Yoga at WNY MMA & Fitness

Yoga is not only a method of exercise but also a lifestyle choice. This ancient Indian practice uses a combination of exercise, meditation and diet to improve your health, relax your body and heal your mind. While the benefits of yoga depend largely on your degree of involvement, practicing yoga for as little as 12 to 30 minutes each day is enough to benefit your health and mind.

Yoga Lifestyle

A complete yoga lifestyle incorporates 12 basic habits that correspond with many of its benefits. These habits, according to Wny mma & fitness include maintaining a positive attitude and close healthy relationships, including the relationship you have with yourself. Other yoga habits include staying in touch with nature, taking steps to remove tension and stress from your life and choosing an occupation that brings you joy. Finally, live a lifestyle that cultivates energy, get enough quality sleep and exercise, eliminate stress, follow a healthy diet and adopt eating habits that allow for better digestion and perform periodic detoxification that removes toxins and chemicals from your body.

Yoga Exercises and Postures

Yoga exercises include specific postures and poses that, depending on the exercise, benefit your overall health and well-being or target specific body processes. As an example, wny mma identifies the spinal roll, cobra, sun salutation, posterior stretch and corpse pose as five basic exercises that serve to increase muscle tone and benefit your digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems. Additional exercises such as the grip, kneeling pose and lion target your joints, increase blood circulation to specific body areas and, in the case of the lion exercise, can help relieve a sore throat.

Yoga Breathing

The controlled breathing techniques of yoga teach you methods of deep breathing that generally serve to deliver increased amounts of oxygen to all parts of your body as well as help eliminate waste and toxins. Specific techniques such as the good posture technique, cleansing breath and Taoist relaxation technique provide specific benefits that include correcting stooped shoulders, ventilating your lungs and extending the relaxation effects of other breathing techniques.

Health and Wellness Benefits

Four major benefits can be achieved by consistent participation in yoga exercise. These include stress reduction, increased body fitness, an increased ability to manage chronic health conditions such as depression, anxiety, pain and fatigue, and help in making lifestyle changes necessary to maintain a healthy weight.

Considerations

Although practicing yoga on a daily basis provides numerous health and wellness benefits to most people, check with your doctor or healthcare provider before beginning a yoga exercise or lifestyle program. Yoga can cause complications if you have difficulty with balance, have any artificial joints, are pregnant or have a condition such as severe osteoporosis, uncontrolled high blood pressure or glaucoma.

WNY MMA & Fitness: Strong is the New Sexy!

Strong is the new sexy in women’s workouts: Women's Fitness in Buffalo and Western New York

By Dorene Internicola

New York - Women's fitness in Buffalo and Western New York has come a long way since skinny defined the ideal body and a muscled arm was cause for alarm.

Fitness experts say that as strong becomes the new sexy, the gender divide has narrowed, if not closed.

From resistance training to power workouts such as barbell squats, medicine ball throws and kettlebell swings, a rigorous regime has become more popular with women.

“We want women who want to turn it up a little bit,” said Dean Hodgkin, a fitness writer and martial artist who co-authored the book Better Body Workouts For Women with fitness consultant and nutritionist Caroline Pearce.

“We specifically included heavy resistance and weight training formats because if women don't train heavy, they'll miss the opportunity to gain strength,” said Hodgkin, who is based in Leicestershire, England.

Along with advice on executing workouts from hula hooping to power hopping, the book also dispenses guidance on issues on Women's Fitness in Buffalo and Western New York, like training before, during and after pregnancy, eating issues and mind games that can undermine progress.

“These are times when women let it all fall apart,” he explains. “There's no question that self confidence is more of an issue for girls.”

Jessica Matthews, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise, doubts if a women's fitness book filled with power drills would exist 10 years ago.

“Now you see this all the time,” said Matthews, noting women are eager to embrace tough workouts like CrossFit.

Having a well-defined physique, she said, has replaced skinny as an ideal.

“A fellow yoga teacher mentioned to me the other day that she was excited and proud to be able to perform barbell squats (with the barbell positioned across the back of her shoulders) with great form using 225 pounds (102 kilos),” Matthews said.

When she started teaching group fitness 14 years ago, it was rare to have a man take a class.

“The shift in the industry is interesting to see,” she said. “(Today) there are no specific exercises for men or women. The type of exercise is based on person, not gender. I like to think we've moved on.”

Dr. Michele Olson, an expert with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), said women tend to be weaker than men because they are smaller and have less muscle mass.

But given the same strength-developing exercise programme, she said, women can become just as strong in the upper body and almost as strong, about 80 percent, as men in the lower body.

“The principles are the same whether you're a man or woman in terms of how exercise is prescribed and the results that are realised,” said Olson, a professor of exercise science at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama.

Give men and women the same exercise prescription for cardio fitness and they will improve to the same extent, she said, adding that heart disease is the number one killer for both sexes.

ACSM guidelines call for all adults to engage in cardio exercise at least three to five days a week, along with two to three days of strength training and two-to-three days of flexibility training.

For strength training, Olson said, both men and women should lift weights that are heavy enough to exhaust the exercised muscle in no more than 12 to 15 repetitions.

“This will make you stronger,” said Olson. “If you want to add muscle you need to lift heavier weights.”

Experts say the fear that women who weight train will suddenly sprout bulging muscles is unfounded.

“Women, and most men, have a terribly hard time bulking up,” Olson said. - Reuters

Women's fitness in Buffalo and Western New York program is a great start to strength training with our newly added women's only weight lifting class.