• Can yoga really build muscle?

When you do yoga poses, “You’re putting your body in positions and orientations that you ultimately have to support with your muscles. So you are lifting weights.”

You can increase muscle tone and definition — and even muscle size — with yoga. But because you’re limited to “lifting” your own body weight, it may take a lot more skill, time, and determination than it would with lifting weights. Yoga can be just as effective as weights when it comes to building a stronger, more impressive physique.

• Yoga is a more well-rounded approach

Here are several reasons yoga is a more balanced way to do strength training:

• A regular yoga practice can reduce your risk of injury and condition your body to perform better at things you have to do every day: walk, sit, twist, bend, and lift groceries. A form of functional fitness, yoga moves your body in the ways it was designed to move to help ensure that it keeps functioning properly. For example, in yoga, you use both large and small muscles and move in many directions (twisting, arcing, etc.), not just back and forth on a one-dimensional plane, as in the forward-back motion of a bicep curl.
• Yoga tones muscles all over your body, in balance with each other. Weight training exercises typically isolate and flex one muscle or muscle group at a time.
• Yoga relies on eccentric contraction, where the muscle stretches as it contracts, giving the muscles that sleek, elongated look while increasing flexibility in the muscles and joints. Weight training relies on the opposite physical principle of concentric muscle contraction, which means the muscle gets smaller as it contracts. Without proper stretching, the muscle fibers heal close together, giving the muscle that compact, bulging look.
• Yoga increases muscle endurance because you typically hold any given pose for a period of time and repeat it several times during a yoga workout.
• But is yoga enough?

So can we get the benefits of strength training through yoga alone? The first thing is to look at our motivation and goals around getting stronger. As we said earlier, yoga is a form of functional strength training so it helps us to build enough strength for our day to day activities – and more depending on how we practice.

If you want to dramatically increase muscle mass, however, you’ll need to add extra weights and resistance and train specifically for that. But adding extra weights into your practice can be beneficial even if your goal is not to get bigger muscles.

• Can yoga strengthening poses go wrong?

Yes, if you stress your body by overstretching and over strengthening, the focussed body parts may get injured and lead to permanent damage. So, listen to your body and stop when it doesn’t feel right.

• What precautions to keep in mind while doing body strengthening yoga?

Do not practice yoga under the influence of any drug(s) or alcohol. Those who have a disability or any medical condition must consult a professional on how to go about the exercises.

• What changes will you notice in the body due to yoga strengthening?

The strengthening yoga poses will improve your body strength, flexibility, balance, as well as breathing.

• When is the best time to do yoga strengthening exercises?

Usually, it is ideal to do the exercises early in the morning when there is a gap of at least six hours since your last meal.