Anyone that knows me knows that I am a strong advocate of Yoga. I've been dabbling in Yoga ever since I was 14 years old. One day I found an old Yoga book mixed in with many other old books in one of my Mother's bookcases. What initially caught my attention were the pictures showing Yogi's in what I considered at the time to be impossible positions for the human body to achieve - Pretzel City! It intrigued me enough that I started to try and see if I could do some of the poses. I liked the challenge so much that I just kept at it.
Headstands and Crow pose are advanced asana but are great for balance challenge, circulation and strength training.
Here I am, many decades later, still doing my Yoga but now I have a partner - my wife, Sharon. Initially she wasn't very interested. You see, she wasn't the most flexible person in the world. She used to tell me that the reason she couldn't do a forward bend and touch her toes was because she had long legs and short arms. Of course, any of us that know Sharon realize that her 5'0" frame is nothing more than long willowy legs with short stubby arms on top.
Even people with long willowy legs and short stubby arms can improve enough to do Headstands and Eagle Pose.
Never having devoted any of her time to stretching type exercises made starting Yoga seem to be a very difficult and daunting task to her. But, being the good sport that she is, she gave it a try. Slowly but surely she started to see improvements. She began to realize how good she felt after doing a session of Yoga. She was able to achieve more and more asana (poses) and hold them for longer and longer periods of time. She started to get hooked.
Tree is another great pose for balance challenge.
Samson loves to do his Downward Dog Yoga pose under Sharon's Tree.
As a Chiropractor, I knew what was happening to her body. She was strengthening her core and spinal erector muscles. But most importantly, she was revving up her spinal cord and nervous system. You see, most of us know that we need to exercise for our heart and lungs. We know we need to challenge the muscles to keep them strong. We even know that we need to stretch to keep our joints and muscles supple. But very few people besides Chiropractors know that we need to exercise our spinal cords and nervous system too.
Yoga can decrease your resting heart rate and lower your blood pressure by making your arteries more relaxed and elastic but it can't compete with regular walking, jogging or cardio exercises for increasing cardio fitness. Yoga improves general body strength but it can't compete with resistance training activities for building strong healthy muscles. Yoga improves core strength but can't do it nearly as well as Pilates can. Pilates even competes with Yoga for improving joint and muscle suppleness. Where Yoga shines brightly is in beefing up the nervous system. Nothing fires up the nervous system quite like balance challenging Yoga poses. The longer you hold the pose the more you challenge the nervous system. Your nervous system is plastic just like a muscle, meaning that if you challenge it, it will respond with growth.
You may be asking yourself, 'Why is beefing up my nervous system so important?'. And then you may be saying to yourself, 'I'll bet Dr. Paul is about to answer me'. If you are thinking those things then you would be correct, I am about to answer you because that is a Great Question!
As we go through life, most of our cells live for awhile, reproduce and then die off. That is their natural order. For example your Red Blood Cells live for approximately 120 days. They are constantly being replaced. Not so for the nervous system though. Our neurons live as long as we do - that is most of them are supposed to. As we age a surprising number of our neurons die. In a healthy nervous system we don't even notice the loss of these neurons because there are so many backups. But if our nervous system isn't healthy we don't have as many backups. If we don't have backups when a neuron dies then that pathway is lost and may not be recoverable. This is what happens with strokes. The neurons die and if enough neurons are affected so that there are no backups, we lose the function of that region (leg, arm, face, tongue, etc.) forever!
Regular Chiropractic Wellness adjustments help to keep the brain/body nervous system communication highway free from congestion. The adjustment allows the spinal joints to move to their full potential (which helps with Yoga poses) and that keeps the local neurons firing into the spinal cord to continually rev it up. If you add in regular Yoga balance poses, then you maximize the exercise for your nervous system so you can have a supercharged control system. That way, if you lose one neuron in your spinal cord - who cares - because you have insured that you have hundreds of backups with no interference to hamper the signals.
I have been in Practice as a Chiropractor for over 20 years now and during that entire time I have been assigning Yoga poses to my patients as adjunctive home therapy for their Adjustments. There are many different forms of Yoga and I often get asked, "what type of Yoga do I recommend?" Different types of Yoga appeal to different people so here is a quick overview of the most common types:
Hatha Yoga - In Sanskrit (an ancient classical language of India) "Ha" means "sun" and "tha" means "moon". This type of Yoga is a relatively slow paced, gentle type of Yoga and is a good place to start if you are completely new to Yoga and don't know any of the asana (poses). This is the type of Yoga that Sharon and I do. With Hatha Yoga you hold the balance poses for long periods of time. That initiates the changes in the nervous system that really bulks it up.
Samson & Delilah like to do their Yoga workout after Sharon and I are finished. This is a picture of them doing their favourite pose - Downward Dog. They work very hard so they can earn their rewards.
Ashtanga Yoga - Ashtanga means "eight limbs" in Sanskrit. It's a fast moving, intense style of Yoga based on a progressive sequence of asana, synchronized with the breath. Ashtanga Yoga can be quite physically demanding as you are constantly move from one asana in the sequence to the next, so you'll find that it will improve your stamina as well as your flexibility and strength.
Power Yoga - This is a western interpretation of Yoga and is based on Ashtanga Yoga. A Power Yoga class may not necessarily stick to the exact sequence of poses like Ashtanga Yoga does, but it does involve practicing a series of poses without stopping and starting.
Iyengar Yoga - This type of Yoga is based on teachings by B.K.S Igengar and concentrates on the correct alignment and form of the body. Unlike Ashtanga Yoga, there is an emphasis on holding each pose for a long period of time rather than moving constantly from one pose to the next. Iyengar Yoga uses props such as blocks and straps to help align the body into the different poses.
Vinyasa Yoga - Vinyasa means breath-synchronized movement and is another fast paced type of Yoga, with an emphasis on breathing. A practice typically starts with sun salutations and moves on to more intense stretching. Throughout the practice each pose is balanced with a counter pose.
Bikram Yoga - Otherwise known as "Hot Yoga", Bikram Yoga is practiced in a room heated to 105 degrees, with a humidity of around 40%. Generally a sequence of 26 different poses is practiced during a Bikram Yoga class and the hot temperature helps to loosen muscles. Due to the high temperature most people sweat a lot during the class and this helps to cleanse the body of toxins.
Although I started doing Yoga on my own by following a book, I actually recommend that someone starting Yoga for the first time attend classes. Regardless of which type of Yoga appeals to you, going to a class and being critiqued by a qualified instructor can save you from making a lot of mistakes and reduce the possibility of injury until you become proficient. However, once you have a reasonable idea of how to do the basic poses, there is no reason why you can't do your Yoga in the convenience of your own home. Yoga combined with regular Chiropractic Wellness Tune-ups is great for everyone's health - even those people like Sharon who are nothing but long willowy legs with short stubby arms on top.