Daily Hatha Yoga for Strength - a podcast by Dr. Melissa West

Yoga for Strength



Did you know: According to Harvard Medical school, after the age of 30, you lose 3-5% muscle mass per decade. One in three women over fifty will experience osteoporotic fractures. 80% of people will experience back pain at some point in their lives. The number of people living with diabetes worldwide has gone up from 4.7% to 8.5% in the last 15 years. More than 300 million people are affected by depression worldwide.



Did you also know that all of these conditions can be improved through strength training? Not everybody wants to go to a gym or pump iron, that is why I put together this simple, short daily yoga routine for strength.



We only have to remember back to 1998 Madonna when she went on Oprah with her sculpted arms and announced she was done with the gym and only practiced yoga now to know that yoga is a great form of strength training that uses your own body weight as resistance.



As we age we lose muscle mass, at a rate of 3-5% per decade. Strength training is a great way to reduce this loss and overcome the percentage of fat in your body. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns even when at rest.



In less time than it takes you to prepare a meal you will be able to do a total body strengthening routine targeting your legs, glutes, core, back, chest, and arms.



But it goes much more than skin and muscle deep, we get right into your bones. As I mentioned at the beginning one in three women over fifty will experience osteoporotic fractures. One of the best ways to prevent osteoporosis is to build bone density through weight bearing exercises like we do resisting your own body weight against gravity in this short yoga class.



Some of my most popular yoga classes are for back pain. One of the most effective ways to reduce the signs and symptoms of back pain is through strength training. Usually it is weak and long muscles that are the cause of pain, the back and core yoga poses in this daily yoga video will strengthen those back muscles can help to support optimal posture and reduce back pain.



Over the last few years, I have been getting an increasing number of requests for yoga classes for diabetes. There are three reasons you might want to add a short daily yoga routine for strength if you have been diagnosed with diabetes.



As I mentioned before strength training will increase your lean muscle mass which will allow you to burn more calories at a faster rate. This will help you to keep your blood glucose levels in check.

The more strength you have, the more glucose your muscles will be able to store. Again your body will be able to regulate its blood sugar more easily.

When you strength train with a daily yoga routine for strength like this, you will potentially reduce your body´s fat-to-muscle ratio which means you also reduce the amount of insulin you need in your body to help store energy in fat cells. *



Finally, a 2018 study in the Journal of American Medical Association Psychiatry found that strength training was just as effective as aerobic activity offering reduction in depressive symptoms.



So if you excuse me, I think I am going to strike a chair pose or plank, but if you would like to unlock this short daily yoga class for strength then click on the link below to join our membership community and I will put the direct link for our members there as well.



 



https://www.melissawest.com/membership/membership-sign-up/



Direct Link for Members:



Resources:



https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/preserve-your-muscle-mass

Further episodes of Yoga Lifestyle with Melissa

Further podcasts by Dr. Melissa West

Website of Dr. Melissa West