Yoga as replacement for weights/toning?

sympha01

Okay, as a former 340+ pound person (who lost half her bodyweight) I have a couple of hopefully helpful points. I had already lost a big chunk and was probably about your weight when I took up yoga, and for a while I loved the heck out of it and I look back on that time fondly.

So first of all, if you are still in the process of transitioning your lifestyle from a very sedentary one to one that includes exercise of any type in your weekly routine, that is great. Not only is it an important step in the right direction, but many people who have never been obese fail to understand how very important it is, not only physically important, but psychologically important, to ease into a more active lifestyle gently. It took me about 4 months of daily exercise that -- while it was low-impact and not too intense -- I still kind of dreaded, before I felt like a "person who exercises" and was able to realized that I could enjoy things more. As a general thing, the more things you try and give a chance to at this point, probably the better. Try all the stuffs. Find the stuffs you like. Rotate through different stuffs so you don't get bored. Keep at it a while, and it stops feeling new and weird and starts feeling like a habit. I get anxious AF now when my schedule gets disrupted enough to mess with my workout routine lol.

Second, again speaking as a person who didn't use to exercise at all and now feels like kind of a sweaty glistening badass, I'll say this: there were so many basic things I didn't know about exercise for probably the first year I was doing it!!! And one of the most frustrating things out there for me back then was that there seems to be so little useful educational information available that is targeted to the obese individual. So it's natural for a smart person to be constantly asking the question "but since I weigh so much, it's different, right?" Because absolutely, there is a lot of stuff that is different (uh, the basic mechanics of motion through a lot of fundamental exercises are so different when your center of gravity is located somewhere different than on a slimmer person's body, as well as when you have to adjust your stance wider because of your thighs or because your arms won't really rest as close to the center line of your body, etc. etc. etc.). I always had a deep suspicion that calorie burn information from most of the METS tables was missing some important data points vis a vis higher body-fat percentage individuals, and so on. And yes, any kind of bodyweight strength exercise is more intense when your bodyweight is very high. But. At higher bodyweights, for people who are newer to exercise, the likelihood that you are doing them with the form and intensity needed to make exceptional gains is quite low.

Among the things you may not really have learned or accepted yet is that there are actually lots of different outcomes and goals to exercise. There's this tendency to oversimplify it and say "exercise is either cardio and about burning calories, or it's about resistance and getting swole AF." But 1) there are actually more things to exercise than burning calories and getting swole, and 2) different exercises -- and to some extent, doing them different ways -- will tend to optimize among all the different things exercise can do for your body. Nothing is pure. There is little cardio exercise out there that doesn't also put some strength in a muscle somewhere or other, and there is little strength work that can't also be used to improve cardiovascular fitness somewhat. You can do resistance exercise with the goal of getting bigger muscles (hypertrophy), or with getting stronger without hypertrophy. Or you can do exercise with the goal of improving flexibility and not really care about cardio or strength. Or you can be working on balance. So even just with yoga, there are variations of yoga that focus very little on strength at all (in fact you could argue that the traditionally most common -- in the West -- yoga practice, iyengar, as it is commonly practiced, does little for strength except in individuals who are particularly weak to start with).

Finally, here's kinda the saddest part. What most people refer to when they speak of "tone" is really less about the condition of your muscles than it is about bodyfat, and having less of it covering those muscles up. Again, it's fantastic that you're doing yoga and I'm sure it makes you feel great and over time you'll feet better, stronger, and more confident from it, but especially at >200 lbs there's nothing it's going to do for you in terms of "tone" at this point.

You'll get there, but along the road I suspect you'll discover so much more about exercise and how to set and achieve your goals that today's question will really have seemed not terribly on point.

kshama2001

Larissa_NY wrote: »

(Will somebody get rid of the stupid "*kitten*" thing? It was funny for maybe two seconds. Now it's just lame and, depending on the context, sort of offensive.)

Subbing ***** for prohibited words was so much clearer and not annoying. I have said so vociferously in Forum Feedback threads that have since been zapped. (This should not be construed as airing a grievance; I am simply providing an explanation for why these discussion cannot be found.)

Rather than derailing this thread by continuing the convo here, email Nova to complain about it or start a new thread in Forum Feedback.

Aria_Luna

There are some people here who are miss-informed. Toning is about losing the weight, sure. But yoga also tones the layer lean tissue (not exactly muscle) that is actually on top of your fat. It has 'holes' in it, so when you're overweight the fat actually pokes through this layer of muscle. So of course as you lose weight it helps the appearance. However this lean tissue can strengthen just like muscle and can make you look flatter and tighter, which is what people are talking about when they say tone.

sympha01

Aria_Luna wrote: »

There are some people here who are miss-informed. Toning is about losing the weight, sure. But yoga also tones the layer lean tissue (not exactly muscle) that is actually on top of your fat. It has 'holes' in it, so when you're overweight the fat actually pokes through this layer of muscle. So of course as you lose weight it helps the appearance. However this lean tissue can strengthen just like muscle and can make you look flatter and tighter, which is what people are talking about when they say tone.

