
It’s official: Yoga is strength training!
But of course, it's SO much more...
The US government released new physical fitness guidelines on Monday. It’s not surprising to learn that most Americans are not getting the recommended amount of exercise: 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity and two sessions of muscle-strengthening activity each week. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, less than 1/3 of us adults are meeting the guideline and only 1 in 5 teens are hitting the target.
The definition of ‘moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity’ falls rather short of what most of us here in northern Utah already practice and includes walking briskly, riding a bike on level ground with few hills, and playing doubles tennis. But it was nice to see yoga explicitly called out in the government’s definition of muscle-strengthening, which included ‘lifting weights, heavy gardening, and yoga.’
Any Tadasana.Yoga student of our regular Power Flow knows that just two of these classes a week will enable you to easily meet the new standards, and so as always, I take issue with the fact that yoga is not automatically classified as an ‘aerobic physical activity’. But being on the ‘national standards’ list will continue to legitimize the practice — and might even help bring more of our men in the door!
If you want to know what’s it’s like to combine high-intensity aerobic physical activity with muscle-strengthening, be sure to check out our Yoga Sculpt classes. And best of all, we’re jumping right in to help our teens, with a weekly Teen Yoga class, giving them the opportunity to experience the aerobic training and strengthening benefits of yoga that they need!
~Melissa