Why strength training is a necessary complement to yoga if you want to age well
If you’ve been practicing yoga for a while you might wonder why you need to develop your strength. Does yoga not do this?
Well it depends….
Back in 2001 when I started to really get into yoga practice almost daily, yoga was considered a complete physical and mental modality, increasing flexibility, strength and calming the mind. Today we acknowledge the many benefits of yoga such as increased body awareness, ease of movement, improved muscle tone and flexibility but it does not, over time, build strength.
So what is yoga really good at?
If we look at the physical benefits of yoga postures (aka asana), they are really good for:
Improving your flexibility, mobility and range of movement (within the limits of your skeletal structure),
Neuro-muscular function, improving the efficiency of firing all the muscles necessary for the often complex shapes of the poses.
Co-ordination and balance. In my 3 active flow classes in London I include balance challenges throughout the class.
What is physical strength?
Physical strength is defined as the capacity of the body to exert muscular force against and external object or resistance.
When does yoga build some strength?
If you start yoga classes lacking in strength, there are definitely moderate strength gains to be made in the early stages when using your body weight as resistance. I have seen this in my slow and gentle flow classes in east London, but I have also seen how this plateaus for many people, because after time, body weight resistance is not enough, if you are looking to get stronger.
If you can hold a plank for an increasingly long time, you’re increasing your endurance, not your strength. If a weight is put on your back, your muscles are going to have to work harder which is a kind of stress on the fibres causing them to break down. When you rest after this ‘stressful muscular activity, this is when the muscles repair, adapt, increase in size and capacity, ready for the next bout of muscular stress.
So why do we need to get stronger as we age?
In our 30’s and 40’s we can lose up to 5% of muscle mass, and by the 60 this increases to 8% per decade. Muscle loss or sarcopenia affects functional loss and metabolic changes too.
Declining muscle mass is largely due to disuse, and we have the capacity to build muscle at any age.
Should we include strength training in yoga classes?
Even though I include plenty of stability challenges in my slow flow classes in London, prefer to keep strength and yoga separate, they are different in their aims and to mix the 2 in the same class would be diluting the benefits of each. To increase strength while doing yoga poses would require repeating the poses many times, which is contrary to what we’re aiming to do in yoga, which is to find the inner harmony of the energy in our bodies, known as prana ( similar to ‘chi’).
Strength training is an excellent complement to a yoga practice.
Yoga poses don’t include much pulling movement because there is an abundance of ‘push’ poses such as downward facing dog and plank pose. There is also a lack of movement that strengthens the so called ‘back chain’ of the gluteal muscles, hamstrings and back muscles.
Thankfully the yoga world has moved on from avoiding strength training to embracing it a great complement to yoga.
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Sources:
Andrew Mc Gonigle: co Author The Physiology of Yoga and Workshop Demystifying Ageing Workshop:
References:
Yazar,T., & Yazar H. (2021) Prevalance of sarcopenia according to decade
Liu, C. J., & Latham, N. K. (2009). Progressive resistance strength training for improving physical function in older adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.