Again, speaking as a formerly obese individual who practiced yoga as an obese individual, NO. If there were a kernel of truth to this scientifically (and this is a "citation needed" moment for sure, I have NEVER heard that fat tissue "pokes through" to peek out from under lean tissue, even if you're not talking about muscle but some sort of sheathing tissue that sits on top of subcutaneous fat, NO), it would not apply to a meaningful degree for a woman weighing >250 lbs with that amount of bodyfat. Yoga did nothing for making me look "flatter and tighter" at that size. Maybe for someone who's already quite small, perhaps. But otherwise, no. Just think about the geometry!

For your own sake, please don't major in the minors when it comes to weight loss and exercise unless your body is already very close to ideal and you just need to fine-tune something. To make the greatest impact for the least disruption to your life, focus on low-hanging fruit first: calorie deficit to gradually shed bodyfat, a general habit of regular any exercise you enjoy to improve your overall aerobic health as well as strength, balance, and flexibility. Once your habits on these fundamentals are solid, by all means play around tweaking things that at best when you work like crazy at them make a 2%-5% difference to your life. Trying to lengthen or strengthen the sheathing fibers above subcutaneous fat is frankly an absurd goal for someone who needs to make bigger changes to see a meaningful impact.

Nothing wrong with doing yoga if you like it. Doing yoga is scads better than doing nothing! At the very least, it will improve your posture, and that will make you look leaner for sure. To get to the OP's original question, it is not really a replacement for strength training, but it's a fantastic start. I'm sure it will do a world of good in terms of general well-being and may even make a start on building a foundation for doing more effective strength-building work later. But be clear about reasonable expectations. As yoga is likely to be practiced, you will not notice an appreciable difference in appearance for quite some time (that is, until you have shed more bodyfat). If you are planning on practicing an extraordinarily intensive form of yoga with extraordinary effort, diligence, and attention to form, maybe it's possible that you would see /slight/ changes in appearance, but really, there are better, easier ways to get that little bit of improvement than going balls-out with yoga of all things.

FWIW, "Misinformed," ironically, is also not spelled like that.

dolliesdaughter

I think yoga will make you more flexible (yeah), but won't help you build muscle. I just recently got into yoga and I love it. It does not replace my strength training, it is a supplement to my over all health.

Aria_Luna wrote: »

There are some people here who are miss-informed. Toning is about losing the weight, sure. But yoga also tones the layer lean tissue (not exactly muscle) that is actually on top of your fat. It has 'holes' in it, so when you're overweight the fat actually pokes through this layer of muscle. So of course as you lose weight it helps the appearance. However this lean tissue can strengthen just like muscle and can make you look flatter and tighter, which is what people are talking about when they say tone.

What in the world????? Receipts please.

Noelani1503

I love yoga. I prefer the slower Hatha and yin styles to power yoga. It wasn't until I started strength training that I noticed a difference in my abilities to hold upper body poses for any length of time. I was pretty shocked when I did it the other day. I just wasn't progressing because I wasn't taxing the muscles enough. You do a few rounds of a certain flow in a class. I wouldn't get very far if I lifted a heavy weight with poor form a couple of times a day. Even if you're overweight, struggling to get out 10 push ups a day wouldn't build the muscle very easily. Sure there are plenty of dedicated yogis who do intense yoga for a couple of hours every day. But that's not me.

Anecdotal, but I really think it's important to have a SOLID strength training program going while you're trying to lose weight, if for no other reason than to safely preserve muscle mass. There are other phenomenal benefits to yoga and meditation though. I'm happy to lose a hard training day once a week to make time for yoga.

CasperNaegle

I think Yoga is probably great and definitely helps you. I don't think you get the progressive overload you need to build much muscle. You can certainly benefit from it. So will you get the same things from it, no I don't think so. If it works for you use it. A lot may depend on what you actual end goal is.

Panda_Poptarts

I think that yoga is super helpful. I've found it very helpful for my strength and overall abilities. However, I don't think your standard beginner / intermediate yoga is a sufficient replacement for weight training. Now, if you're routinely flipping upside down and balancing on your genitals and such while spinning in circles, well... my hat's off to you. You can probably skip the weights.

Psychgrrl

I do yoga 3-4 times a week (90 minutes power yoga) and I lift heavy once per week for 2-3 hours. Plus some cardio. This has been a good mix for me. I find the strength training and yoga compliment each other very well. The yoga classes are really intense and I've found my upper body strength has improved quite a bit since dropping one weight lifting session a week (and changing up the one I'm doing) and adding the yoga classes. My arms and shoulders have more definition than they've ever had with this combo. I did start taking yoga from a studio instead of the classes offered at my gym and there is a HUGE difference in the quality of the instruction and the intensity of the class.

I do a 90 minute advanced yoga class the morning after weight lifting and find the stretching and twisting to be a tremendous benefit due to the counter movement to all the contracting I do when lifting. And the lifting supports strength building to help me do some of the more advanced yoga poses like handstands and forearm balances.

Great blend of fitness. I'd say keep both. They do different things and go well together. Just keep pace with what your body can handle as you start out and gain strength and mobility.