Getting Started With Yoga for Fitness

When most people think of yoga, they think of wellness and relaxation, not fitness. While yoga involves plenty of gentle stretching, deep breathing and meditation (which have been shown alleviate stress, lessen chronic pain and deliver many other health benefits), it’s also an effective total body workout for people of all ages and fitness levels.

Yoga builds strength, flexibility and balance without putting pressure on the joints. Studies consistently show that this weight-bearing activity helps slow bone thinning, reducing the risk of osteoporosis, particularly among postmenopausal women. And when done in a series of flowing, nonstop movements, yoga improves cardiovascular endurance and overall fitness.

What’s more, regularly practicing yoga has been shown to boost mental fitness in areas such as memory, clarity and focus. A 2017 study in the journal International Psychogeriatrics demonstrated the benefits of Kundalini yoga — which centers on unlocking energy with breathwork — for those with mild cognitive impairment. More recent findings published in Translational Psychiatry demonstrated similar benefits for people with subjective (or self-reported) cognitive decline. “Yoga can absolutely provide meaningful exercise benefits, but it depends on how you practice it,” says Sabrena Jo, senior director of science and education at the American Council on Exercise.

For older adults, yoga can support multiple components of fitness, incorporating strength, coordination, stability and muscular endurance.

How to boost fitness with yoga

Gentle yoga can be good for flexibility and relaxation, but if you are interested in using yoga to improve your cardiovascular fitness, you want to feel your muscles working, your breathing get a little deeper and your body challenged in a safe way, Jo explains.

“You might notice increased warmth, mild fatigue or moments where balance and coordination require concentration. Those are all signs that your body is adapting physically,” Jo says. Use the talk test, she adds: “You should still be able to speak in short sentences, but singing or carrying on a completely effortless conversation would be difficult. If you’re barely breathing harder than normal, the session is probably not providing much cardiovascular benefit.”

For older adults, yoga can support several components of fitness at once. Standing poses can build lower-body strength and stability. Transitions between poses challenge coordination and mobility. Longer holds can improve muscular endurance. The key is choosing a style and intensity that matches your current fitness level and goals.

“If your goal is cardiovascular fitness, you need enough continuous movement and intensity to challenge your heart and lungs,” Jo says. “Look for classes described as ‘flow,’ ‘power,’ ‘vinyasa,’ ‘strength-based,’ or ‘active,’ rather than primarily restorative, yin or meditation-based formats,” she says.

Another practical indicator is duration. Brief bursts of movement followed by long recovery periods usually won’t give you enough sustained activity for aerobic conditioning. A continuous, moderate-activity practice that lasts at least 20 to 30 minutes is more likely to contribute to cardiovascular fitness. That said, yoga does not have to replace traditional cardio exercise. Walking, cycling, swimming and dancing are excellent options for older adults. Yoga can complement those activities by improving mobility, flexibility, balance, recovery and muscular endurance, as well as providing stress relief, Jo says.

“Adding resistance can make yoga more strength-focused. Holding your body weight in positions like chair pose, plank or warrior pose challenges muscles,” Jo says. You can add light dumbbells, resistance bands, ankle weights or weighted balls to bolster the challenge further.