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I just got Sarah Ivanhoe’s 20 Minute Yoga Makeover Total Body Tone with Weights (phew, mouthful) to review for Twirlit, and am about to pop it in the DVD player. Blogging first, of course.
Hmmm, yoga with weights. I only have 3 pounders at home (I know, barely worth it) but Im not a big yoga person, and Ms. Ivanhoe is only using 5s on the cover, so I think they will do.
I have a take it or leave it relationship with yoga. I think its a great complimentary exercise but where I start to get kind of iffy is when people do it as their only form of strength training. Yes it is hard and yes you may feel like you are in the best shape of your life, but internally, for all the health benefits of strength training you need weights. Bone density, tendon and ligament endurance and tensile strength are something that will only continue to be challenged with the addition of weights. When you are limited to your body weight, obviously you cant progress any further than your body weight.
So now we have yoga with weights. Im skeptical, but we’ll see, I could be proven wrong. But it makes me wonder, what do real yogis think of all these yoga hybrids?
Traditional yoga is a lifestyle. You live and breathe yoga. You don’t do yoga just to get a killer body. Its the mind body connection. I’ve talked to a few Lifestyle Yogis who are actually irked by the explosion of yoga’s popularity because people use it as a workout and ignore the history and the tradition of it all. I interviewed an instructor once that all but yelled at me when I asked how quickly people start to see results.
“That’s not what it’s about! Yoga is about bridging the mind and body and focusing on the here and now and not what is or will be. Yoga strictly for exercise is superficial and shallow. True yoga teaches you not to focus on the outward appearance of your body: its about the process, not the result.”
Wow, sorry.
Then, others don’t mind so much because its spreading awareness and interest in something they have loved for so long and find to be so beneficial: kind of a “a little is better than nothing” mentality.
I wonder what Lifestyle Yogi’s think of Yoga with Weights. Watered down, mainstream yoga or any yoga is good yoga?
Ok, time to actually do the DVD, then write my Fitness Friday post for Breathe.com. I’m writing for Breathe every Friday, and of course, don’t forget to check Twirlit for more posts that aren’t just me rambling.
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