FITNESS: Why Hot Yoga Isn't For Me

I'm back from Portugal! SO SAD!

As many of my regular readers will know I love yoga. I go to at least two yoga classes a week varying from cardio-style vinyasa flow through to truly restorative Feldenkrais yoga (more on that soon!). However there is one incredibly popular style of yoga that really doesn't sit well with me: hot yoga.

Hot yoga itself can come in many forms. The most well-known style is Bikram which requires exacting standards including carpeted rooms, which I have always thought is super unhygienic! There is also a wide range of classes and studios available across London to the hot yoga crowd: Fierce Grace, Hot Pod Yoga, triyoga hot, Lumi Power Yoga and more. These studios are dedicated to the practise of hot yoga and are definitely experts in their field, but the class just really doesn't do it for me. 

I use yoga for stretching, relaxation and a little bit of massage. My biggest issue with hot yoga is that the intense heat takes away the relaxation element and actually makes getting through the class really hard. This isn't like the heat you get on holiday; it's all encompassing and impossible to escape without walking out of the class. I find I feel really dizzy, sick and uncomfortable. I prefer to ease into my poses allowing my body to naturally move with what I am asking it to do, rather than feeling under pressure from the intense heat. Many people say that the point of hot yoga is to allow you to stretch deeper by having already warned up the muscles, which is fair enough, but for me it's just too intense. 

All of the above said, I do enjoy 'warm' yoga. I have taken several Forrest yoga classes which are taught warm and organised in a way that means you're not stood up for ages getting more and more dizzy. I would recommend the warm yoga classes at triyoga in Soho. Learn more about their classes here.

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