Showing posts with label bikram yoga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bikram yoga. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

How to Use Bikram Yoga for Weight Loss

Bikram yoga is a challenging type of yoga where students are placed in a room that is heated to 104 degrees Fahrenheit for a total of 90 minutes of 26 different yoga poses. Losing weight may not be the forefront of what bikram yoga may be used for, however, it is definitely a possibility.

Go to bikram yoga at least 3 times a week or 10 times a month. Going any less can not produce the kinds of results you are looking for with weight loss. Many avid participants of bikram yoga frequent the classes from 5-6 sessions a week and see optimum results.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Bikram Yoga - Achieving a Fit and Healthy Body

By Jessica Praman and Lucas Rockwood

You can try to do the Bikram Yoga or Hot Yoga, and it will definitely make your body in perfect shape. This exercise is not only limited for your body, but will aid you to have a positive outlook in life as well.

Bikram Yoga or some call it Hot Yoga, is an intense kind of Yoga. This is performed in a hot ventilated room, maybe around 95-100 degrees. Performing this exercise will make you sweat hard. Once you perspire, all toxins of your body will be washed out. Heat will also make your body more flexible, so it will be easier for you to do the different body postures. Bikram Yoga does a lot of benefits to those who engage in this activity.

Yoga, especially Bikram, has been known to be very effective in losing weight. This is because of the natural benefits that it can give to your body. There is no need for taking additional tablets or pills for maintenance. You just have to do it regularly and you can keep your well-shaped body for a long time. Since this Hot Yoga will make you perspire more, then it is an ideal workout for burning more fats and calories. By doing this regularly, you will certainly get lighter and lighter each day.

Bikram Yoga helps your body system, such as digestion, respiration and blood circulation, work effectively. According to experts, bodies that do not undergo in any physical activity have a weaker function on their body systems compared to those who are active. As a result, they have a slower metabolism which causes long storage of the food that they eat. These foods will then accumulate every time they eat and eat. Thus, they get bigger and bigger. A regular bowel movement will help in bringing the weight down.

Heat also gets your muscles stronger and become more elastic. In this manner, you can easily perform breath-taking postures in Yoga. The more you are able to do this, the more you increase your potential in losing weight. The strong muscles will make you survive in doing strenuous activities. Having a weaker body will limit you in completing other physical activities. It is also an indication that you will have lower possibilities in getting a slimmer body.

Bikram Yoga is one way of detoxification. It promotes healthy circulation of fluids in your body. Through this, every organ will most likely be in good shape. Your immune system is at its best performance. You will have lower risk of getting sick. It also means your body can get rid of waste quickly. Through excessive perspiration, it is one way of eradicating unwanted body fluids.

There can still be a lot of benefits you can get out from doing Bikram Yoga. But one essential thing to achieve your goal on keeping fit and healthy is to have a positive attitude. Aside from the physical changes it can do to you, Yoga also encourages willpower and mental strength. No matter how hard you exercise, but you do not set your mind on what you want to attain, everything will be useless. Always remember to practice a positive attitude and perform Yoga on a regular basis. Once you do this, you can surely see the results immediately.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Bikram Yoga Can Assist Your Healing Progress

By Dennis Francis

I've been moving more and more toward the benefits of Bikram yoga after a brief visit to a local studio. I found that the addition of heat and sweat to the smooth movements made my middle aged body feel great.

Bikram Yoga is widely known as Hot Yoga. Some know it as The Bikram Method. Bikram yoga is derived from Hatha yoga; a healing style designed for the recovery of mind and body. There are many Bikram enthusiasts who have been swear by this system for their recuperation from alcoholism to shingles. Many people have changed their lives after mastering the basic positions.

Bikram Choudhury, the founder of the yoga style was born in Calcutta in 1946. Bikram began practicing yoga at the age of four with India's most-renowned physical culturist, Bishnu Ghosh. As a youth, this heavily muscled and vigorous practitioner was very competitive in the exhibition circuit.

