Just wondering if anyone has had any significant improvements from Yoga practice, in regards to physical conditioning?
If so, what was it? -Weight loss, Muscular tone, Posture?
How did you do it? -What form of Yoga, did you combine it with Pilates?
And equally, I’d be interested to know if anyone has done a lot of Yoga, and notice no changes.
Yes. My posture hugely benefited from the practice.
I did it on my own. Managed to hurt myself in the process. I had an irregular asana practice. The little consistency I had did have a huge payoff. My interest in yoga was more existentially motivated, although I admit the looks did concern me in the very beginning. 
Later I became more interested in the ethical side or, as it’s called in Patanjali’s, the yamas and niyamas. Did make a small progress.
Lately my physical practice is Pilates only. Not because I think it’s better, but because I do not have alignment based yoga teaching available in my town, but I do have such school of Pilates. (Michael King/Fuzy Gabor line) Not even saying the latter can be a substitute for the former, guess it’s my karma only.
I have noticed marketable improvements from practice. Stamina, muscle tone, posture. My weight has not changed significantly, but it is not a concern for me.
I`ve lost more than 30 pounds since started practicing asanas (though, I never was “fat”), became much more flexible, got rid of some pains in my neck and shoulders, reduced problems with my small of back. Stamina rose, of course. I think, in general all mentioned and some other points are significant physical changes.
Tip: Stop saying muscular tone. The term is used for marketing and by people who don’t know what they’re talking about (not trying to insult you, just trying to say ignore advice when the term “muscular tone” is used).
Muscular tone is either muscular growth or fat loss or a combination of both. Muscles aren’t toned or not toned, typically the effect being referred to is simply due to a low body fat %.
Personally, I haven’t used yoga exclusively so I can’t say what benefits were from yoga or from other physical training. However my knowledge of the body and how it works has improved quite a lot though, I’ve also learned a lot about how to remedy a lot of physical problems through yoga.
[QUOTE=Aaron;33788]Tip: Stop saying muscular tone. The term is used for marketing and by people who don’t know what they’re talking about (not trying to insult you, just trying to say ignore advice when the term “muscular tone” is used).
Muscular tone is either muscular growth or fat loss or a combination of both. Muscles aren’t toned or not toned, typically the effect being referred to is simply due to a low body fat %.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I know. I used to do Bodybuilding, back in the day. I just use it cause it’s simpler than saying “either muscular growth or fat loss or a combination of both”, and most people know what I’m talking about.
Not exactly, Aaron. This term means ability to use high amount of muscular fibres. True that it`s about nerves, not muscles themselves.
I had suffered from a horrible pain in my left hip for about 3 years. I had to sleep with a pillow between my knees in bed to try and get comfortable so I could get some sleep. This pain dissappeared completely within about 6 weeks of starting my practice. I attend an Anusara style yoga class about 4 times a week and feel that little bit stronger after everyclass and now sleep like a baby!
Yoga has defo helped me to firm up a bit. I get the same feeling from an intense ashtanga session as I do after doing weights - like I’m pumped up!
Hi YogiAdam,
I love the question. 
When I began with my Asana-sessions in November 2009, I was in bad shape. That’s why I started. For example could I not tie my shoes standing up, not even with bend kness or by lifting the foot off the floor. I had to sit down. I had cramps in my left calf whenever I did that regular wake-up-stretching, it was so frequently, that I avoided that stretch. A little less frequently did I have a sharp pain, really big pain in my chest when I breathed in lying down, it was really frightening even (I once had an accident, that’s where that comes from). Also had I the mildest form of hemorrhoids from sitting in front of the computer for hours, and hell, I don’t wanna know how the bad forms feel… I had an acute “mouse-arm” the day I actually decided to finally start the practice, I could see a swollen tendon in my armpit, it was disgusting. I was disgusting, I was disgusted by my own bad shape, I could’ve spit in my own face for letting that happen to me, violating myself so much.
