What every fitness professional should know about Hatha Yoga…

Article by Carole Frost B.Sc.Hons, P.G.C.E., MifL

Drummond Education Tutor and Assessor

  1. Hatha YogaYoga is not a religion

Yoga is often confused with a variety of religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism to name a few. It’s true there is a cross over of language between yoga and some religions, and it is this that often causes the confusion. Yoga is certainly not a religion in any way, shape or form. However, one can see that common ‘ideas’ and ‘rules’ of many religions have their base in yoga philosophy, but the only ‘God’ one surrenders to in yoga is the one made of your very self. The rightful definition of Yoga is doing anything than brings us closer to knowing our true self or natures. Usually in the West we use Hatha Yoga (yoga where we preform poses with the body) to achieve this. The side effect is we improve physical flexibility.

  1. Yoga is not just about stretching

When most people think about yoga they immediately think you need to be super flexible to manage the poses. But achieving a catalogue of perfect poses is actually not the aim of yoga at all, although for some people they make it their goal, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. In fact there is much to be gained from performing the poses of Hatha yoga. But yoga has richer pickings to offer.

Firstly any type of yoga that teaches bodily poses is called ‘Hatha Yoga’, but there are many different styles within Hatha Yoga.  So Vinyasa flow yoga, Hot yoga, Iyengar Yoga, Ashtanga yoga are all in essence Hatha Yoga.

Yoga has a 6000 year-old history, and it hasn’t survived this far to culminate in someone perfecting a forward bend on an exercise mat. When you understand what Yoga is really about, you come to realise that it was the original ‘Self-help’ guide written for the whole of humanity.  Yoga was developed to help human beings understand themselves…a little like psychology. In the practice of Hatha yoga, perfection of a pose is judged by one’s steadiness of mind rather than one’s perfect physicality within it.

Hatha yoga (or the yoga of poses) was developed to give the overactive human mind something tangible to focus on i.e. our own bodies in a variety of poses. This in turn helps us tune into a more contented version of ourselves, and learn to stop our minds and nervous systems running all over the place. From this we learn how control our reactions and responses, and this includes how to reduce stress in our lives

  1. It’s not about drinking herbal teas and being vegetarian

Although Yoga does advocate a good diet and ideally a vegetarian one (although by no means a necessity), it is a discipline that encourages the middle path when it comes to most things in life, and that also applies to drinking and eating. That ‘boring’ but oh so true advice of everything in moderation comes from yoga. Interestingly yoga advocates that by going against your current nature by force only creates stress and dis-ease in the body…so maybe don’t throw out all the chocolate or caffeine until your are really ready for it.

  1. You don’t have to detox to be a yogi!

Yoga and its link to ‘detoxing’ is really something that big companies and health food products have hooked into in order to sell more products and make more money. Yoga does have its own repertoire of cleansing practices, but only advocates them if you really need them and are in no way necessary, and if invented today would be described very differently. However, no detox is necessary just a healthy diet, enough sleep and plenty of water.

  1. Yoga’s aim is create both strong bodies and strong minds

The postures of Hatha yoga can build tremendous physical strength in addition to flexibility. The meditation and relaxation side of yoga is there for us to strengthen our minds in terms of being able to recognise and change patterns of behavior and thoughts that do not serve us, and to teach us to be steadfast in the face of life’s joys and challenges alike. In a physical sense to keep our nervous system balanced.

  1. Yoga has proven itself to assist in weight-loss

It has been well documented that yoga can assist in both maintaining a healthy weight and assisting those who wish to loose weight. Modern science struggles to explain this phenomenon, and thus far has largely attributed it to the practitioner becoming more mindful (being aware of behaviours without judgement) and through the reduction of stress (reducing eating through anxiety and stress). If you consider the physiological framework of yoga, which is a framework conventional medicine does not work with, then it is not hard to understand why yoga helps weight loss (more on this another time). Read on…

  1. Yoga has its own framework of physiology

 Yoga considers the human framework of being divided up into 5 layers.

