Yoga Before or After Workout? Our Verdict

There are so many advantages to incorporating yoga into your daily routine, including increased muscle strength and tone, increased endurance, and enhanced respiration. However, failing to plan your yoga sessions around your weight training or cardio sessions could be detrimental. 

So should you do yoga before or after a workout? Well, it all depends on a bunch of different factors. For example, if you’re about to hit the weights, then yoga would be best after your session. 

In this guide, we’ll take a deep dive into how you can effectively schedule your yoga practice alongside your current workouts.

Yoga Before or After Workout? The Short Answer

The short answer to whether you should do yoga practice before or after workouts is after. In reality, you could get more out of it if you schedule it on a different day than your workouts.

But why?

Well, one of the main reasons is that the muscles, fascia, and other tissues are usually weaker after the workout. This is especially true if you undertake intense yoga classes like Ashtanga or Vinyasa that involve deep stretching and more advanced poses.

As a result of the damaged body tissues, your ability to give 100% to your workout is greatly diminished, which is not what you want if you’re lifting heavy or performing high-impact activities like running.

Muscle strength is determined by the muscles ability to contract. Yoga, on the other hand, stretches the muscles and muscle fascia. 

Your muscles can take several hours to regain their ability to contact fully after all that vigorous stretching in an intense yoga class, so you’ll want to make sure you have some downtime between your workout and yoga practice.

Why You Shouldn’t Do a Yoga Class After a Workout

Contrary to popular belief, static stretching (like what you might do in your regular yoga practice) may not be beneficial before working out.

Researchers have shown that stretching before a workout can actually hinder performance. According to one study, runners run slower, jumpers jump lower, and weight lifters lift less by stretching before training, without substantially reducing their risk of injury during exercise.

If your yoga session involves poses that involve a lot of static stretching, you will most likely experience a temporary loss of muscle power. Types of yoga to avoid directly before a workout would include yin yoga, where each pose is held for long periods of time.

It can, however, be beneficial to your workout if you perform dynamic stretches beforehand. Dynamic stretches involve keeping the body moving rather than holding the stretch. Styles of yoga that would be best before your workout would include any type of vinyasa or flow yoga as long as it's not too vigorous.

Why You Should Do Your Yoga Practice Post-Workout

It is much more beneficial to get in a yoga session after you have exercised.

It is an excellent time to practice yoga, which can help the body and mind transition from high-energy workouts to a regular resting period.

Here are some of the benefits of practising yoga after exercise:

1. Enhanced Muscle Recovery

Yoga helps the muscles recover after a workout by increasing blood flow to the muscles. The increased blood flow delivers vital nutrients and oxygen to your active tissues. This, in fact, aids in the faster healing of muscles after an intense training session.

2. Increases Flexibility

You're probably aware that muscles are made up of fibres that interlock. Muscle contractions are simply those fibres passing next to one another to shorten the muscle. Some muscles can remain contracted after exercise, causing tightness and stiffness.

This is where yoga comes into play.

Yoga allows you to completely stretch out all of your muscles. This realigns the muscle fibres, resulting in consistent stretching. In that condition, the muscles can now heal more quickly and effectively.

Stretching the muscles on a regular basis will make them more flexible over time. Flexible muscles are less prone to injury and put less pressure on the joints. And not only does yoga make you less prone to injury, but it will also help prevent the development of osteoarthritis in your joints.

3. Reduces Cortisol & Blood Sugar Levels

Workouts of moderate to high intensity will raise cortisol levels in the body. This is a naturally occurring stress hormone, and high levels of the hormone can cause:

• Weakens the immune system

• Elevate your blood pressure

• Causes muscle weakness and wasting

• Increases your risk of developing diabetes

Fortunately, a regular yoga practice can help reduce cortisol levels in the body.

Another advantage of yoga after your workout is that it helps lower the concentration of sugar in your blood. This mitigates the impact of fast, intense workouts that raise blood sugar levels.

Daily exercise increases the body's sensitivity to insulin. This allows more sugar from your blood to reach your muscles. Furthermore, the insulin-producing cells in your pancreas become more vulnerable to high blood sugar levels.

Yoga's effect on blood sugar will help you control or even avoid diabetes in the long run.

4. Reduces Your Heart Rate

When you exercise, the heart rate rises. As a result, you must restore your pulse to its natural resting rate. Yoga can help with this by practising deep and steady breathing.

Deep breathing activates the body's vagus nerve. This is essential in the parasympathetic nervous system, which conserves energy by slowing your heart rate. This behaviour works against your sympathetic nervous system, which is triggered during exercise to generate stress responses.

Slower heartbeats and a decrease in blood pressure are the end result. You can continue this effect with repeated practice, which can also help with heart disease.

Is It Okay to Do Yoga Before a Workout?

While yoga can be used as a stand-alone workout as well as a great way to cool down and stretch the muscles worked in an intense training session, a few yoga stretches pre-workout can also be a great way to warm up and get your blood flowing. 

To get the most out of yoga before your workout, you'll want to opt for a gentle vinyasa flow or a few rounds of sun salutations, rather than relaxation poses like savasana, which will make you want to snooze rather than hit the weights.  Dynamic stretches get your heart rate up and your muscles warm-up, preparing you for the workout ahead.

Practising yoga before a workout is most beneficial for certain types of sports or training sessions that require more flexibility rather than strength.

Should I do Yoga or Exercise?

Personally, I think yoga is great as a standalone workout. A good yoga class provides an awesome full-body workout that not only builds strength, muscle, and flexibility but burns calories. However, if you have specific training goals like building muscles or losing weight, it's best to add a yoga session to your current routine.

In case you’re also wondering how often you should do yoga for maximum benefits, check out this article.

The Wrap Up

If you've been wondering "Should I do yoga before or after a workout?", we hope that you found this guide helpful. Research shows that practising yoga post-workout is generally the best option, but if you have time constraints or enjoy performing your own yoga session as a warm-up, it can also be beneficial before you exercise.

Try incorporating a few yoga poses or flows before and after your training to see what feels best for you!