Many turn to strength training for muscle building. Strength training is effective but it can create imbalances in the body. Because of these effects, you may wish to consider using yoga for muscle building. Yoga is about balance and strength, characteristics make it ideal for building and toning muscle throughout the whole body.
How Yoga Builds Muscle
There are three specific mechanisms of muscle growth that yoga can help with.
Progressive overload. As you lift heavy weights, your muscles grow over time. This is the way muscles grow with weightlifting. With yoga, the weight you are lifting is your body. But, you do not want the weight to keep getting heavier. Instead, there are variations of poses, ranging from easy to hard. These variations build muscle via progressive overload. The more challenging poses you practive, the more tension there is which means more muscle.
- Metabolic stress: This refers to the process by which your muscles “burn” in response to accumulated waste. That feeling you get towards the end of a set and your muscles are screaming to stop. It sounds unpleasant but is very beneficial. The metabolic stress in yoga depends on the type. More vigorous Ashtanga or Vinyasa movements will have your muscles burning much more.
Mechanical damage: Mechanical muscle action causes small tears in the fibers. This causes your muscles to increase in size as they are healing. The cause is pressure from lifting and lowering weights. Most yoga poses are eccentric contractions where you are putting something down that is too heavy to lift. While this is dangerous in weightlifting, it is easy with yoga and effective for muscle growth.
Benefits of Building Muscle Through Yoga
Yoga does not build muscle as quickly as lifting weights, but it has advantages over going to the gym.
More balanced workouts: You build muscle and strength using compound movements so each is balanced with another that is equal and opposite.
Functional strength: You move through natural movements with yoga as opposed to isolated movements so you develop functional strength.
Increased flexibility: Larger muscle mass typically means less flexibility, but with yoga you develop both.
Lower impact fitness: Your joints and tissues are safer with yoga as you can avoid the inevitable toll increased weights can have on these.
Maintain and build: Muscle building puts strain on the muscles so it is good to stretch afterwards to maintain muscle health. Yoga already combines this into the movements, so you are covered.
Which Type of Yoga Is Best for Building Strength?
Styles of yoga that hold poses for longer durations are best for building muscle. Many styles such as Iyengar Yoga use props to help you hold difficult poses. Active and dynamic yoga styles are also great providing similar benefits to repetition of gym sets. Ashtanga Yoga and Rocket Yoga are two such types. Slow-flow Yoga also provides a nice combination of longer holds and more reps to successfully build and tone muscles.
Which Yoga Poses Are Best for Developing Strength?
Yoga poses that allow full use of the full body, in compound movements, are the best for building strength. These are typically called “power poses” and can include Chair Pose, Warrior II Pose, and Chaturanga. Holding positions for longer and completing more repetitions will result in more strength.
Additionally inversion poses are effective for building muscle strength as they work both major and smaller muscle groups. Holding standing poses such as the Warrior Poses and Triangle Pose will also increase your strength. Yoga movements can be made as challenging as you want to effectively increase muscle build.
If you are a beginner to yoga focus on simple yoga poses to get started. Once you are competent and comfortable in the basic poses then continue to advance to the above weight building asanas.
