Hi I’m new to yoga but I have only heard great things. I play basketball collegiately, and lift all the time. I used to do yoga in my high school for basketball and I remember it being very relaxing. I wanted to start again. I have been trying to find a lot of things but feel I may have been looking in the wrong places so never found what I want. I workout very hard, but still want to lose some extra fat around the waist, I also would like to use it for relaxation, and stress relief, as well as to become more flexible. Is there a type of yoga that can help? How often should I do it? I don’t want to lose the progress I have made in the weight room however. I feel like theres a lot of things I want out of it. Thank you
Hi dumbfound,
What do you mean you’ve “been trying to find a lot of things”?
I wouldn’t necessarily turn to yoga to lose fat around the waist. If practiced consistently, yoga generally does help deepen your awareness of what and when your body needs for sustenance, and non-nutritious foods become less appealing. Certain styles of hatha yoga also emphasise core strength, but that won’t necessarily burn fat in that specific area.
There are dozens of styles of yoga, each with their own merit. It really depends on the individual. Does your college offer yoga classes? Gym? If there are yoga studios in your area, I would strongly recommend trying as many of them out as possible until you find a place/teacher that feels like a good fit for you.
As far as how often to practice, no one can answer that for you. Personally, I practice every day. My day wouldn’t feel right without it. But I’ve been practicing for 13 years. Practicing 2 to 3 times a week would be a good place to start, if you’re looking for some direction.
A yoga practice won’t conflict with your basketball and weight lifting. It will actually complement those activities.
Good luck!
Thank you for the input. And there is but I am going home and want to become comfortable with it by the time my season comes around. So I don’t have much money and want to see if there are any videos that may work for me starting out. I have done yogax from p90x and i heard that that isn’t the best.
And I’m not turning to yoga to lose the fat, but if it would help that would be awesome. And I was curious about what about yoga causes you to change your appetite
It is very important that athletes who choose to utilize Yoga as part of their living (and therefore part of their training) do so in a safe and effective manner. Your most valuable asset is your body and when that is damaged reaching your potential is inhibited, if not impossible.
Yoga has so many components we can not outline them all within this thread. The physical practice called [I]asana [/I]is often mistaken for Yoga. It is, in fact, only a sliver of a much larger forest. But a toothpick still have value and we have to begin somewhere.
The practice of asana works on a continuum. At one end of the continuum is effect. At the other, safety. An optimal practice for human beings balances these two against each other. Look and you will see very effective practices that are not at all safe (this is also true of certain video exercise packages that shall remain unnamed <wink>). You will also see some that are incredibly safe where there is no way on earth one could sustain an injury from such slow, gentle, movement…but there’s very little effect.
Videos are not the best way to learn something that requires safe practice from one who knows nothing about that which they are practicing. Since you’re not here studying with me I would suggest Yoga for Beginners with Patricia Walden.
What is important in the frequence of your practice is consistency. It is far better to practice once a week and never miss then it is to practice 3 times per week and miss once each week. I’m speaking generally of course but the point still holds. 3-5 hours of sound practice per week is a good place to start. But you should only practice when you are able to be joyful about doing so. Noting is more draining then doing something that your heart is not “in”.
I think the reason is two-fold for spontaneous changes to ones diet when they have a consistent yoga practice:
- You just become more aware what/when,how much your body needs for nourishment, and whether you’re eating out of boredom or stress or because you’re truly hungry. You become more keenly aware of the effects of deterious effects of eating “junk food”, however minor. For example, I used to have a sweet tooth (still do). But I notice a physically uncomfortable spike in my blood sugar when I have any more than a few bites of something sugary. I also notice when I’ve unintentionally eaten something with trans-fats - I get a stomach ache. And healthy foods, such as fresh produce and whole grains, give me an energy boost and make me feel lighter.
- Yoga reduces stress. Stress leads to binge eating, and/or comfort food eating. Comfort foods are usually high fat and sugar. So when you’re less stressed, you’re less likely to partake in emotional eating or turning to comfort foods.
Deterious? I meant deleterious.
Thank you I appreciate all the comments, I found a video I did for the first time today and really enjoyed it. I also actually found a gym that has yoga classes three times a week for free, which I am very excited to start. But I had a question, is it ok to do the same yoga exercises everyday, because when I go back to school there aren’t any classes, besides once a week at a clothing store that has classes on saturdays. So is it ok that I do this same video everyday or should I get multiple
If u want yoga for physical benifit master asana. If your not looking for more than physical benifit. Dont do more than asana, although u never know. This age we use drugs for fun, Ha! even alcohole and cigarets. All things open or close. Slow or speed. Everything effects.
Regulate or shy away. Or take it on like your the hulk, but be a smart perceptive hulk, not hard headed one. have that shine in they eye. kinda like the shine in the eye of people rollin on ex. but dont induce yours, develop it naturally, for the eyes reflect, but they dont always shine. 
shine!
[QUOTE=dumbfound;74272]… is it ok to do the same yoga exercises everyday… So is it okay that I do this same video everyday or should I get multiple[/QUOTE]
There is a certain comfort and growth in the practice that is facilitated by something routine, consistent, the same. It can, for some, calm their mind and reduce the dreaded “unknown”. In this respect doing something “the same” is okay.
