December 27th, 2017

This article was originally published on SheKnows.com — the #1 women’s lifestyle digital media company, with a mission of women inspiring women — as “The Benefits Of Hot Yoga Are Not To Be Ignored,” and is reposted with permission from the author.

Anyone who’s tried yoga before will tell you that striking and holding a pose is far from easy. So what kind of sense does it make to crank the heat up to 100 degrees? Those sweaty yoga addicts are doing it for a reason — hot yoga, when practiced correctly, has a long list of health and wellness benefits.

The Difference Between Hot Yoga And Bikram Yoga...As a certified yoga instructor and self-proclaimed “hot yogi,”, I can assure you that there are many benefits to practising Bikram and hot yoga.

Bikram yoga, which is the practice of 26 postures selected and developed by Bikram Choudhury and derived from hatha yoga, takes place in studios with temperatures set around 105 degrees F with 40 percent humidity. Hot yoga, like Bikram, is also practiced in a heated room, usually maintained at a temperature of around 95 to 100 degrees F.

Unlike Bikram however, hot yoga isn’t based on of the same 26-posture series. Instead, it tends to be more of a flowing vinyasa style practice, similar to a dance, linking one pose to the next. In both Bikram and hot yoga, the heated rooms help promote sweating and warm up the body to increase flexibility with less risk of injury.

One of the benefits to many hot yoga classes is that the routine is repetitive. ''When you are doing the same poses repeatedly, you can begin to see where you are today in relation to yesterday,” said Mandy Ingber, fitness expert and author of Yogalosophy: 28 Days to the Ultimate Mind-Body Makeover.