Yin Yoga For Men 101: Everything You Need to Know
As a guy you might naturally be drawn to more demanding forms of yoga such as Ashtanga or Vinyasa yoga. However, if you’re an active guy it’s important to balance out intense physical activity like lifting weights or running with more restorative practices to ensure optimal health.
That’s where yin yoga for men really shines.
What is Yin Yoga?
Yin Yoga brings the practitioner into a deeper and mindful state, stretching the connective tissue of the muscular system and bringing increased energy flow through the meridians.
Yin yoga is a fantastic tool to help guys increase strength, adress physical limitations and increase performance. You don’t need to take the spiritual side of the practice if that doesn’t interest you; but we all know that energy and vibration is all around us and in our bodies.
Yin Yoga will allow you to get a better understanding of your body’s needs, it will help you to learn to work in a deeper connection with your breath in order to activate muscles you would normally neglect in your daily normal life; it is a great form of relaxation and will teach you a lot about how your body works and functions. It’s the only exercise that builds you inside out.
Balance out intense activities like sports or lifting weights with a restorative practice such as Yin yoga
When we work through the Asanas (poses) in our Yin Yoga classes, we are targeting the denser, deeper, less elastic tissues, such as the ligaments, joint capsules, cartilage, bones, and fascia networks in the body. Whilst connective tissue is found in every bone, muscle and organ, for Yin Yoga, we are most concerned with the connective tissue in the joints.
If you don’t use your full range of joint flexibility, the connective tissue will slowly shorten to the minimum length needed for your everyday activities. Prolonged shortening of connective tissue will bring rigidity and inflexibility into the joints, minimising physical activity, and making the body more susceptible to injury.
But Yin Yoga is Boring!
I hear people complain that Yoga is boring, and my first thought is always: Let’s do this, join my next class for free and if you still find it boring, you won’t have to do it again.
There’s always a block in our minds when we decide to try new things that make us doubt ourselves, but once you start your Yin Yoga practice, and start feeling the benefits from it, you’ll be engaged in it.
Benefits of Yin Yoga for Guys
Yin yoga offers a huge range of benefits for men:
Calms and balances the mind and body
Reduces stress and anxiety
Increases circulation
Improves flexibility
Releases fascia and improves joint mobility
Balances the internal organs and improves the flow of Chi and Prana (energy)
Creates a great sense of well being
Improves self-esteem
Helps with weight loss
As you start this deeper connection to your body through Yin Yoga, there is a change in your mindset, you become more aware of your body and mind’s needs. You start eating healthier, you learn to take a 5-minute break from your busy schedule just to breathe. You don’t allow yourself to get stuck on dramas, you truly learn to let go of what you can’t control. You see things from another point of view.
If Hiroshi Motoyama and other researchers are right, and if the network of connective tissues do correspond with the meridians of acupuncture and Nadis of yoga; strengthening and stretching connective tissue may be critical for your long term health.
By now you might be wondering if Yin Yoga is for you.
Is Yin Yoga Good For Men?
The short answer is yes, absolutely! Yin Yoga is for anyone trying to get stronger from inside out, not only physically but mentally. As you create spaces in your body, you are keeping those gaps empty for anything that wants to come up. This could be anxiety, happiness, sadness, boredom, those feelings that we generally keep in the shadows, to surface.
Those feelings will be encouraged to be there, but not to identify with them. To observe but not to get caught up in them. It costs the body a lot of energy to keep things suppressed.
The most important thing in my Yoga class is that my Yogis have a laugh about themselves; when you are trying to get into a posture and you just can’t find the way to get there; frustrations are not allowed in my Yoga classes. We are there to grow and learn about ourselves and our bodies, so having fun through your practice is a must. Breathing and laughter is the best medicine for our body and mind.
If you’re looking to try something different, give Yin Yoga a shot. You might be wondering why you didn’t try it sooner!