Bikram Yoga developed his system after recovering from a leg injury. Some people practice Bikram Yoga for healing purposes and physical therapy. This type of Yoga was proven helpful in bringing health and wellness to many of its practitioners.

In fact, there was a patient who suffered from a knee injury. He tried to practice Bikram Yoga and just six weeks after continuous practice, his knees started to feel better. Some difficulties and pains that he suffered from were all disappearing.

In order to be successful with the healing process of Bikram Yoga, you need devotion in practicing it.

With the help of scientists Bikram Choudhury developed his yoga style. These scientists from the Tokyo University Hospital proved that Bikram Yoga created valid therapeutic results. Some of its benefits include tissue repair and even remedial effects of chronic ailments.

What Bikram was able to produce was a process that replenishes the cells of the body and the flushed toxins from your body. It also oxygenates blood throughout your body in order to keep it healthy and clean. The scientists were able to validate all the findings.

He discovered that the healing process takes place when all the body's systems are functioning normally. If the subject was weak, applying the practice to produce healing was difficult.

Bikram developed twenty-six posture exercises which were to be practiced daily. The posture exercises focused on stretching the muscles, tendons and ligaments; while stimulating the organs, nerves, and glands.

The series of postures were designed to work in order and to promote specific effects on the body. Once the body returned to its optimum level of stability, healing was much easier to accomplish.

Through contraction and extension, the postures attend to every bodily system including: digestive, respiratory, circulatory, immune, endocrine, lymphatic, skeletal, muscular, and nervous. It stretches and strengthens every single muscle, ligament and joint in the body down to cell membrane stretching.

It is an excellent compliment to all other forms of exercise and sport. Bikram yoga has proven itself effective for more than thirty years.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Hot Yoga For Detoxification Benefits

By Sandra Kim Leong

Hot yoga or bikram yoga is gaining popularity as the new way to detoxify and to remove toxins from your body. For this method, you just need to think of yoga as if you are in a sauna. In fact, it is thought so effective for cleansing purposes that some natural health treatment centres are including it as part of the regimen for chronic liver diseases like hepatitis C.

Your skin is one of the best waste disposal systems in nature. While it is different from your waste-extraction organs like kidneys or livers, your skin is an equally effective organ for removing waste, especially toxic wastes. It does this through sweat.

Hence, hot yoga provides the perfect channel for detoxification to happen. You would be tapping the ability of your skin to convert toxins that come from various fats into simpler and water-soluble compounds that can be easily removed. At high temperatures, you will begin to sweat. Amonia and urea is eliminated as well as sugars and salts.

When you do hot yoga, exercises are performed in a room heated to temperatures of around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Once inside, you go through a program of specified postures in a vigorous but very aerobic workout. The internal heat generated by the yoga exercises combines with the external heat of the room to make you break out in torrents of sweat.

On its own, yoga is already a powerful healing regime. When you do yoga exercises, you are working out every muscle in the body, making them strong, supple, and flexible. Aside from being able to help in cardiovascular problems, yoga is also excellent for people suffering from arthritis, stress reduction, and a host of other body conditions.

Every posture in the hot yoga for detoxification exercise is complemented with proper breathing techniques to assist you in reaching the maximum limit of the movement. Thus, you may notice that apart from the regular Bikram yoga exercises, you are also trained in the proper breathing techniques. Proper breathing techniques is vital in detoxification and cleansing.

By boosting circulation and metabolism through deep breathing and yoga posture, hot yoga accelerates the result of any detoxification program. Additionally, you also get to learn the techniques of meditation. You learn to relax your mind, thus addressing stress toxins. In conclusion, bikram yoga or hot yoga for detoxification is a powerful means to achieving balance between mind, body and spirit.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Bikram Yoga Benefits


By Sarah Russell


The Bikram school of yoga offers many advantages, and has been said to be life changing. It can change your perspective, and make your body feel a lot different. Bikram Yoga has been referred to as "hot yoga". This is because it's performed in a very warm room. It's meant to improve both physical and mental strength, as well as balance and flexibility. It has roots in the older practice of Hatha Yoga, a technique intended to heal both mind and body.


