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Is Yoga Strengthening?

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Strength is your ability to produce force. More broadly, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. 

Its benefits for athletes are well known, but there are many reasons non-athletes and average Janes might seek strength, too. Time and time again, research shows that building strength—improving force production—confers broad health benefits. Some evidenced-based benefits to getting stronger include improved bone density, injury prevention, better balance, and improved confidence, to name a few.

Knowing this, it’s not surprising that the word “strength” is making its way around movement circles these days. Many modalities promise strength—from yoga and Pilates to kettlebells—and while all of these have many possible benefits—movement is medicine!—none guarantee that strengthening will occur.

Modalities don’t make us stronger. Stimuli does.

The stimulus for improving muscle force production is resistance. We can alter resistance (scale it up or down) in a number of ways by playing with exercise variations, as well as parameters like weight, reps, and sets, to name a few.

Important to our discussion today is determining whether or not a modality, like yoga asana, will make us stronger. We might wonder, too, if the strength we acquire from our yoga practice will transfer to other ways that we seek to be strong off the mat. The answers to these questions rely, first and foremost, on determining whether or not the stimuli we receive from our practice exceeds the threshold it needs to for strength, as an adaptation, to take place in our body.

Given this, it’s probably best not to rely on marketing to know whether or not our practice is making us stronger, and instead, understand strength a bit better, as well as our personal thresholds and what getting stronger feels like. Here’s a hint: it’s probably gonna feel a little uncomfortable.

Strength is individual.

Just like everyone’s optimal diet and amount of sleep will be different, everyone’s threshold for strength adaptations to occur will also depend on their training/movement experience. This means certain modalities, delivered in a universally prescribed dose—like a set workout routine with a specified weight, or set yoga sequence—might involve training stimuli that is sufficient for some individuals to gain strength, and it might not for others. It might involve training stimuli that is sufficient for some to gain strength for a while, but if the stimuli doesn’t progress, they will quickly plateau.

We hear this question a lot—is yoga strengthening? The answer is: It depends on the person and the dosage.

Same goes for Pilates, kettlebells, or anything with resistance bands.

From a teaching perspective, this fact presents some challenge. It’s much easier to assume that everyone can get some 20lb dumbbells and do 3 sets of 10 reps of everything and get stronger.

If I had a penny for every time someone DM’d me on Instagram to ask “what weights should I get” I’d have enough money to buy another over-priced kettlebell.

It’s also tempting to believe that everyone who regularly does your “challenging” Vinyasa flow sequence, your yoga with resistance bands class, or your yoga with hand weights class is benefiting by getting stronger.

But unless we know each student’s history of loading, we simply can’t know if these inputs will help individual students improve their force production under the unique circumstances each of these classes present. It’s very possible that for some people in some exercises, poses, and transitions, they will see strength gains (temporarily, at least.) It’s also possible that for other people, they might not. For others still, it could be way too much stimuli and result in pain or injury—definitely not where we want to go.

So instead of trying to fit strength in a one-size-fits-all modality, let’s examine a key feature that might make a modality more likely to result in strengthening (for more people more of the time.) This way, if our goal is to get stronger, we might seek out modalities that are more effective for accomplishing these goals. 

External loading equipment that ranges from light to heavy allows us to scale stimuli within a variety of movements for a variety of individuals.

Being able to add or subtract external load is helpful if strengthening is the goal. We all know that everyone is different, however, maybe less commonly considered is how as individuals, we are also different every day. What we need for building strength early on in our journey to get stronger is not what we’ll need later on. As we get stronger, our thresholds for strengthening stimuli go up. Eventually, we’ll need more resistance than bodyweight. If we fail to increase the level of resistance that we work against, we may still absolutely benefit from the exercise or modality in a number of ways, but we won’t continue to get stronger from it. Instead, we may plateau or our strength may actually decrease.

This is why free weights and resistance bands are very convenient. Both allow us to scale training stimulus easily. Resistance bands are definitely the lower cost, more space-saving equipment of the two options, however, for most high load, mulit-joint movements that we’d use to progress our strength (think deadlifts and squats) resistance bands are often less practical for a number of reasons including that they might not offer enough resistance in these lifts.

To avoid pitting these two types of equipment—bands and free weights—against each other, it’s more helpful to value them in combination. Both can be used in very different ways in different exercises. Ultimately, it’s probably worthwhile to have both. 

