoga is not without its merits.
John Paakkari, the first author of the American Fitness Association study and a professor of fitness and sports at the University of Wisconsin, said that this is not to say that practicing yoga has no benefits at all. They found that compared with the measurement before the study, the physical flexibility of women practicing yoga increased by 13%, mainly the flexibility of shoulders and limbs. Moreover, yoga can also increase the strength of practitioners. In the later stage of study, practitioners can do more than 6 push-ups and at least 14 sit-ups. On average, they can stand on one leg for 17 seconds, which is longer than when they first started.
Some people may think that yoga with more physical movements can bring more benefits to the body. That's for sure. Strength-oriented yoga makes practitioners move faster. The researchers found that they consumed more calories (237 calories in 55 minutes), and at the same time they could increase their heart rate by as much as 62%. Even so, this is only equivalent to the effect achieved by mild aerobic exercise.
In addition, Professor John Paakkari pointed out that yoga with more and faster movements reduces the flexibility of practitioners, and the degree of relaxation is also affected. If you move faster, you won't be able to stretch your muscles and tissues as you do when you move slower. Dr Quaid Bryan, chief fitness physiologist of American Fitness Association, said that yoga should be regarded as a supplement to routine cardiovascular exercise, such as running. He said: "Yoga itself is to achieve the purpose of self-cultivation, so that muscles and bones have also been exercised to some extent. However, if you practice yoga with some exercises that can burn calories, then the real purpose of practicing yoga will be discounted. "
■ Yoga cannot replace other fitness exercises.
In fact, yoga was not introduced to Europe and America for a long time, about 100 years ago, but it was not until the mid-1960s that the British Yoga Rotary Club was established. After that, yoga gradually became popular in Britain. Ahroon Gattani, a spokesperson for the British Yoga Rotary Club, said, "Yoga classes were first held in church halls. However, some forms of yoga today are different from the original yoga that arose in India more than 500 years ago, because the purpose of practicing yoga at that time was meditation, unlike the current practitioners who mainly pay attention to the flexibility of the body. "
Yoga first appeared as sitting meditation, and many years later, action yoga began to appear. Today, there are many schools of yoga. In western countries, yoga is very popular because of the high intensity of people's daily work and its ability to regulate body and mind. But experts point out that yoga can't replace other fitness exercises.