The day I started my practice, I remeber it like yesterday, it was a desaster. Desaster! I also tried the shoulderstand, whenever I had tried that before (I even once did Asanas with a teacher when I was 20-something), I had no problem. That day, it didn’t work, I couldn’t get the legs up, I crawled up a wall, “stood” upright for about half a millisecond and then crashed down like a wet flour sack. Also the other stuff, pain, shame, frustration, anything. It was a session of an hour, but I did at least 45 minutes of Shavasana. And I was this close to crying.
However.
All of that: Gone. :lol: Just gone. There are still some remnants of these actual illnesses, it’s not in perfect health again, but I can stretch that calf without a problem, never had that really big chest pain ever again, the hemorrhoids have vanished by 90%, the mouse-arm is gone too. I fly up into shoulderstand and remain there for minutes, like I was born in that position, as well as I tie my shoes with straightened legs, extra slowly to enjoy that “experience”. Wonderful.
And that’s not all, the best comes now: I remember when I was something like 18 or so and I jumped off a wall. I felt a sharp pain in my knee. A few weeks later I was riding my bicycle to a girlfriend and on my way back, still something like 30 km away from home, the knee started hurting. Lord, it was a true hellride home. Ever since then my knee would hurt and bother me and it was always a problem and it got constantly worse. In the last years, the knee would just start to hurt with no obvious reason, maybe just because of the weather. Only a few month ago, 2 or 3, I demonstrated my wife the really nasty crackling sound the knee always made whenever I knelt down, not the bone, but (I guess) some cartilage-stuff. The feel of it was even nastier than the sound, and the knee had done that for almost two decades. Doctor? Bah, I’m a man! :lol: Well, in 2008 I actually had the knee x-rayed, out of a mood. Nothing to see, so it’s indeed something in the cartialge. You’re already getting bored, ok: About a month ago I started actually dealing with that knee (I was very very very careful with it before), by just kneeling down into that kneeling posture where you sit on the heels, staying there for a few seconds (beginning with 5 or so) and then getting up again. 5 times. Per day. It’s just a few days now that: The crackling is gone. It’s gone! Gone!!!1!!!111!! 
Away! Like “gone”! :lol: So amazing.
And that’s just the “bad stuff” that got better. Warmed up, like after my regular Asana-session, I can put my hands flat on the floor and stay there forever. I never could do that (with straight knees of course), not even when I did Kung Fu for years; flexibility was not so important. Also am I very aware of my progress, for example cobra-pose, I could maybe lift the trunk to some 30?, now I can look at the sky with no problem. When I first did Parivritta-Trikonasana - this isn’t a joke! - I picked up the book again because - lol - I really thought I had misunderstood something, because this position simply seemed absurd to me, impossible to do. I remember the first weeks I tried, I used the arm that is supposed to reach to the sky to push my trunk in the indicated direction, huffing and puffing like I just ran 50 marathons, gallons of sweat dropping from any squarecentimeter of my body. Now I float into that position like it was nothing. “Gracefully”, as Dharma Mittra would say. Prasarita-Padottanasana, when you have the hands on the floor and are supposed to look up, I thought Iyengar was some sort of genetic freak to be able to look straight forward, because when I started, all I saw was a floor. No problem anymore, not Iyengar yet, but I only need a few degrees to mimic his “expression of the pose”.
Well, I could go on and on and on, but I guess you get the picture. No wait, you gotta grant me one more: Virabhadrasana III, where you stand on one leg and the body creates a T. I had to place my hands on a table the first times and I thought, man, this is going to be tough one again. But only a few days later it worked like nothing. Like I had never done anything else. And I really like that posture, it gave me a whole new stability that I did not even know when I was in my best Kung Fu days. Incredible, just like Ardha-Chandrasana, I had to do that with the leg against the wall first. I even sometimes have some sort of problem when walking, because I am not yet fully used to my “new legs”. It’s wonderfully weird.
So: Asanas, yeah, they work. Believe it, it’s really true what they say. Do them. Be smart. Start now. Have a session every day. You gonna love it. I wonder, though, if I might have a particularly adaptable body. I actually used to be in very good shape always, I went down the drain the past 5 - 6 years, got lazy, gained 15 kg weight (no change there, even though I quit meat and fish), didn’t do any type of sport or martial arts anymore. I had smoked, but not so much anyway, 3-4 cigarettes per day, but I quit in August 2009 already.