In contrast, traditional postural yoga utilizes mostly body weight as the source of resistance. Body weight is also scalable through propping, body position, and orientation. But those adjustments are not as readily available or scaleable as simply being able to alter external load.

In addition to examining the characteristics of a modality, we might also examine our exertion levels to see how this insight can inform whether or not what we’re doing is strengthening.

Awareness of our levels of exertion is key to avoiding over-doing it. But maybe more important to our discussion here is that it’s also key for avoiding under-doing it, too.

For me, the practice of mindfulness has helped me tremendously in connecting to the concept of exertion, or being able to feel into whether or not I’ve exceeded my personal threshold for strengthening to occur with the strength program I’m using. Let’s review:

I decide to lift weights and I’ve got external load to do it, but merely lifting weights a number of reps and sets doesn’t guarantee I’ll get stronger. Instead, it depends on whether I’m loading sufficiently to yield strength adaptations. Here’s where internal awareness of exertion—how we feel while undergoing this programming—can be a crucial gauge.

You see, it’s actually really easy for students to under-load, especially in a group class scenario where the teacher or coach has failed to help students scale the training stimulus appropriately based on individual thresholds. This is why I spend a good amount of energy educating students about exertion—what it is, what it feels like, and how much of it to explore.

Awareness of exertion is awareness of our thresholds. It’s how close we are to failure, or that point when we are not able to complete another lift, or hold a position for another few seconds. What that proximity feels like is how get to know our thresholds from the inside.

Conveniently, observations like muscles burning, heart rate, and rate of breathing are all signs that we are a certain distance from failure.

For example if we’re not feeling too much muscle discomfort, or our heartbeat and rate of breathing is relatively slow, these internal states might indicate we are not working very hard, which is another way to say that we are far away from failure. This means we’re likely too far away from the threshold we’d need to surpass for strengthening to occur.

Meanwhile, muscle discomfort, a fast heart beat, and a quick rate of breathing might indicate that we are getting closer, or that we’ve reached or surpassed that threshold for strengthening to occur.

Being able to identify our level of exertion is important for us to individualize our training stimulus, rather than competing with the person next to us. It’s key for working above the necessary threshold for strength adaptations to occur. It’s also important for helping us respond to our day to day needs. This way, on days when we need to do less, we can avoid blowing past our body’s signals and risk burn out, pain, or injury.

Yoga has been one of the primary ways that I’ve engaged in refining states of internal awareness which has made it invaluable for helping me learn to build strength.

In fact, it’s a key reason why I consider strength training a part of my yoga practice. Connecting to our bodies on a regular basis—in a variety of ways like lifting weights, doing chores, or even engaging in tough conversations with someone—means getting clearer about where our thresholds are, how to stay above those required for growth and under those, that when surpassed, result in damage and disrepair.

Maybe that kind of intelligence and insight is its own kind of strength. In the end, it can help make us better capable of accessing the full range of experiences in our bodies and minds. 

