Power Yoga

Power yoga is said to have been developed in the 1990s by two students of K. Pattabhi Jois, Bryan Kest and Beryl Bender Birch. Both were based on separate coasts of the US and created the style independently of each other. Though both originally studied through different yoga masters, they spend a period under the direct tutelage of Jois. They decided to try to make yoga more exercise focused and emphasize its ability to improve flexibility and strength.

Power yoga is based upon the general ideas of Ashtanga yoga, so it shares many principles with its predecessor. Unlike Ashtanga yoga, it puts the choice of asanas and sequencing in the hands of the individual teacher. It is generally vinyasa-based, meaning it is structured through a series of different poses in succession.

It will often incorporate sun salutations as a warm up and move on to more balance-focused postures.

Power yoga teachers have gone out of their way to stress that power yoga is not merely exercise and can very easily facilitate the other seven limbs of yoga beside the asanas: “yama”, or moral codes; “niyama”, self-purification and study; “pranayama”, or breath control; “pratyahara”, or sense control; “dharana”, or concentration; “dhyana”, or meditation; and “samadhi”, or contemplation.

Bryan Kest, for example, stresses that it is primarily about overall health, not fitness. His yoga program incorporates tips for meditation, improving mental and spiritual health, and diet advice. Books such as Beryl Bender Birch’s Beyond Power yoga: 8 Levels of Practice for Body and Soul shows ways in which students of power yoga can explore beyond its strength as a type of exercise to realize the full benefit of a yoga practise.

With i’s focus on continuous movement, vigorous vinyasas, and strength, power yoga can be viewed as an effective form of exercise and is offered in many gyms around the world. Teachers claim that a regular power yoga practise can increase flexibility, balance, core strength, and stamina. It can be considered a cardiovascular exercise.

When combined with a healthy diet, it can potentially help with weight loss and increase muscle tone. Some claim that it can increase one’s metabolism, especially when used as a supplement to regular cardiovascular exercise.

Studies have shown that a regular ashtanga yoga practice can help keep one’s mind sharp. Due that both power and Ashtanga yoga involve intense concentration to complete many of the movements, it is natural to assume that both can help improve one’s coordination and balance.

Another study has shown that yoga can also improve a general sense of well-being and short-term memory. Again, this was not directly studying power yoga, but given its similarity to Ashtanga practices, it may have similar effects.

Yoga in general is being used as a supplementary therapeutic practice that can treat a variety of emotional and mental disorders. Some researchers have looked into the possible use of a regular yoga practice as a type of therapy for emotional or mental problems.

Studies suggest that it can be effective in reducing anxiety or depression, though the study did not look specifically at power yoga.

Power yoga does not progress at the careful pace as the more structured Ashtanga yoga, so there is a chance that students may be encouraged to complete poses their bodies are not fully prepared for. This can lead to injury. Teachers such as Larry Schultz take a priority in opening the joints before moving on to more extreme poses to reduce the dangers of injury.

Given that it is a more exercise-based and intense form of yoga, it is not recommended for people who suffer from arthritis, pregnant women, or those who are not at least somewhat fit.