How Often Should You Do Yoga?
If you’re wondering how often you should do yoga, then this article is for you. Yoga is an awesome practice that offers so many benefits to guys.
And I’m not just talking about strength and flexibility. I’m referring to yoga’s proven effects on reducing anxiety and depression and increasing your overall quality of life.
But how often should you be practicing yoga? Can you practice too much? What’s the minimum effective dose to reap the benefits of this ancient practice? In this article, I’ll answer these questions and give you some tips on which types of yoga can benefit you most.
First, let me explain what I mean by “yoga”.
What is Yoga?
Yoga is a way that encompasses many factors such as meditation, moral conduct, pranayama (breath control) and asanas (postures). For this article we’ll focus on the asana aspect of yoga practice as this is what most guys are referring to.
Asana is a Sanskrit word which means posture or pose. Originally, asanas were intended as meditation postures. In modern times, asanas can refer to a range of different poses which may or may not involve movement.
Benefits of Practicing Yoga Asanas
There’s a huge list of benefits associated with practicing yoga asanas including:
Pain relief
Breath control
Improved sleep and overall quality of life
Anxiety and depression reduction
Increased strength and flexibility
Practicing yoga poses is a great way to take time out for ourselves, slow down and connect with our body, breath and mind. Something most guys need. On the physical side, yoga can help men increase strength and flexibility, burn fat, and improve balance and coordination.
Incorporating Yoga Into Your Life
Depending on your lifestyle and fitness goals, yoga can be utilised as a:
Dynamic warmup before a heavy workout (vinyasa flow)
Morning or evening flexibility routine
Mindfulness practice
Standalone workout to increase strength, flexibility and balance (Ashtanga yoga)
An active cooldown after running or cycling
Injury prevention or recovery (Yin or restorative yoga)
A natural way to reduce chronic pain
As you can see, yoga is so much more than just the stereotypical Instagram influencer’s fancy arm balances and handstands. It is an incredible tool that we can access at anytime for a variety of uses.
How Often You Should Do Yoga: The Simple Answer
Put simply how often you should be practicing yoga is highly dependent on a range of factors like:
Your current fitness levels
How often you workout
Your fitness and lifestyle goals
Your spiritual goals (if any)
But if I had to give a general answer it would be:
If you are fairly fit and workout regularly (weights, cardio or play sports), then you might want to aim for around 2 or 3 yoga sessions per week. In this case, you should choose a type of yoga that compliments your training.
For example, if you lift weights in the gym 3x per week you would benefit from a gentle Hatha or Yin yoga practice which focuses on flexibility and muscle release, mobility, mindfulness and breathing. This practice will balance you nicely.
If you are not planning on doing any other training outside of your yoga practice, you could get away with training daily or 6 days per week. As you will be training more frequently you’ll want to keep your yoga sessions to about 15 – 30 minutes each.
I suggest adding some light bodyweight exercises to the end of each session to focus on areas of the body not typically targeted during yoga, such as rows, band pull aparts or pullups for the back and rear shoulders.
Although this answer is a good starting place, the optimal yoga frequency for you is also based on what you want to achieve through your practice.
How Often You Should Do Yoga: Based on Your Goals
I want to: Reduce stress and anxiety
If your goal is to use yoga to quiet the mind and reduce stress and anxiety, then you can practice daily and as often as necessary (as long as you’re not overdoing it). Incorporating other practices such as pranayama (breath work) and meditation into your daily sadhana (practice) would also be a great idea.
Although most types of yoga practice can help reduce stress and anxiety, you would most likely benefit from a Yin yoga class.
I want to: gain strength/muscle
Muscles need time to recover between workouts in order to repair and become stronger. An intense daily yoga practice is likely to burn you out pretty quickly, especially if you are also lifting weights and doing cardio throughout the week.
I recommend doing yoga 2 – 3 times per week if your goal is to increase strength or gain muscle and you also train off the mat. A gentle Hatha, Yin or restorative yoga class would work best to help stretch out tight muscles and improve flexibility.
If you are only using yoga to get stronger, then you could get away with a daily practice. Yoga styles such as Ashtanga or a power vinyasa flow class would work best.
I want to: get ripped
Yoga can be a great tool for getting ripped, provided you are eating correctly and training consistently. To get ripped you will need to be eating in a calorie deficit which will make training daily challenging. Particularly if you are working out on top of yoga. In this case, I suggest training 2 – 3 times per week with a focus on restorative yoga.
However, if you are only using yoga to get ripped, then I suggest looking for a good Vinyasa class. Vinyasa yoga involves “flowing” between different asanas, or postures, at a quick pace. Unlike gentler Hatha practices, Vinyasa yoga aims at building heat throughout the body which can burn calories and have you sweating like crazy.
Another good option is to follow a yoga routine that is designed specifically to improve strength, like the ones offered by Dean at Man Flow Yoga. I recommend checking out The Strength Foundations playlist on Man Flow Yoga’s YouTube channel to get started.
I want to: improve my flexibility
If you are anything like I used to be, touching your toes is a bit of a challenge. If you want to finally get your flexibility game on point and perform a perfect forward fold or even drop into a full split, aim for 3 – 5 sessions of yoga per week.
Having a few days for rest between your yoga sessions will help to reduce any muscle soreness and improve your posture.
The Wrap Up
Whether you’re training 2 days per week or 6, the important factor in achieving your goals is consistency. It’s also important that you’re practising yoga in a way that is aligned with what you want to get out of the practice. There’s no point burning yourself out with a daily Ashtanga yoga class if you are trying to build strength and muscle. Yoga isn’t a competition and the more you do doesn’t always equal better results.
So practice at a frequency that makes sense for you and your goals. Don’t base your yoga routine around someone else’s.
Make it work for you and own it.
