You can rattle off a dozen heartbeat-raising exercises off the top of your head, as if you were being quizzed by your gym teacher (or the rest of the class had to do more laps).  “Running, Biking, Treadmilling, Skiing, Jumping Rope, Aerobics, Swimming, Dancing…”  If you were to search for an extended list of ‘cardio’ exercises, you will probably not find Yoga in the line-up. 

Well, it should be.

 

Yes, Yoga IS an aerobic or cardiovascular exercise,

contrary to popular belief.

 

CARDIO: DEFINED

Before proving this, you should understand what cardiovascular exercise is and what the benefits are.  Most people equate cardio to losing weight, burning calories and toning up.  You may also associate this exercise with sweating profusely via an elevated heart rate.

This is all true.

Some exercise physiologists will say that in order for an exercise to be considered cardiovascular it needs to elevate your heart rate to 60 - 85 percent of its maximum rate.  In other words (or not), when you're in the aerobic zone, you should be able to talk, but not able to carry on a long conversation.

Moreover, aerobic exercise is defined as having oxygen continuously delivered to your larger muscles (like your quads or shoulders), usually for an extended amount of time. 

*Aerobic activity (or just aerobics) is usually interchangeable with cardio or cardiovascular activity or exercise.

 

CARDIO: BENEFITS

Cardiovascular exercise’s health benefits are innumerable: 

-lowers blood pressure

-burns calories and body fat

-strengthens heart and lungs

-increases bone mass and muscle tone (since strength training is usually involved)

-reduces depression, stress and fatigue, etc…….

 

 

YOGA = CARDIO

Whether you have taken a class or done yoga to a dvd, you may still not be able to conceptualize how gently moving between poses, holding some for a couple breaths, then laying down at the end can give anywhere near the same effects of training for a triathlon.

Well, let’s think out of the box and onto the mat.

 

Because there are various styles of yoga, some types are focused on boosting your heart-rate and sweating out toxins, such as Ashtanga and Hot or Bikram Yoga.  (See here for deeper explanation on these types.)

 

In your everyday hatha class, you still get the same benefits.

Here’s how:

1. SUN SALUTATION:  Most classes include the classic yoga-aerobic movement through sun salutation (surya namaskar).  This sequence of poses moves you from standing to bending over, squatting to lengthening in down-dog, gliding through a push up, to a backbend and back to down dog and once again to standing.  And that is just one variation.  Others include adding a lunge or a warrior pose or other endless creative possibilities.  This in itself is comparable to jumping rope for 10 minutes.
2. STANDING POSES: Most all classes will have some sequence of standing poses.  All standing poses naturally raise your heart rate.  As B.K.S. Iyengar explains, “Standing asanas tone the cardiovascular system since the arteries of the legs are stretched, increasing the blood supply to the lower limbs and because the lateral wall of the heart is fully stretched, increasing the supply of fresh blood to the heart.”
3. HOLDING POSES:  Though it seems tremendously counterintuitive to think that holding a pose, i.e. doing isometric exercise, can actually exert your heart, it’s true because you are not just hanging out in each pose.  You are working.  You are lengthening and extending even the tiniest of muscles. 

TRY IT.  Feel your pulse (time it if you wish).  Now, get up.  Stand in Warrior II.  Hold for 5 breaths.  Heck, even 3 deep inhales and exhales.  Hold, extend, lengthen, straighten.  Done?  Ok, take your pulse again.  I guarantee you it has raised even a bit…in those last couple seconds. And that was one pose.  Now do 10 or 20 in an hour or 75 minutes.  Add it up.

