In life, there must always be balance. That’s a philosophy you can apply to anything you do, but it should particularly resonate with practitioners of yoga, which is quite literally about balance.
But yoga is not just a great way of balancing your mind, body, and spirit; it can also help you gain a greater balance with your other pursuits, namely strength training. In this article, yoga instructor and fitness trainer Dylan Celli will tell you exactly why that is.
Outward Gains Through Internal Development
Strength training can provide so many great benefits to anyone looking to improve their health, manage their weight, and increase their self-confidence. But it can be easy to focus on the purely physical when it comes to developing strength and building muscle. After all, it is primarily physical, at least on the surface.
But the truth is that there is probably a 50/50 split between what strength training demands of you physically and what it demands of you mentally. The more at ease you are internally, the easier it is to achieve the physical goals you’re striving for.
That inner calm is something that yoga can help you attain, which is why it compliments strength training so perfectly.
But it’s not just about mental clarity and focus. The more physical aspects of yoga hone in on different aspects of the body that need to be developed to maximize the benefits of your strength training.
The Benefits of Balancing Strength Training with Yoga
Here are some of the many reasons why strength training and yoga are a perfect pairing:
Improved Balance
You already know that form is crucial to proper strength training. Proper form is much easier to attain with great balance. Yoga strengthens your core in a way that’s difficult to do with strength training alone. It engages the entire body so that when you focus on a certain muscle group, you’ve got the backing you need to reach your goals.
Improved Flexibility
Lack of flexibility doesn’t just make strength training more difficult; it makes injury more likely. Through yoga, you can achieve a level of flexibility that can allow a full range of motion, which is what you need for that aforementioned proper form.
Controlled Breathing
Proper breathing technique is a main tenet of yoga, and it’s too often nothing more than an aside in strength training. Focusing on your breath allows for greater mental calm and increased focus, and it also provides better blood flow to the muscles you’re working out.
Inner Calm
Often, when you think your body is maxed out, it’s really your mind backing out. Of course, it’s always important to listen to your body to avoid injury, but if you practice enough yoga, you will gain a greater ability to distinguish between when it’s really your muscles talking and when it’s just those imaginary internal roadblocks we all set in front of ourselves on the road to success.
Mastering Inner Peace with Dylan Celli
Dylan Celli is a yoga instructor, fitness trainer, and life coach who specializes in leading people towards inner perfection by helping them achieve outward gains. Dylan primarily focuses on high-end clients: executives, athletes, and industry leaders by applying a progressive, goal-oriented strategy that improves self-confidence and inner peace.
Tina Johnson helped bring The Marketing Folks from a-weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. She continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a contributor to The Marketing Folks, Tara mainly covers industry new.
