When modern teachers of yoga started transcending borders to teach yoga to their western students, they invented the word "power yoga," which was more consonant with the western synonyms and easy to explain to the students. Actually, power yoga takes its origin from Ashtanga yoga where a series of postures coordinated with breathing. This procedure detoxifies the muscles and organs due to the intense heat and profuse sweat generated during the process. It accounts for improved circulation, a calm mind and a body that is light and strong. However, power yoga is a universal term that refers to an approach to Vinyasa yoga based on fitness, and hence can vary widely in their connotations and applications.
This type of yoga involves total body workout, almost akin to cardiovascular exercises and has gained tremendous popularity for its success in improving the body toning, flexibility and strength, and extracts all the benefits that could accrue from vigorous aerobic exercises. Power yoga has drawn from the best parts of yoga and adapted its application to weight loss and body fitness. Power yoga sets a fast pace, and brings down the heart rate, instigating profuse sweating, which are features that serious yoga practitioners look forward to. Among the several benefits accruing from are calorie-burning, enhancement in strength, flexibility and stamina, enhanced metabolism, stress reduction and strength addition in inactive muscles.
The debate on the contrasting benefits of Cardio exercises viz-a-viz power yoga has raged on for a long time. Everyone agrees that you could get to burn twice the number of calories in a one-hour Cardio session when compared to yoga. However, yoga burns calories because it increases metabolism while it continues to build lean muscle, leading to the universally desired process of fat burning and consequent weight loss. The point here is that a cardio exercise can burn calories but not fat, and excess cardio can even reduce your muscle strength, while power yoga, when burning calories and fat, continues to build the muscles.
Two sessions of yoga per week will give you sufficient fat burn and weight loss. Additionally, it also strengthens your lean muscles, which is good, if you intend to go for cardio exercise later and to lift weights. Many experts profess that a right blend of cardio and yoga is an ideal solution for weight loss. For those runners and heavy weight lifters who are searching only for flexibility and strength of body in their pursuit of a body like Adonis, power yoga is the best remedy.
Yoga is the right form of exercise for both your body and mind. Click here to know more about fitness centers in Raleigh NC.
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