should you strength train or do yoga?

The question is out and has been for a while!

Which fitness method is better for your health, and which is more effective, strength training or ever-soothing yoga?

Benefits and disadvantages of yoga

Yoga is an ancient teaching of mind body and spirit, using poses known as asanas to create poses for meditation, and balancing poses for postural and alignment correction. There are various types of yoga as it modernized with the times though yoga is mostly a slow movement and low-impact fitness method used by those who wish to connect with themselves spiritually. Yoga also includes pranayama breathwork to deepen one’s connection, breathwork within itself has its benefits and benefits, in terms of fitness it is the asanas that are more impactful.

Yoga can be seen as benificial due to its low impact workout, great for maintaining and toning the body whilst harnesting a sense of well-being and mindfulness. Mentally yoga is great for relieving stress, anxiety, and panic attacks, it’s a way to privately connect and slowly regain inner confidence. In fitness, yoga has been known to improve flexibility, bone strength, postural alignment, lymphatic drainage, and blood circulation helping to get rid of toxins in the body, all whilst improving your breath and overall health mind, body, and contentment with oneself, but on the other hand yoga does also has its disadvantages.

Because yoga is an ancient teaching that hasnt much backed research, its makes for a cautionary tale. Yoga is a form of isometric training that provides tension on the body similar to using weights, though it is usually not enough to build muscle, overall strength, or make a huge transition in body formations, due to it also being mostly bodyweight, it’s more of a maintenance method with benefits of preventable fitness measures similar to the practice of pilates, however, yoga’s preventable measures only go so far as the movements used aren’t as structured as the practices of calisthenics or pilates and due to yoga’s flexibility of movement, spinal twisting, and holding asanas it poses a threat to the alignment of one’s body, or bone health, should they have previous spinal injuries, knee injuries and are prone to bone fractures due to pressure on bones whilst holding asanas or having low bone mass.

Benefits & the disadvantages of strength training

Strength training is a fitness method used by most athletes at some point in their journey, its a professionally taught and recognised method that helps the body build muscle and optimal strength. Perhaps you’re a runner who needs to build up stamina and increase bone density to reduce fractures from running, perhaps you are a bodybuilder who needs to build muscle mass and improve mind-muscle connection to carve your body to the gods, perhaps you’ve been made aware of a health condition such as obesity or diabetes and need a way to get back in shape to get your health back in check, or perhaps your out to just look and feel great adding muscle to tone and define your potential- strength training is great for all the above and comes with amazing benefits that tackle many health challenges.

Strength training improves your overall health as it builds muscle mass, and improves your metabolism, stamina, endurance levels, and blood circulation, which helps promote the release of dopamine in the body making you feel more optimistic, happy, focused, and productive in your day. Strength training is also a great form of exercise for people who suffer from stress and anger management as its an endurance exercise that pushes you past your limit- over time making you stronger physically and mentally, awarding you with the willpower and confidence to achieve higher.

Furthermore, strength training also can be a form of low-impact exercise as with each movement comes a time delay, allowing more control and pressure on the body, the pressure and slow movements are a form of isometric training though it is not static enough nor uncontrolled for it to pose a threat, making it great for those who suffer from arthritis and osteoporosis.

However, regarding the disadvantages of strength training, it can sometimes be quite stressful on the body depending if use with compound or thereafter high-intensity movements. The stress of lifting and pushing the body beyond its limits can cause strain on ligaments, hernias, or shock the body into releasing cortisol a stress hormone that puts the body into fight or flight mode which in turn can lead to serious health issues on adverse mental health side effects and gaining additional weight due to the body trying to reserve itself.

Summary

The moral of the context is that both yoga and strength training comes with its advantages and disadvantages, though the method you choose depends on your health and fitness goals. Though, it is notary that in time our lifestyles, goals and journey with fitness will change because of this the missing puzzle here is cross fit training, a method used to combine different fitness modalities. in terms of cross-fit, yoga, and strength training can be quite complimentary when split into different days, as with high-pressure endurance training such as strength training or HITT you will need a low-impact exercise or a way to relieve your joint pains and stress, a great way to do that is by incorporating a flexibly, low impact, claiming, exercise such as yoga or general stretching. Personally, if I had to choose only one method I would prefer strength training as its more transformational, it provides similar mental stability as yoga but can allow me to become more than what I thought possible, in terms of its professionalism, strength training has more backed research and poses less threats when done correctly, whereas yoga is fluid and hasn’t the awarness of health issues it may provoke in the long run. The realisation is to embrace each modality or use complementary methods to reach our goals.