I wonder if I might be perticularly fit to doing the Asanas, because I am actually suprised about the great results, but I have to add: I had the willpower to do a session every day (let’s say 8 out of 10), except for one month where I only had two or three sessions per week, dunno why that happened. And I pushed myself a lot, that “good pain” Iyengar speaks of (or “right”…?) was my closest friend for the first month, and it was no fun, I had to force myself through it. But it got much better after that, it’s my initual-rust-theory, you gotta get that off first. And I had and still have no personal teacher, which is why I react(ed) sensitive to people who suggest(ed) one couldn’t get anywhere without such guidance and it would be oh-so-dangerous. Hilarious when I imagine I would have listened to them and not have done those sessions. Bizarre even. I only hurt myself once a little bit, few weeks ago, when I slipped in said Prasarita-Padottanasana, had “bad pain” (or “wrong”…?) in that inner-thigh-muscle for 3 days, but that was it (and after the pain was gone, the posture too had improved a lot, due to that accident!) And no teacher could’ve prevented that, it was just a sweat-wet spot on the floor (I do my sessions on a wooden floor, only sitting and lieing postures on a mat).
Ok, nuff said!
…omg it’s a friggin novel…
[QUOTE=Quetzalcoatl;33908]…omg it’s a friggin novel…[/QUOTE]
That’s funny. But you said it man. It can whip you into shape.
[QUOTE=Yukti;34083]Why don’t you ask your teacher all those questions?.. I think she can explain this to you and more over you’ll do lots of good for her by asking those things - at least she will become more aware about the important things she lefts out…[/QUOTE]
Then what’s the point of a Forum? lol
Well I didn’t mean there is no use in asking questions here
What I wanted to say - that it is also very important to ask directly the teacher 
[/QUOTE]
Oh I see. I was more after a students eye view. But, yeah thanks for your suggestion.
[QUOTE=Yukti;34093]BTW I’m sorry, but it was a mistake - my comment regarding asking questions was for a different topic here Have no idea why it appeared in this thread as well…[/QUOTE]
Lol, that makes sense.
I only began less than three weeks ago, but I have definitely noticed that my walking posture is much better. My muscle definition has also increased much faster than I expected. Years ago, I was into body building and it seems that the muscle definition has appeared faster through yoga than body building.
How about with breathing issues like asthma. Has anyone had any luck with it…??
When I was in my 40’s I was suffering from horrible hip pain. I even had to ask my husband to help me out of the recliner. I came back to the mat and yoga. Within months the pain was gone. I was also beginning to notice much more definition and tone. Yoga has taught me to turn inward and listen to my body. Now in my 50’s I have little if any pain and feel better now than I did in my 30’s. So, yes it has helped me a great deal!
Great question!
I had a back pain (injury) few years before I started regular practice and now, few years later its still there! Asanas had no effect at all (or possibly slowed down the progress).
But my posture improved a lot. Especially body control. I recently noticed I even like to walk and play with my body: holding tensed for few steps and releasing different areas of the body (e.g. chest, pelvic floor, shoulders). Or walk with slightly tensed leg muscles - funny feeling, like walking in shoes with springs. And especially I enjoy open chest - when I was teenager I had problem with opening chest and keeping straight while walking/standing. I felt I have to force it. And now its natural.
[QUOTE=Pawel;34650]I had a back pain (injury) few years before I started regular practice and now, few years later its still there! Asanas had no effect at all (or possibly slowed down the progress).
But my posture improved a lot. Especially body control. I recently noticed I even like to walk and play with my body: holding tensed for few steps and releasing different areas of the body (e.g. chest, pelvic floor, shoulders). Or walk with slightly tensed leg muscles - funny feeling, like walking in shoes with springs. And especially I enjoy open chest - when I was teenager I had problem with opening chest and keeping straight while walking/standing. I felt I have to force it. And now its natural.[/QUOTE]
If your only practicing Asana without the other componets of the system it will be tough, i think, to remedy any issues…