Exercise comes in more shapes and sizes than most people know about, but one of the biggest of them has to be yoga. It’s an excellent workout for your body and an awesome way to keep a healthy mindset too. Whether you’re looking to build up your flexibility, relieve stress or just move more, it’s a great way to do it. That’s all well and good. One other thing yoga does have to offer you too, however, is building muscle.

It’s far from being the first thing that pops into mind, which we understand. Yoga is all about peace, movement and relaxation after all, but some of the feats of strength that come from it are out of this world. To get to that point, you need to build muscle along the way. The more yoga you do, the more this takes place, and it’s an exciting journey to more muscle all round.

Bodyweight Exercise

The first place you can look for yoga building muscle is with what you’re actually doing. Every process in yoga is some form of bodyweight exercise or another. You’re moving your whole weight into various poses and positions, and as you do so, it’s just like doing a rep of another exercise. It’s not to the same degree, don’t get us wrong, but it’s there.

Isometric Benefits

Reaching these harder yoga poses isn’t the whole story either. When you’re building muscle from any exercise, isometric exercise can play a big part in your strength and muscle. Isometric exercise is anything that requires you to hold an exercise for a period of time. Think less planking and more yoga here, though. The principle is the same. You’re spending more time under tension, and that means you get a hard muscle contraction. That’s the groundwork for building muscle.

Balance and Stability

Yoga still takes things into a league of its own here too, and that really brings it into a new light. Yoga needs you to do some things that other exercise just doesn’t. The poses get more and more complex, and as they do, they need to balance and stabilise yourself throughout the whole motion. To do that, you need to use and build muscles you probably didn’t even know you had, all just from yoga. Your core strength especially comes into play as your centre of gravity shifts all the time, and when you’re used to weight training or cardio, it’s just not the same kind of exercise.

Unique Poses

Lastly, we have the unique yoga poses that yoga brings about in the first place. Some of the harder poses out there will seriously test your strength are naturally hard. The more that you do them, the more your muscles have to work to get used to it. As a result, that makes you stronger right off the bat. It’s well worth getting your practice in.

As a whole, all of these things are huge pillars of building muscle. If you find yourself asking if yoga can actually build muscle, the answer is the same as always. If you practise enough and push yourself, you definitely can. There are always limits to any kind of training, so don’t expect to be a bodybuilder, but you’ll definitely work muscles you didn’t even know where there. Good luck

Before beginning any exercise or nutrition program, consult your physician, doctor or other professional. This is especially important for individuals over the age of 35 or persons with pre-existing health problems. Exercise.co.uk assumes no responsibility for personal injury or property damage sustained using our advice.

If you experience dizziness, nausea, chest pain, or any other abnormal symptoms, stop the workout at once and consult a physician or doctor immediately.