  1. Physical body – the one you can see, feel and touch
  2. Mind – the mind you use to ‘think’ and form attachments to things
  3. Energy – evident in our own feelings of high or low energy
  4. Intuitive mind/Intelligent mind – the one that can watch over the thought process
  5. Joyful body – the part of us that needs to smile, feel happiness to exist

Any successful Personal Trainer or teacher will agree that if you just train or teach ‘a body’ without engaging the whole person you are probably doomed to failure. The tools of Hatha Yoga which also includes breathing, relaxation and meditative practices, work on the 5 layers of the human framework whether you realise it or not. There are some very specific techniques in yoga for working on each of these layers individually or together. This is where Yoga can also be used as a complimentary medicine.

  1. Yoga has been proven to reduce stress

The relaxation techniques and some poses in Hatha yoga help the body balance the nervous system. Modern life often keeps us in a mode of ‘flight or fight’, where our sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which speeds up systems in the body like heart rate and blood pressure, stays switched on long after stress in our lives has passed. Yoga can help bring a balance by activating our ‘PNS’ or slowing down side opposite to the ‘SNS” to bring us into our ‘home or contented state’. If we are left in a state of ‘SNS’ over activation for too long, it causes mass wear and tear on our body and minds, and ironically makes us more susceptible to suffering stress, so we get stressed over even less. Unfortunately our ‘SNS’ system once activated stays switched on for a long time, in contrast our ‘PNS’ system will switch back up very fast after we have finished our relaxation session for example. Hence we need a soothing influence in our lives to stop our nervous systems from killing us in some cases. Yoga can help us to control our nervous system at will.

  1. Yoga can improve cardiovascular health

This is very different from saying yoga can make you fit like a cardiovascular programme of running or swimming could do. You would not use yoga as a form of cardiovascular fitness, the moment you do it ceases to be yoga. However, yoga teaches you how to breathe fully, thus making your cardiorespiratory system more effective and functional. Yoga also has a wealth of breathing exercises, of which some can be used to help treat conditions such as asthma. In the world of yoga the physical action of the breath is divided into either 3 or 4 parts, and these in turn feeds into 5 key areas of energy in the body. This is why breath work in yoga is very important.

  1. Yoga can keep you young

Yoga can help balance the secretion of hormones, improve the effectiveness of our lymph system so we are better at detoxing ourselves, and help achieve mental balance. Excess and prolonged stress reduces the length of telomeres – the section of DNA responsible for how fast we age. Yoga can help keep this in check.

  1. There are over 100 schools of Yoga

There are many types of yoga all over the world but they all have the same aim – to help us get to know ourselves better and live our lives with a feeling of inner contentedness. This does not mean we are not allowed to show happiness, anger or fear – but more that our inner worlds are not at the mercy of the comings and goings of life. You can think of this as emotional intelligence.

  1. Yoga is a tremendous tool for improving core strength

Hatha Yoga is not to be overlooked in favour of pilates at improving core strength. In pilates we are often cued to engage navel to lower spine to recruit the deeper abdominal and spinal muscles in order to ‘center our strength’. The discipline of Yoga, from 6000 years ago was already suggesting we engage our ‘Uddiyana bandhas’ – of which navel to spine is a mild form, and our ‘Moola bandhas’ or pelvic floor muscles. The difference in yoga, is that these techniques have an energetic significance rather than just a physical one. Now I don’t want to start a pilates Vs yoga argument, but it’s food for thought. The two disciplines also share many similar exercises too.

  1. Yoga could stop you catching a cold

Yoga has been shown to boost the immune system on a genetic level.

Over the coming weeks and months Carole will address each of these points in more detail. If you are interested in learning how to teach Hatha Yoga please email us today and use this voucher code CF1 to received a £200 learning voucher towards your course.