Yoga STILL Sucks
So much for the body-mind connection myths perpetuated by the yoga fanatics.
In a head to head comparison between an aerobically trained group of senior citizens and a progressive stretching group (all participants were previously untrained), the aerobically trained grandmas showed a 25% greater cognitive improvement than the stretchers.
Now before you yogi’s get your panties in a bunch, I think that if you enjoy yoga, by all means, continue to do it…then do something productive.
Source:
Stanley J. Colcombe, Arthur F. Kramer, Kirk I. Erickson, Paige Scalf, Edward McAuley, Neal J. Cohen, Andrew Webb, Gerry J. Jerome, David X. Marquez, and Steriani Elavsky
Cardiovascular fitness, cortical plasticity, and aging, PNAS, Mar 2004; 101: 3316 - 3321.
Bill
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May 22nd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
I am starting your progam for burning the last ten pounds and I need a description for dumbbell face pulls. Can you help?
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
It’s on the men’s health website.
Bill
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:07 pm
I didn’t know yoga had dumbbell face pulls.
???
I used to enjoy yoga, and probably still would. Nice mind/body connection. But I realized I don’t have enough time for it. I gotta do what I gotta do.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:42 am
I won’t quarrel with the study result, however I do take issue of you recharacterising “progressive stretching” as yoga. Yoga does involve stretching, but it’s more than that.
That said, I’m also not going to say yoga is a huge fat-burning or muscle-building form of movement — but it does build some strength and probably burns more calories than the typical stretching program.
May 30th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Great citing, Bill! I am a health professional (Personal Trainer/Educator/Authour) in Vancouver - where the yoga fad is out of control! I am often criticized by the yoga cult for suggesting that there are better ways to utilize time when you have only 3 hours/wk to exercise. In fact, if you look closely at most of the studies favourable to yoga - it is often used in conjunction with other interventions.
In short, if people have a couple of hours per day to work on health-enhancing behaviours and they like yoga - then by all means enjoy. I just think it is an overrated form of exercise. And don’t even get me started on “power yoga”
Mike