4. FLEXIBILITY: Robert Holly, Ph.D., a senior lecturer in the Department of Exercise Biology at U. C. Davis, a researcher on a yoga-exercise study, says that muscles respond to stretching by becoming larger and capable of extracting and using more oxygen more quickly. In other words, side benefits of flexibility include increased muscle strength and endurance.
5. BREATHING: Every yoga class includes some form of Pranayama or breathing exercise, whether integrated seamlessly into the class or separate for specific practice.  Doctors suspect that yoga poses help increase lung capacity by improving the flexibility of the rib area, shoulders, and back, allowing the lungs to expand more fully and condition the diaphragm to more fully oxygenate the blood.  More oxygenated blood is another benefit sought from cardio exercise.
6. ONLY  YOGA: Here’s the catch: exercising yoga-style is done with awareness of breath and balance between exertion and calmness.    As Iyengar explains: “The yogic heart is invigorated and energized during practice, then refreshed during savasana (the final resting pose).”  Dina Amsterdam, a yoga instructor in San Francisco and graduate student at StanfordUniversity, states, "When you bring your breath, your awareness, and your physical body into harmony, you allow your body to work at its maximum fitness capacity.  Yoga class is merely a laboratory for how to be in harmony with the body in every activity outside of yoga. This improved physical wellness and fluidity enhance not just the physical well-being but also permeate all levels of our being."

 

EVIDENCE

In one of the first U.S. studies that examines the relationship between yoga and fitness, researchers at UC-Davis tested the muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, and lung function of 10 college students before and after eight weeks of yoga training. Each week, the students attended four sessions that included 10 minutes of pranayama (breathwork), 15 minutes of warm-up exercises, 50 minutes of asanas (yoga poses), and 10 minutes of meditation.

In short, the results proved that these students improved their strength, aerobic capacity, and lung function.

 

A related study done at BallStateUniversity offers further evidence for yoga's fitness benefits. This research looked at how 15 weeks of twice-weekly yoga classes affected the lung capacity of 287 college students.  By the end of the semester, all of the students (athletes, asthmatics, and smokers,) significantly improved lung capacity, increased their exercise intensity and the efficiency of their oxygen consumption during exercise.

In other words, they all worked and toned their cardiovascular system.

 

Other smaller studies also done in India have found that yoga can increase exercise performance, improve balance, cardiorespiratory and cardiovascular fitness, concentration, immunity, flexibility, strength, and raise anaerobic threshold (the point at which your muscles cannot extract enough oxygen from your blood and therefore must switch from burning oxygen to burning sugar and creatine). 

(For full results of these studies, read here.)

TESTIMONIES

A 52-year old yoga teacher in D.C. wanted to prove that doing ONLY yoga as his exercise for over 3 decades kept him fit.  He didn't need to power walk. He didn't need to lift weights. His fitness formula consisted of daily asanas (poses) and pranayama (breathwork). That's all he needed.  When he signed up for physiological testing at a lab in Maryland, Mr. S tested near the top of his age group for a variety of fitness tests, including maximum heart and exercise recovery rates. His doctor told him that he was in excellent physical condition and estimated that Mr. S had less than a one percent chance of suffering a cardiac event. "I've always maintained that yoga provides more than adequate cardiovascular benefits," he states. "Now I have the evidence that regular yoga practice at a certain level of intensity will provide you with what you need."

 

Jack England, an 81-year-old yoga and stretching instructor at the Club Med in Port Saint Lucie, Florida, says more than 30 years of yoga have kept him flexible, healthy, and strong. He's the same weight and height as he was in high school, and his stellar health continues to amaze his doctor. He delights audiences at Club Med by practicing Shoulderstand and other poses while balancing on a float board in a water ski show. "I'm an inspiration to people of all ages," he says

Stephanie Griffin, a 33-year-old director of business development for a pharmaceutical research company in San Francisco, discovered yoga after years of running marathons, spinning, and weight lifting. Before discovering yoga, she thought her intense exercise habits had turned her into a poster child for health and fitness. During the last four years, however, Griffin began doing more and more yoga and less and less running, weight lifting, and aerobicizing. As she dropped back on her hardcore fitness pursuits, she worried she might gain weight or lose her muscle tone or exercise capacity.  She didn't. "I have maintained my fitness and even enhanced it through yoga," says Griffin, who no longer has a gym membership. "And I like the way my body looks and feels now better than the way it did before."

 

While you do truly get an aerobic, heart-beat raising, calorie-burning, muscle-toning workout from Yoga, in the end, it shifts your perception of self, body-image, and health. 

“Yoga penetrates beyond the muscular and skeletal systems.  Asanas penetrate each layer of the body, and ultimately, the consciousness itself.  Only in Yoga can you keep the body and mind relaxed as you stretch, extend, rotate, flex,” …and sweat.

B.K.S. Iyengar