In my seemingly endless quest to "find an activity you like" (for me, it's more of a "find an activity that you can kinda-sorta tolerate, despite the fact that you'll inevitably feel slimy and nasty-sweaty afterwards"), I recently rented a beginning Yoga DvD.

I worked along with it for the past two days and have found it interesting. Interesting enough for me to order 2 more. "Order" as in purchase not just rent. I should be receiving them in the next day or so. Bought a yoga brick, too, to help me make the transition. I figured out, after using the brick, I probably should have gotten 2! Back to Target!

As a rank beginner, I couldn't do all the poses, of course. The poses I could do, I couldn't hold for long, but I gave 'em the old college try and held them as long as I could. I didn't have nearly the balance I thought I did! My biggest problem, however, was coordinating my breathing with the instructor on the DvD.

Questions:

1) Am I supposed to only inhale/exhale when she says to do so?
Sometimes I had to take an extra breath and when she was ready to exhale, I was already on my next inhale. I figured that certain movements required certain breathing patterns (inhale as you raise arms, or whatever), so I'd hurry up my next breath in order to catch up.

Am I supposed to breathe even when she doesn't instruct it? If I've inhaled as much as I can, should I hold my breath until she tells me to exhale or should I quickly ex- and then in- again so I'm back in sync?

2) Would it be ok to do yoga once or twice a week as my "deliberate exercise" activity for the day?
I want to do a whole variety of things so I don't burn out. I think one of my downfalls has been trying to do everything *every* day. I think I need more variety and I need to cut back. I think I was trying to do too much and getting overwhelmed.

TIA for any input.

Hi Lena!

Congrats on finding an activity that you can kinda-sorta tolerate!

I do yoga occasionally but don't really know that much about it. I find it a very pleasant way to work on my balance and flexibility, and it's a very good stress-reliever. So I will share my opinions and I'm sure others can tell you more.

First, as you correctly guessed, breathing is an important part of yoga. That being said, I really don't know when it's important to inhale or exhale. I try to follow along with the instructor, whether I'm in a class or watching a DVD. So I'm really interested in the responses to your question!

Because this is a new activity for you, you might consider treating breathing like any other aspect: try to inhale/exhale when prompted, but always listen to your body and inhale/exhale more frequently if you need to.

Also, try taking slower inhalations so they correspond with the instructor. Slow deep inhale, slow exhale. It may take some time to get used to it. But it's important to keep the breath moving during yoga; I don't think you should hold it in.

Please keep in mind that I am very much a casual yoga person and this is how I handle it. Hopefully someone will correct any inaccurate statements I may have made.

Second, you wonder about the frequency of doing yoga. In my opinion, do what works for you. I personally am a big believer in variety. Exercise, especially indoor cardio, tends to bore me to tears so I do lots of different things to keep it sort of interesting. Plus, it may be better for your weight-loss efforts in that your body is always doing something different.

Hope this helps!

Hi Lena,

Yoga is a great form of exercise for any number of fitness goals. It is one of the safest forms of exercise in that you can do it everyday(unlike some weightlifting) or you can come to it whenever you feel like.

My recommendation on the breathing is this: you need to develop your own breathing pattern and maintain that as much as possible throughtout your workout. Remember that the instructor in the video has probably been doing yoga for years and the breathing is second nature and likely to be longer on the inhale and exhale than yours. What you should strive for is the same length of inhale and exhale. As for moving or breathing along with the cues, the best way is to move when you reaching your next inhale or exhale. If the video says inhale as you raise your arms and you are in the middle of an exhale, then wait until you have finished the exhale, then inhale and raise your arms.

As far a the frequency of your workouts, you might want to use your videos pretty regularly until you become comfortable with the the breathing and the poses, then cut back so you can increase the variety to your liking. As you found out, yoga isn't as easy as is looks. The breath part of yoga is really key, and can often be the most difficult skill to master. It took me over a year of regular practice with a live teacher to master it and maintain it throughout a work out.

Sorry if this got a little long. It's the teacher in me coming out. Hope this helped some. Feel free to contact me privately if I can help any further.

Good luck!!

Sandy
Mom to 4 and certified yoga instructor

Thanks for the replies and the great information!

I figured the instructor probably had a bigger lung capacity than I do, from years of working on expanding it. That's why her inhales and exhales were longer than mine. I'm glad to hear that I was on the right track.

I've always been a deep, belly breather (I can even control hiccups with controlled deep breathing!), so I think that will be a big help. It's just a matter of getting into the rhythm and expanding my lung capacity.

I'm looking forward to getting my other DvDs. Amazon said they shipped yesterday! I also ordered a Tai Chi DvD. Variety, yeah!

Which video did you try? Some have much better cueing than others. Yoga for Inflexible people is supposed be a good one to start with but I haven't tried it.

Some schools of thought on Yoga say that you have to learn how to breath right before anything else. Other famous yoga gurus have claimed that you will be working on your breathing the rest of your life so I would say don't get to worried about it in the beginning, you have your whole life!

I have tried the Yoga Zone and Total Flow Yoga series and have found them to both be excellent beginner practices. I also like Ravi and Ana's Kundalini Yoga practices, they are totally different from the yoga that you have tried but really interesting. They make me feel really good and I have had great results. They have a Fat Free Yoga series that teaches different kinds of yogic breathing. If you like meditation and the spiritual aspect of yoga you might like these.

Another series that I really like is Yoga Booty Ballet they are kind of like dance and ballet style toning with yoga thrown in. A lot of people don't like these because they have a new age pro-woman slant, but again if you are into that kind of thing you might like these.

Finally the magazine yoga journal has an awesome website that has a lot of good information about breathing, pose modifications, diet, and all sorts of other things. I recomend that highly.

I have three yoga videos, two of which I liked more than the third. Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss was good because there were 4 different "levels" to choose from. Each "level" was illustrated by a different instructor. They were all doing the exact same program but each modified it a bit more. As a viewer, I could choose to look at all 4 on the screen at once, or to just look at one of them. The moves/poses were well explained and were shown well (ie, I could see the entire instructor, not just a close-up of her arms or legs or hands). I'd give it a 4 out of 5.

Yoga for Weight Loss was the same instructor, but seemed to expect a bit more experience. And there was only one instructor, not 4. I'd give it a 3 out of 5.

Yoga: Just My Size was wonderful. Each pose was broken down into its bits and well described and illustrated. The instructor is, literally, just my size (), so it was nice to see what the poses should look like for someone who has boobs, butt and belly. She also seemed to be a bit more consistant abut reminding about breathing. I'd give it a 4 out of 5.

Thanks for all your recommendations! They sound quite intriguing! I think I've seen the Yoga Journal site. Another one I saw was Finding Yoga (a yoga for plus size community).

It sounds like you picked some really good beginner ones. I am so glad that you are enjoying it! The breathing will come in time remember that yoga isn't something that you stress out about perfecting but it is something that your practice. That is something that I need to remind myself!

Lena, after having these videos for awhile do you still give the second a 3 out of 5? I have Suzanne Deason's Balanceball for Weightloss and want to buy one of her yoga DVD's. I was wondering if the first you mentioned would be better for me since I have choices. I am also wondering if it would be beneficial to have both tapes for more variety.