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laurelbeversdorf

Initial gains in strength in split lunge likely in Initial gains in strength in split lunge likely involve improvements in balance and coordination.Improvements in balance and coordination are not only outcomes of getting stronger, they are strategies for getting stronger.Since strength is specific, how we strengthen matters for what kind of strength we build.It makes sense we’d want to practice the shape that’s gonna be the most optimal to load (depending on our goal) because that shape then supports increasing load over time.Floppy lunge might be okay in Vinyasa flow, but it’s not balanced or coordinated for heavy weights.When we focus first on form and tension within that form, we make progress in our strength sooner. We build a strong foundation to load later.This does not mean our body position needs to be *perfect* before we load it—what does that even mean?In fact our body position likely won’t be the same (and shouldn’t be) in bodyweight versus loaded positions, just like we don’t look the same when we jog versus sprint.Form checks, like where the back knee goes in a yoga versus split lunge and proprioceptive cues to find more global tension can simply be a good way to prepare before loading.Try these 3 tips to de-floppify your split lunge.1️⃣ perch one tush on a stool and line your back knee up somewhere under its hip. Lift off, hold, then step forward and backward. Aim your butt to the seat, and your knee under your hip.2️⃣ squeeze a bolster to generate global tension and balance your trunk better between your feet.3️⃣ add a heavier thing to squeeze like a med ball.If all goes well, in time, add back that kettlebell! And then another. 😉 💪Pssst! I’ve created a new program.It’s called Kettlebell Progressive Program: Strength, Power, Plyometrics. 15 weeks, 3 training blocks.Classes + recordings start Aug. 16.This is one of many strength & conditioning programs, 100s of yoga, yoga with bands, self-massage, and somatics practices.Right now I’m running a discount on annual membership. Pay $360/year—all access. Offer ends 9/14. I won’t be offering an annual membership discount again in 2022.Link in bio 👀
Listen to the latest episode on the Movement Logic Listen to the latest episode on the Movement Logic Podcast about the best (not body-building!) exercises for strength, delivered to you by yours truly, Laurel, a non-bruh yoga teacher and strength coach.Short on time? Here are the 5 tips I name for *how to think about* strength exercises when making your choices:#1 — train movements not muscles, namely the squat/lunge, hinge, upper body push & upper body pull.#2 — decide how many exercises you can do in a session. Be realistic about how much time it takes for the sets (and rest in between). Typically for me, realistically, 1 set takes about about 3-4 minutes on average.#3 — based on your answer for #2, prioritize selecting multi-joint exercises over single joint exercises because they train more muscle mass and are a better use of your time (especially if time is limited.)#4 — train full body and hit all the “macronutrients for strength” (those movement categories I named in tip #1) rather than doing a split routine like leg day, back and chest day, biceps and triceps day. Split routines are a body-building thing, ya know? The benefit of full body is every session you train strength in the major movements and because of that, every week, you’ll hit those movements more frequently (every workout) which is key for building strength if you don’t have 4-5 days a week to workout.#5 — order your exercises strategically so that it’s logical in terms of the exercise demands, but also so you’re putting your individual strength priorities first (sorta like triage.)Listen to the whole episode via the link in my bio. 👀
Constraints are cues you give yourself.Constrain Constraints are cues you give yourself.Constrain a joint’s movement to move from another joint more. This is a key that unlocks deep understanding for movement in yoga, but also strength training! 🔑 🧠 💡Temporarily working with an incline (or negative heel) can make squatty deadlifts more hip hingey. This can help you work and feel more hip and hamstring effort (and less quad effort.)But let’s remember that a deadlift can work all of these muscle groups including the quads and it’s not wrong to have a squatty deadlift.After all, the deadlift is only an abstract concept like a yoga pose.You can’t hug a deadlift.Meanwhile, your body is not abstract. It’s huggable.There are many ways to deadlift depending on what you want your body to experience and what change you want to make. The deadlift can help depending on how you apply the concept. Squatty and hingey will each give you different results.Lots of yoga people want to strengthen their glutes and hamstrings. They want to feel those groups working more for strength.Here I’m showing how you can bias more hips and less knees by limiting ankle dorsiflexion and (then also) knee flexion. This constraint create more opportunity for your glutes and hammies.Try it and feel it in your body (booty!) 🍑Pssst! I’ve created a new program in my Virtual Studio. It’s called Kettlebell Progressive Program: Strength, Power, Plyometrics. Classes + recordings start Aug. 16.This fresh program is one of many programs and 100s of yoga, yoga with bands, self-massage, and somatics-based practices.Right now I’m running a discount on annual membership to my Virtual Studio. Pay $360/year (or $1 day) for all access. This offer ends Sep. 14 and I won’t be offering a discount on annual membership again this year.Link in bio 👀
Sort of funny sounding but one of the ways I pract Sort of funny sounding but one of the ways I practice self-care is that every year I get the interior of my car detailed.The person comes to my house and cleans every little nook and cranny inside my car. It is 100% worth the cost.As the mother of a toddler, this service creates significant, happiness-making enhancement to the interior look, smell, and feel of my car. It is absolutely wonderful.This year, before getting our car detailed Eli and I also cleaned the outside of the car together.It was easy—dish soap—effective, and also satisfying.I highly recommend this activity as a way to get your young children to work! 💪
