What is Power Yoga?

Power Yoga is a fitness-based vinyasa practice. An offshoot of Ashtanga Yoga, it has many of the same qualities and benefits, including building internal heat, increased stamina, strength, and flexibility, as well as stress reduction. Teachers design their own sequences, while students synchronize their breath with their movement. The original Power Yoga was developed and founded by Beryl Bender Birch, but is now a term used to describe many vigorous vinyasa styles.

Benefits you can get from Power Yoga

Physical Benefits

Power yoga increases flexibility, strength, and stamina. This ultimately helps reduce the risk of injury during other physical activities.

Power yoga eliminates toxins through sweat and enhances your immune system performance- even more so than “regular” Hatha yoga. When you do power yoga, you increase the drainage of “lymph”- a viscous fluid rich in immune cells. This helps the lymphatic system fight infections, destroy cancerous cells, and dispose of bodily toxins.

Power yoga is low impact, but a highly effective exercise. Unlike high intensity workouts such as sprinting or weight lifting, power yoga is an activity accessible to all age groups, and even possible for those with physical limitations such as arthritis.

All types of yoga improves posture and reduces back pain: A study in Spine revealed that sufferers of back pain who did yoga twice a week for six months eased soreness by 56%. Compare this to those given treatments such as pain medications and physical therapy, who reported a decrease in pain by only 16%.

Power yoga provides an alternative method for strengthening your bones: Traditional weight-bearing exercises strengthens bones and wards off osteoporosis. Power yoga also does this- sans weight-lifting.

Power yoga increases blood flow. Yoga thins the blood by making platelets less sticky and reducing the level of clot-promoting proteins. Why is this important? Thinner blood can lead to a decrease in heart attacks and strokes, since blood clots are often the cause of these killers.

Power yoga promotes weight loss; not only through burning calories (approximately 200 calories an hour), but also by building lean muscle mass, which raises your basal metabolic rate (i.e. Burn more calories, even when you’re sitting around later).

Mentally Benefits

Power yoga improves your mood: GABA is a brain chemical in which low levels are linked to depression. Practicing power yoga increases levels of the brain chemical GABA by 27%, compared with a group who read quietly.

Power Yoga also improves self-image and confidence: One study found that women who did power yoga regularly rated their body satisfaction 20% higher than did those who took aerobics, even though both groups were at a healthy weight.

Power Yoga helps you stress less: Women practice yoga at least once a week for two years released 41% less of Cytokine, a tension-triggered type of protein that can make you feel tired and moody.

Power Yoga improves the quality of sleep: Insomniacs fell asleep 15 minutes faster and slept an hour longer each night after two months of doing a 45-minute series of yoga. Not an insomniac? Power yoga also helps you achieve a deeper, more restorative sleep, even if you are getting the same amount of it.

Power  Yoga improves concentration and memory more than vigorous cardio, such as running on a treadmill.