Exercise prescription for healthy fitness - Yoga


The type of exercise depends on the desired goal. If a person wants to build muscular strength, then resistance training is appropriate. Endurance training (walking, running, cycling, swimming) is required if a person wants to improve her cardiovascular health and endurance.

Alternative therapies, such as yoga, have also demonstrated positive improvement in health. Yoga involves various standing, seated, and supine postures and breathing and relaxation techniques designed to enhance functioning of the various physiological system by supporting a natural posture. Young and old men and women have performed yoga for centuries in Eastern countries. Yoga has been purported to focus concentration and relax the body.

Yoga practice has been shown to improve muscular strength, endurance, flexibility, and aerobic capacity. In men, evidence suggests that yoga practice reduces sympathetic activity, improves aerobic capacity, reduces perceived exertion after maximal exercise, and reduces heart rate and left-ventricular end-diastolic volume at rest. Similar benefits would be expected for women; however, there is a paucity of research dealing with women, Additionally, Yoga practice may retard the progression and increase the regression of atherosclerosis in patients with coronary artery disease.

Empirical scientific evidence has demonstrated the positive benefits of exercise, such as improved strength, reduced anxiety, improved blood lipid profile, and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. The modality required to obtain these benefits can vary from a structured exercise program (resistance training and walking/running) and alternative therapy (yoga) to daily physical activity (moving the lawn and climbing stairs).

A certified yoga instructor should be consulted for more information on the styles of each.

Regular exercise has a significant impact in the human body.
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