koffee brown

Ditto to what Metzinger said about the heat for the muscles. Think of muscles as like taffy. When taffy is cold, it's stiff and doesn't bend very well- but if you heat up that taffy, it's stretchy and pliable. The idea of bikram is to heat up the muscles to the point where you can stretch a whole of a heck more.

I've seen many people leave bikram yoga throwing up, sick, dizzy, fainting, pulled muscles, etc. That was enough to ban bikram at our gym, or any type of hot yoga. 74 degrees is as high as it goes. If people want to be hot, I expect the instructor to give a thorough warm up and then take the class through an intense yoga session. Oh, that room gets pretty hot all on its own. We don't need a gimmick to achieve the goal.

koffee

Jarery

The heat is to make it so you dont pull muscles. Its also to make one sweat, and it adds a mental hurdle to overcome. Theres lots of written reasons, try googling it. I just know it works for me. Im much more comfortable on my bike as a result, and my fitness and strength have increased.

Ive never seen anyone feint, throw up, or other such. Ive seen people sit down, and ive seen people say they got dizzy. Ive seen people dizzy at the top of a hill climb cycling. Every Bikram studio ive looked at also recommends not eating 3 hours prior and fully hydrating throughout the day prior. I'd suggest anyone throwing up or feinting most likely didnt heed the advice.

Enough people doing anything will have people getting injured. Just look at the number of people getting injured in a shower or sitting on a toilet. With the amount doing Bikram, it doesnt surprise me some injure themselves. Many just fail to listen. Some may of been from a poor instructor, as im sure there are some. Heck, some people hurt themselves cycling, go figure. I bet you couldnt get 100,00 people to stand still in a field without paramedics being called.

Heres a guy it works for
https://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...814/index.html

Heres a guy whos health it helps
https://bikram101.blogspot.com/2010/0...-my-story.html

There are many stories out there. Most good, some bad. Dont let one persons misinformed opinion on here steer you either direction. Educate yourself on it and make your own decision. Better yet, try it yourself once and make an informed opinion on your own

idoru2005

+1 - I like your cycling analogies.

Furthermore, I would suggest trying a variety of styles of yoga and different teachers. So often, one gets hooked on the first yoga they try and never ending up trying other styles and teachers. Even within Bikram, you will see teachers who teach the Bikram script verbatim, while the next teach may truly speak from their own experience. And many new students get "trapped" within the Bikram system and never even know there are other forms of yoga out there, simply because (in my experience) Bikram teachers don't talk about other forms of yoga (heck, I had one Bikram teacher who didn't even know what Ashtanga was). I told him I'd been practicing Ashtanga for 10 years and he gave me a blank look.

idoru2005

In my prior post, I mentioned the Bikram script and how many teachers use it in each and every class (ie, absolutely no variation to take into account people's unique bodies and capabilities). Here's a humorous video illustrating the "lock your knee" instruction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBiA9sg8JWY


BTW, here's a clip from a part of my yoga practice - this is part of the seat sequence of the Ashtanga Yoga Primary series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJRB5zEsRf0

Road Fan

Thanks, Koffee!

I like to learn things that are transportable, that I can do wherever or whenever I want, not just when I have access to a studio or a hot room. I think it would be better for me to start with hatha. We also have a lot of Iyengar teachers here, too.

koffee brown

I'd say just start where you're comfortable. Our yoga classes are for all levels, but I'd recommend a hatha over a vinyasa, and kripalu over a power, etc for someone newer to yoga. But really, I would hope that if there is a studio out there where you they don't distinguish between levels, then you should be able to jump in as a new person. Just make sure you talk to the yoga instructor and let them know you're new to the class.

koffee

Road Fan

This is kinda what I've been thinking - get in a class where the instructor has multi-level participants. That way I can learn at my own pace (one can't learn faster than one can) and see a lot of good and perhaps not so good examples. We have a lot of yoga here, I'll have to look around a bit. Sounds like speaking to the instructors will be more important than looking for the word "hatha" in the school brochures.

chuckb

There is a cycling specific yoga routine in "Bike for Life" that was designed by Steve Ilg. I'm just starting to do yoga as an adjunct to cycling, and it seems like a great idea. Cycling is not full range of motion, you're locked in one position and you repeat the same movements thousands of times. Yoga (and pilates) seem good complements to the activity; wish I had started sooner.