For a long time now, practicing yoga has been considered to be one of the best methods for releasing stress and staying fit without exerting too much effort. While traditional yoga will offer a range of benefits for its enthusiasts, aerial yoga can add more benefits of its own, especially to those who are trying to improve their stamina and running performance. If that sounds like you, then you might be fit for an aerial yoga class. Assuming that you haven’t made up your mind yet, here are the top reasons that will help you do so.
Improve Your Strength
Running is one of the most high-impact exercises you can perform. You’ll be repeating the same movements for a long duration of time, which will require a high degree of flexibility. Practicing traditional yoga can increase your flexibility enough for you to start with running exercises, but aerial yoga can be even more beneficial in this regard, as it will help support your core, hamstring, quad, and hip-flexor muscles more effectively. Ideally, this should increase your strength and help you become a stronger, high-performing runner. Make sure that you go to an aerial yoga class to perform the exercises, especially if you’re a first-timer. Runners must do these exercises correctly, and only a yoga expert will help you correct your pose.
Prevent Injuries
Although you might not be aware of it, you might be pushing yourself through physical pain to reach your goals. However, if you do this, you will eventually increase the pain and might even exacerbate your injury. These injuries usually happen due to your body not being stretched or flexible enough for the excruciating demands of running. With aerial yoga, you’ll be able to provide more support to your body through an exhausting running session. Because performers practice aerial yoga while being suspended in the air, it will help those who suffer from backaches or shoulder aches. The hammock support will add less pressure on your joints, which will allow you to perform yoga exercises without feeling muscle strain.
Enhance Your Endurance
You might be able to run at high speed, but don’t let that make you overlook how long you can run at that high speed. Yoga, both aerial and traditional, should help you on equal measures to focus on the process of running instead of just concentrating on running faster. Because aerial yoga will help you focus more inwardly, you’ll be able to direct your attention to your body movements, needs, and capabilities rather than just looking for the rewarding effect induced by running faster. This will increase your endurance and stamina, which will help you a great deal, especially if you’ve joined a running competition.
Relieve Stress
According to many yoga enthusiasts, aerial yoga classes can be a major stress reliever. If you happen to be experiencing anxiety attacks, suffering from constant stress, or even depression, you can put your mind at ease for the duration of an aerial yoga class. This will give you an opportunity to focus on positive aspects, like hanging upside-down successfully, for instance. In addition to this, aerial yoga can improve your focus and energy levels. You will also be experiencing much joy and excitement from trying a new and unique activity, something that can effectively relieve stress on its own.
Burn Calories
Aerial yoga can also go beyond relaxation and meditation. You’ll be able to burn those few unwanted calories while doing your favorite relaxation exercises. Because being suspended in the air requires high stability and strong core muscles, you’re likely to burn off calories, something which you won’t be able to do with traditional yoga. In fact, you can burn more or less 320 calories while doing 50 minutes of aerial yoga, which will help improve your stamina in the process. If you haven’t started running exercises yet, aerial yoga might be just the thing to help you do so without risking injuring your muscles or exhausting short stamina.
Better Flexibility
Running requires a large range of motion, which your body might be used to if you haven’t done yoga before. As we mentioned earlier, traditional and aerial yoga can increase your flexibility. This will enable you to stretch your muscles and tendons, giving you that range of motion that will help you a great deal when running. While suspended in the air, you’ll even have more space to move and stretch, which means you can do more exercises that can’t be performed on the floor.
Aerial yoga classes can help you a great deal if you’re planning on running on a daily basis and for an extended period of time. It also doesn’t hurt that they can be immeasurably entertaining, but before you sign up for an aerial yoga class, be sure to discuss what you want and expect to get from these classes with the yoga instructor, as this will help you understand whether or not this class will suit your needs.