Does Yoga Count As Exercise? Here Is What You Should Know

There are many different types of yoga, including vinyasa, restorative, hatha, and hot yoga. Different amounts of physical effort are needed for each. A restorative yoga session that involves little to no movement and a vinyasa class that moves quickly from one difficult position to the next are extremely different from one another.

According to Edward Laskowski, MD, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist and the former co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, the latter may require enough effort and raise your heart rate to qualify as moderate physical activity, whereas the former may not.

Classes that emphasize repair and mindfulness may not raise your heart rate as much, according to Dr. Laskowski. According to him, certain sessions are designed to push students into a higher heart rate zone where they are taxing and working their hearts much harder, which may indeed be an aerobic workout.

What you need to know about yoga and fitness is provided below.

To get muscle, you don’t require equipment or free weights. There is proof that regular yoga practice does increase strength. Yoga positions like the handstand and plank, which employ your body weight as resistance, are examples of body weight exercises. According to Laskowski, certain postures and positions will work a muscle only by using your body weight as resistance.

According to one study, women who practiced ashtanga yoga for an hour twice a week for eight months were able to raise more weight with their legs than those who didn’t. Another study indicated that yoga increases upper body and core strength and endurance; after six weeks of courses, individuals could perform more curl-ups and push-ups.

But according to Laskowski, the muscles and muscular tone you develop through other forms of strength training may differ in some ways from the muscles and muscle tone you get through yoga. According to him, yoga emphasizes power that is useful. To strengthen a specific muscle, like the biceps, you could isolate it during weight training. On the other hand, when practicing yoga, multiple muscle groups are used.

In yoga, he explains, “we use a lot of different joints and muscles, which is great since that’s what we do in our daily life.”

Because everyone has a different maximal heart rate based on their age, health, and level of fitness, what constitutes moderate and strenuous physical exercise differs from person to person. The American Heart Association advises a target heart rate for healthy people of between 50 and 70 percent of maximum heart rate for activities that qualify as moderate intensity exercise and between 70 and 85 percent of maximum heart rate for activities that qualify as intense exercise.

For instance, a 60-year-heart old’s rate should beat between 80 and 136 times per minute, whereas the average 20-year-heart old’s should beat between 100 and 170 times per minute to be in the moderate to strenuous exercise range.

According to Laskowski, yoga is not always an aerobic activity in the same league as jogging, riding, walking, or using an elliptical machine. Depending on the type of yoga and how vigorously you practice it, a yoga session may or may not raise your heart rate to the desired level to qualify as moderate physical exercise, according to Laskowski. He adds that programs that put more of an emphasis on mindfulness and recovery might not raise your heart rate as much as more athletic classes that are meant to keep you moving.

Only a slight increase in heart rate was observed in an investigation of ashtanga, hatha, and gentle yoga. Students who practiced ashtanga, a more vigorous form of flow yoga, had an increase in heart rate of roughly 30 beats per minute, compared to only about 15 beats per minute for hatha and gentle yoga practitioners. That level of activity might qualify as moderate exercise for some people based on their age and resting heart rate, but not for others.

According to Laskowski, this does not imply that it is not worthwhile. Even though it is less severe than something that causes your heart rate to increase more, it is still activity (just as jogging is less intense than running). Anything that challenges the heart by raising heart rate, he explains, “causes it to adapt and get stronger, so anything that accomplishes that is healthy.”

Height, BMI, and age are just a few of the many variables that affect how many calories you’ll burn when doing yoga, according to Sally Sherwin, an experienced yoga instructor at Cleveland Clinic Wellness Yoga in Ohio.

Because there are so many various types of yoga, the recommended range is between 200 and 600 calories [burned] each hour, which is a large range, according to the expert. You won’t probably burn many extra calories in a restorative yoga class because you’ll be deeply relaxed. However, Sherwin notes, you would burn a lot more calories in a strenuous class where you move around a lot.

The average 125-pound individual burns around 120 calories in a half-hour of hatha yoga, and a 185-pound person burns about 178 calories in that half-hour, according to calorie estimations calculated at Harvard Medical School. Vinyasa or flow yoga falls under the umbrella of hatha yoga. In contrast, it is predicted that a 125-pound person will burn 135 calories in 30 minutes of walking (at a pace of 15 minutes per mile) and 210 calories while riding a stationary bike at a moderate speed.

Bikram yoga may make you sweat more, but the number of calories burned is around the same. A study from Colorado State University found that in a typical 90-minute class that alternates 26 poses in a room heated to 105 degrees and 40 percent humidity, women burned an average of 330 calories and men burned an average of 460 calories, which isn’t too far from the calories burned walking briskly for the same amount of time.

There is proof that doing yoga can aid in weight loss—possibly indirectly—through the changes in lifestyle it promotes. Iyengar yoga is a slow-paced style of yoga that focuses on body alignment and posture. Participants in a study conducted at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and published in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary Alternative Medicine were interviewed about their weight loss experiences after starting the practice. Based on the interviews, the researchers found a number of variables that may have contributed to the Iyengar yogis’ weight loss, including a change in eating habits, feeling supported by a society that encouraged these habits, and physical changes including muscle growth and toning.