In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m j In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m joined by my friend and colleague @TrinaAltman. Together, we discuss Trina’s experience with perimenopause. Trina shares her personal story along with tons of resources for women going through this change of life.
—What is perimenopause?—Doctors have a tendency to minimize women’s suffering—Brain fog and hot flashes—Challenges women face when navigating the medical system—Finding a doctor that spends more time with you AND is evidence-based AND is current on the research—The Women’s Health Initiative and fear they created (through highly questionable handling and interpretation of the data) around estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).—Weight gain and perimenopause—Scope appropriate advice for movement teachers working with perimenopausal and menopausal students
TRINA’S BIO:Trina received her training through STOTT Pilates® and is an E-RYT 500. She created Yoga Deconstructed® and Pilates Deconstructed® to show teachers how to take an interdisciplinary approach to foster an embodied understanding of yoga and Pilates in relation to modern movement science.Link in bio to listen and subscribe to Movement Logic: Strong Opinions, Loosely Held 👀
In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m j In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m joined by my friend and colleague @TrinaAltman. Together, we discuss Trina’s experience with perimenopause.Trina shares her personal story along with tons of resources for women going through this change of life. We discuss:
—What is perimenopause?—Doctors have a tendency to minimize women’s suffering—Brain fog and hot flashes—Challenges women face when navigating the medical system—Finding a doctor that spends more time with you AND is evidence-based AND is current on the research—The Women’s Health Initiative and fear they created (through highly questionable handling and interpretation of the data) around estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).—Weight gain and perimenopause—Scope appropriate advice for movement teachers working with perimenopausal and menopausal students
TRINA’S BIO:Trina received her training through STOTT Pilates® and is an E-RYT 500. She created Yoga Deconstructed® and Pilates Deconstructed® to show teachers how to take an interdisciplinary approach to foster an embodied understanding of yoga and Pilates in relation to modern movement science.Link in bio to listen and subscribe to Movement Logic: Strong Opinions, Loosely Held 👀
I started hurting while practicing yoga asana. I r I started hurting while practicing yoga asana. I realize now, my hurty joints weren't necessarily *from* practicing yoga asana.They were from *not practicing anything else.*After many years of practice, I no longer even broke a sweat during pretty strong Vinyasa flow classes. I’d plateaued in strength. I wasn't loading my body in a wide enough variety of ways. I wasn’t externally loading it. I wasn't doing any pulling, only pushing.The flip side of my issue with overload was my issue of under load. Overload and under load are two sides of the pain coin.Today, I'm practicing the asanas without pain. I didn't have to stop practicing. Instead, I started regularly lifting weights and incorporating resistance bands and weights into my practice.I added movement. I didn't subtract it.When we have pain, of course we want it to go away. To achieve this, we stop doing the things we think cause it. It makes total sense! The thing is, while often necessary in the short-term, this is rarely a long-term solution.The activity we put on pause is often not the root issue. Our body’s capacity to handle the loads of the activity is.And, unlike hobbies, sometimes it's not possible to put something on pause. If I suspect driving my car is causing me pain, I still have to drive to work. If carrying my toddler is causing me pain, I'm probably going to keep carrying my toddler.Instead of eliminating the activity that's causing pain, we can make our bodies more capable of managing the loads of that activity by adding loads that we’re missing progressively over time.Adding resistance bands and weight not only increases the magnitude of load my body is capable of managing, but also how I load my body in the poses—variability!Adding external load changes the practice for sure. You can also have a complimentary practice and that can also be your practice.
This lumbopelvic-focused progressive sequence (SWI This lumbopelvic-focused progressive sequence (SWIPE 👈) is called Gentle Hip Unwind.The lumbopelvic region is an “intersection” of our body where our low back & pelvis negotiate, coordinate, initiate, and control movement of our spine and lower extremities (ya know, so only about most of our whole body.)The lumbopelvic region is Grand Central Station for movement and load management!Since it’s such an important and often sore area of our body, sometimes it’s good to gently explore “unwinding”
