Yoga uses breathing techniques while performing poses called 'asanas' to adjust the oxygen volume in the lungs that is available to the circulatory system - oxygen intake resulting in a mind shift during the Yoga session. The word 'aerobic' means "in the presence of oxygen," and refers to the cellular respiratory healing response which requires the constant presence of oxygen as a key element of its bio-chemical formula. Both exercise styles are valuable (and distance runners often report mind shifts during their aerobic work out), but in comparing and contrasting the two styles, which one offers health benefits to suit your goals?Aerobics, as a school of exercise styles, are designed to increase the flow of oxygen within the body systems and organs thereby increasing the effective growth of new cells while cleansing and carrying away carbon dioxide. This is accomplished through maximizing the intake of oxygen through the lungs, which oxygen is then picked up and transported throughout the body via the circulatory system under exercised and trained calculated stress on the heart muscle to pump greater quantities of blood bearing fresh oxygen for cellular respiration. The larger muscles such as the quadriceps of the legs and the breathing musculature of the torso are stressed to create a demand or place stress upon the heart and lungs.
By the book – need it be said that human beings are not books? - the training response of aerobic exercise results in a lower resting heart rate, normal to low-normal blood pressure, cleaner veins and arteries, increased growth of veins and arteries, and an improved overall self-healing metabolism. The further training response of aerobics can also be a temporary release in steroids composed of adrenocorticoid and sex hormones, termed as "feel good steroids."
Numerous organs and systems of the body are peripherally affected during aerobics, however, aerobics are not designed to specifically seek a response from the kidneys, liver, intestines, stomach, diaphragm, bladder, bowel, throat, eyes, fingers, toes, Cerebellar and limbic system, nervous system both sympathetic and parasympathetic, and subtle energy system which can now be photographed and explained to a point through quantum physics as the 'wave' portion of the term 'particle wave'.
Enter 'yoga'. Yoga accomplishes all of this in addition to the aerobic responses due to the two yoga styles – static (hold) and dynamic (repetitive), and yoga's specific training of the nervous system and breathing responses. In addition to all of the aerobic conditioning, and the further conditioning to areas of the human anatomy, the nature of yoga asanas is one of deep organ massage which helps to cleanse the viscera and also the lymphatic system throughout.
The word 'yoga' literally means "to yoke" or "to unite" with the highest self. This is also known as "liberation." However, the meaning of 'yoga' in the West is a context dependent definition. In the context of this article, yoga is being examined in respects to its physiological properties as a health exercise. As an exercise, yoga seeks to strengthen and make flexible all of the muscles trained for a direct response under aerobics, and further, to specifically train through a series of over one thousand asanas(poses)every muscle – both surface and deep tissues – and all living bone tissue in the human body that aerobics does not specifically address. Yoga through an exhaustive series of detailed breathing exercises known as yoga pranayama also trains and conditions the circulatory system including heart and lungs, and increases the oxygen in the blood being carried to every organ and system in the body for improved cellular respiration. Finally, through a series of internal cleansing exercises known as yoga kriyas yoga literally cleanses nasal sinuses, tongue and throat, esophagus, and the entire length of the intestines.
The length of an effective aerobic session must keep the heart beating in its target range – two to three times its resting heart rate – for a minimum of twenty minutes or longer.
The complete yoga exercise routine (stripped down to the physical routine only) takes approximately ninety minutes to two hours. For a professional yoga practitioner who begins the workout with a two to four minute set of top-quarter wide grip pushups to failure – usually four to five hundred repetitions – followed with no rest by pranayama nose panting with arms overhead for four to six minutes, followed by no rest with twenty repetitions of Uddyana Bandha breathing – usually about fifteen minutes of two part breathing while sucking in the abdominals upper and lower – the twenty minutes of aerobics with all of its training effects is taken care of at beginning of the routine. The body is then gently allowed to slow into a controlled breathing through all other asanas and kriyas for the next ninety minutes or so to give specific
attention to all other areas of the anatomy that aerobics does not.
To compare and contrast the two exercise systems one must admit that each owns its positive and negative aspects.
Aerobics can be done in twenty minutes.
Yoga takes at least forty-five minutes for a superficial workout and ninety minutes to two hours for a thorough workout.
Aerobics can be learned in one to ten sessions. Yoga – to be learned correctly - takes years and could take a lifetime.
Truly fine yoga instructors and therapists are rare. This creates a problem that need not exist, but in all honesty it does exist. At this time, yoga injuries are numerous, deep, and painful. As an Integral Yoga therapist, the majority of new patients arriving at my office suffer from mini-tears to the hamstrings and strains to the lower back and pelvic connective tissues and the piraforma muscle fibers. Why? Because yoga has become a popular commodity in a free market system where teachers that have not taken as much time to become qualified as they should are teaching in studios across the country.
Aerobics is also beset by its issues – poorly trained Pilates teachers – but not to the extent of yoga. Yoga is in need of a good house cleaning and there is much debate at this time as to how this is to be accomplished.
In my view, yoga is hands down a more complete health training system, however, at this time it is more dangerous.
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