The founder of Bikram Yoga is Bikram Choudhury, a yoga practitioner who created this branch of practice after becoming injured in a weightlifting accident. He discovered that certain exercises improved his ability to heal, so he developed them further. Many other people also found that they could benefit from Bikram Yoga, and the practice has spread ever since.


There are a number of different reasons for performing this type of yoga. Some do it for reasons of physical healing, or for physical therapy. Others use it as a spiritual or holistic practice. In one incident, involving a man who had recently suffered from an injury to his knee, the practitioner began to feel better after only six weeks of practice. The pain and movement difficulty he suffered began to disappear. To get the most out of Bikram Yoga, it's important to practice on a regular basis. That way, you'll get the best effect, and be able to do more advanced work.


Scientific data tends to back up Bikram Yoga's beneficial effects. Studies by the University of Tokyo's hospital have shown that there are some medical benefits to this kind of practice, including the improvement of symptoms in chronic ailments, and tissue repair. These findings, which officially stated the internal benefits of Bikram Yoga practice, were presented in 1972 at the International Medical Conference. In addition to the benefits stated above, these poses are also said to help replenish our cells and help us flush out toxins and help oxygenate the blood.

The healing process is most effective when all systems in the body are functioning effectively. If any part of the body is weak, then it will be more difficult to receive healing benefits.


Strengthening and conditioning the body is an important component of Bikram Yoga, which is made up of twenty six postures. These should be practiced on a daily basis. Many of these postures are based on traditional yoga, but they may have other Western elements. The postures are connected, and made to flow into one another to more effectively help treat the body.


There are no age requirements, so anyone who'd like to take up doing yoga can use the Bikram method. However, if you have a heart condition that can be affected by high heat and exercise, you should talk to your doctor first. For many people, Bikram Yoga offers a solution to many medical problems, as long as it is practiced carefully and on a regular basis.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Bikram Yoga

By Ross Bainbridge

Yoga is at least about 5,000 years old. The Hindus of the Indus valley civilization developed yoga as a practical device to unite the individual self with the Brahman, the universal self. It was codified about 2,000 years back into a system by Patanjali in his work ‘Yoga Sutra.’


His yoga, known as Ashtanga Yoga (or eight-limbed yoga) came to be the authority on yogic practice. These eight limbs are to be practiced in sequence to achieve its spiritual end. In the modern age yoga came to be understood as ‘Hatha Yoga,’ which practices the third and fourth limbs of Ashtanga Yoga - Asanas and Pranayama.


Hatha Yoga, meaning sun-moon yoga, aims to unite the active and passing energies of the human beings. It harmonizes the body-mind relationship, and achieves a balance. The body becomes supple and strong. The mind relaxes and the stress eases. The internal systems, such as blood circulation, nervous system, digestive system and the endocrine system, are improved.


There are many systems of ‘Hatha Yoga,’ such as Ashtanga Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, Vini Yoga, Integral Yoga, Sivananda Yoga and Bikram Yoga. Basically they hold postures that exercise the system. It is formulated by different teachers, giving importance to different aspects of Hatha Yoga.


Bikram Choudhry, the founder of Bikram Yoga, was born in Kolkatta in 1946. He became a disciple of Bishnu Gosh, the brother of Paramahamsa Yogananda, at the age of four. His mastery of the Hatha Yoga technique was so good that he continuously won the Indian Yoga championship, and retired undefeated at a very young age. Bikram started many training centers for yoga, on the direction of his master Bishnu Gosh. Later, he founded his own system of yoga known as Bikram Yoga.


Bikram Yoga is a series of 26 postures, done inside a heated room. The temperature is maintained at about 90 – 100o. This warms the body naturally, and the postures are easily accomplished. The series starts with standing postures, backward bends, forward bends and twists. Each posture is repeated twice. The full routine takes about 90 minutes.


Bikram has a school in Los Angeles where teachers impart yoga practice. He also travels throughout America organizing workshops and seminars.