it.There are many ways to go about unwinding this area. This series of short, sped up videos, shows parts of a progressive sequence I taught Tue.I note the general body position in each video (seated, crab, supine, standing). This is akin to “chapters”.The chapters are basic body positions and within them, I bring in and develop key movement relationships + points of awareness.My sequences often go from the ground to standing, but they often deviate too, like starting standing and moving to the ground. It depends. What’s often the case is an element of repetition of the same or similar movement relationships in each stage.If the body positions are like chapters, the movement relationships and repeat points of focus are like dialogue between characters.Because this sequence is relatively passive, I refer to it as ‘gentle.’ You could certainly make this sequence more active by changing some things, and that wouldn’t necessarily make the sequence whatever the opposite of gentle is. ( ;The word gentle is a shared language within communities that practice yoga, and people tend to associate it with more passive or “mellow” work that isn’t just static but mixes dynamic and static work.What do you think of when you think of a “Gentle” practice?If you’d like to try membership to my Virtual Studio, you can pay for one month all-access (sign up and cancel) or recurring subscription (sign up and stay.) $40/mo link in bio 👀
Remember when everyone was so 😱 about people me Remember when everyone was so 😱 about people memeing themselves.That was always confusing to me.Some folks hate the public intimacy of social media. I get it. It’s weird.But  a lot of folks also want to share what they really think on social, but are afraid to, and then get resentful when someone else does it. Hence the “can you believe so-and-so memed themself?”Fear is no fun at all.I’m glad I live in a bubble where I can pop off about shit (AKA meme myself) without too much second guessing.Here I go again!#RepostAs movement teachers, when we suggest certain movements and positions (that human bodies do) are bad, wrong, dangerous, or just less than, we perpetuate fear of movement, or this idea some ways of being in our bodies or not acceptable.Our words are powerful. We are highly influential. When students hear us imply certain positions or movements (things bodies can do/are built to do) are “less than” part of what we communicate is “don’t go there.” “Don’t learn about this part of yourself. Don’t explore it. It’s not safe in your body in this place. And, you need me (the teacher) to help you find the good places and avoid the bad places.”This fosters fear and dependence in our students, not curiosity and agency.The most effective teachers make themselves obsolete. They don’t TEACH students *what* to think, they MODEL for students *how* to think, which means they share their process, doubt, and uncertainty.Instead of pitting movements against each other we can imply BOTH have value and then organize learning the difference between.What if we created space for inquiry for students to explore befriending all of themselves? What if we fostered inquiry around those ways that feel better, worse, more/less interesting, more/less useful and asked students to decide?This is, I feel, movement optimism. It’s fostering inquiry, curiosity, courage, and playfulness in learning about how our bodies move, in addition to fostering acceptance of our bodies and other bodies’ existence, value, and right to be here. It’s teaching choices rather than teaching right v wrong, good v bad.That’s religion.I’d rather learn to move.
Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast i Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast is up! In this solo episode, @sarahcourtdpt tackles the tricky subject of pain, and whether it’s always bad if our clients and students have pain. She discusses the situations in which pain might be acceptable, and gives concrete tools and approaches for you to use with your clients who are having pain.
➡️What’s the difference between acute and chronic pain?➡️When might it be ok - and when would it not be ok - for your students to have pain?➡️How to avoid generating fear for your students around their pain experience➡️How much pain would be acceptable for someone to have?➡️How to tease out different sensations to help your client have greater discernment around what they’re feeling in their body🔗Click the link in bio to watch the episode on our website, or listen and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts!#yogaclassesonline #onlineyogaclasses #mobilityclasses #bodynerd #yogatherapy #movementtherapy #liveonlineyoga #practiceyoga #movementlogic #pilatesinstructor #yogateacherconed #yogateacher #painrelief #movementteacher #physicaltherapist #strengthcoach #mobilitycoach #worksmarternotharder #movementlogicpodcast #laurelbeversdorf #sarahcourt
Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast i Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast is up! In this solo episode, @sarahcourtdpt tackles the tricky subject of pain, and whether it’s always bad if our clients and students have pain. She discusses the situations in which pain might be acceptable, and gives concrete tools and approaches for you to use with your clients who are having pain.
➡️What’s the difference between acute and chronic pain?➡️When might it be ok - and when would it not be ok - for your students to have pain?➡️How to avoid generating fear for your students around their pain experience➡️How much pain would be acceptable for someone to have?➡️How to tease out different sensations to help your client have greater discernment around what they’re feeling in their body🔗Click the link in bio to watch the episode on our website, or listen and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts!#yogaclassesonline #onlineyogaclasses #mobilityclasses #bodynerd #yogatherapy #movementtherapy #liveonlineyoga #practiceyoga #movementlogic #pilatesinstructor #yogateacherconed #yogateacher #painrelief #movementteacher #physicaltherapist #strengthcoach #mobilitycoach #worksmarternotharder #movementlogicpodcast #laurelbeversdorf #sarahcourt
Hey, when @sarahcourtdpt tags you and tells you to Hey, when @sarahcourtdpt tags you and tells you to show her your kaftan because @yogawalla told her to show her HER kaftan, you do your best. You find your best kaftan and if you don’t have one, you find your best almost-a-kaftan, and you find a good wall, and you try to match the vibe.I nominate @caitlincasella @greatoakcircle and @nychristiane#movementlogic #showmeyourmumu #showmeyourhousedress #showmeyourkaftan
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