Monday, April 29, 2013

Warm up With Bikram Yoga

Bikram yoga is a great way to tone your body and revitalise your mind. It’s practised in a heated room to maximise flexibility and circulation, which means you can keep warm in winter and keep fit and healthy at the same time! Drawn from traditional yoga techniques, Bikram yoga is known by its devotees and practitioners as being much more than exercise. It is regarded as a form of therapy that benefits the body, calms the mind and rejuvenates the soul. By creating an alliance of the mind, body and spirit, Bikram yoga promotes a conscious feeling of “oneness” that is promote wellbeing, reduce stress and optimise the body’s internal systems.

What is Bikram yoga?
Bikram yoga, created by Yogiraj Bikram Choudhury, consists of a demanding yoga series of 26 postures (asanas) and two breathing exercises (pranayama), all completed in a specific order. Each asana is done twice, each one stretching and strengthening specific muscles, ligaments and joints that are needed for the next posture. Known commonly as “hot yoga”, the series of poses was designed by Bikram to be practised in a room heated to 39 degrees in order to assist circulation and promote detoxification. The heated room provides not only a tempting place to work out when the temperature drops below 15 degrees, but also an environment that increases strength, concentration and endurance. The series of 26 postures takes 90 minutes to complete.
The heated environment allows your body to work more deeply into the postures and lessen the occurrence of potential injuries such as muscle strains common in other forms of exercise.

For the body:
Bikram yoga works by contracting and stretching muscles, which increases circulation by moving fresh, oxygenated blood all over the body. The series of postures work each muscle, joint, ligament and tendon as well as internal glands and organs. Joint mobility and range of motion are increased and working against gravity for balance serves as strength training. Flexibility and energy levels are enhanced, as is cardiovascular strength and respiratory balance through the series of structured poses.
As Bikram promotes such positive outcomes on the inside, noticeable results are also evident on the outside, which is a nice incentive to being fit and healthy. By toning and strengthening all major muscle groups, Bikram yoga promotes weight loss and muscle tone and is said to give a healthy glow to the skin. Detoxifying the body and boosting the circulatory system — known to have a positive effect on the metabolism — also promotes weight loss and muscle tone.

Practising Bikram yoga enables bodily systems and functions such as digestion, respiration, endocrine and elimination to work in harmony, resulting in a heightened state of wellbeing.
“Physically, the series is amazing and detoxifies your entire body,” a fully qualified Bikram Method yoga teacher who discovered Bikram yoga nine years ago and has been practising it ever since. “The room is intentionally heated to 39 degrees, which warms up the body and provides optimum conditions in order to improve the body’s internal systems. It also allows you to work safely and more deeply into the postures, giving faster results in the process.”

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