There are, of course other aspects to this answer. The body is constantly needing something “just so”, some of this and some of that, attention here and attention there. A general practice is just that, general. It will not, over time, completely address what one needs as their day, life, body, and moods change. And an identical practice often doesn’t provide the transformational “juice” that is Yoga. But it is absolutely “okay” and for the moment in YOUR particular practice (based only on what you’ve shared) it is fine.
gordon
Ok thanks for the information. As for right now what I want from it I think your right and I will get it from what I’m doing. But in the near future my season will be coming around again. And in some of the research I have done for athletes. I have heard yoga helps with you getting pass the “daily grind”. And in the past I have struggled with this and I start to hate doing it because the season is so long. So I guess my question is, is this true? And what types of yoga can help with this and should i keep changing the yoga exercises?
Also I would just like to thank everyone for their input. This is the first forum I have been a part of where I have gotten multiple replies and people only want to help, even with my lack of knowledge on the subject
Hi dumbfound,
I’m curious about the “daily grind” you mentioned. Is that in reference to your basketball practice/training? Is it something that feels tedious/monotonous to you? If that’s true, why do you do it?
Among many other things, yoga helps you stay present with what’s going on in your life right now, even with a sense of gratitude for the opportunities and the embodiment handed to you. This may seem very theoretical right now, but it creeps up on many yoga practitioners…sometimes over a few weeks, sometimes a few years. Having a routine yoga practice for now may help you reconnect to yourself on a deeper level and experience that presence. Or that may feel tedious to you after a while. You’ll know when you need more variety. Maybe you could take the classes you mentioned at your gym plus have a home practice once or twice a week, even if your home practice is only 20 minutes.
Yogadealer when I talk about the daily grind, it’s referring to my sport, and I do it for multiple reasons, first off because I love basketball, the main reason, I also do it for a free education. But it becomes tough when you do the same thing every day and you take a mental beating from your coach daily. It’s no a great situation, especially in the past, because I would let my coach get in my head, now I’m more “mentally tough”. But when your 4 months into the season and your body is tired and you don’t want to go to practice, that’s the daily grind I’m refering to
Having spent nearly 20 years coaching and doing so from recreation leagues to the pros with all stops in between, I can completely relate to what you are sharing. However my ability to relate is from the coaching side of the equation.
Bear in mind I spent a season observing Bob Knight, one of the most masterful teachers of the game and perhaps one of the most volatile.
It is important to realize that you’ve made a choice to play at this particular institution for this particular teacher. And there are likely many things to learn - some of them are things TO do while others are things NOT TO do.
When a player becomes fatigued in mid-season it is almost always due to a lack of self-care. The season absolutely has a wear on a being but this can be mitigated by proper time management, rest and nutrition. Problem is rest and nutrition aren’t typically in the vocabulary of a 19 year-old male. So once again the person has to choose and do so mindfully.
Being part of a team is a commitment and so each element of “team” has responsibilities. One of those is showing up every day at your best ready to play, learn, challenge, and be challenged. You can absolutely maintain the energy of that commitment over the duration of the season. But it requires changes in what you are currently doing - some of them not so easy, cheap, or convenient.
So innerathlete do you think yoga would help with this? Also I do eat relatively healthy during the season. Omlette for breakfast, grilled chicken and salad or brown rice for lunch, and than dinner changes on how I feel
Hi in 2009 someone asked should I take whey before yoga??? Well Bruce lee I believe was a master in yoga and also did a lot of strength training with heavey weights! And he always took whey shakes.
@dumbfound
I would construct my sentence in this way: “yes, an appropriate yoga practice will help immeasurably. An inappropriate one will be draining and have increased risk”. I don’t deal in absolutely like “yoga works” or yoga is good" because the definitions are not universally shared and it gives readers a blurry picture.
@Robin
I’m not aware of Bruce Lee having any sort of Yoga practice. He was clearly a master martial artist, without question.
I personally use care in attributing workouts or nutritional programs to others unless I can verify it and in Bruce’s case…well there’s a lot of talk but only shreds of fact.
As for whey, there are two points worth making. The first is that what was bio-available in the food supply in 1970 is not bio-available in the food supply today. The second is that nutrition accompanies one’s living. Ergo it is not a matter of what food is “right” to eat. It is a matter of what food is right for ME to eat. Someone with Bruce’s metabolism and level of activity will have radically different nutritional needs than just about every human being on the planet. This not to mention that whey protein in its current offering is a) a derivative of dairy product and b) linked to issues with the liver.
Hi thank you for getting back to me, I have got hold of bruce lees training book , and you are right to assume he did not do yogo, but in a lot of his pictures he is doing some amazing yoga posses, you should see his full boat, and in his daily diet dairy says him haveing whey shakes , but like you say he was a very different type of man, I personly come from a strengh training background and have only been doing yoga for say a year, I have recently sold all my weigjts tho , and now just doing mainly cycling free body workouts and yoga, but for me i really feel whey helps, but maybe some people not, i remember on leg days back on the weights the pain after was unreal , then i started on the whey and the pain just went, but hey maybe thats me .
Hi think my whey coment was a bit random before, sorry for that .