Therapeutic Yoga Exercise

A practice that seemingly slides under the radar known as "Therapeutic Yoga Exercise."

Maybe you've heard of it or maybe you haven't.  Let's look at the similarities and differences between this and an asana practice.

 First of all "Therapeutic Yoga Exercises" or "Yoga Conditioning Drills" are also an old practice. Which is something that seems to have been lost in the teaching of yoga today in the west. A practice like this will still consist of a properly sequenced "flow" of exercises and pranayama breathing techniques, however all of the exercises are dynamic meaning they involve constant movement. Each exercise is a slow controlled exercise meant to take the joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles through a full range of motion. This in itself gives a different outcome than the isometric asana practice. Which I will elaborate more later on.

Now we take some time to look at our asana practice. Although yes we do have some dynamic movement such as different salute styles and certain posture transitions, primarily the practice is made up of isometric holds, and this is equally as valuable when balanced out with its dynamic cousin.

 They already knew back in the days of old that simply performing a still held asana practice without days of dynamic activity would result in imbalances in the muscular system. So therapeutic yoga exercise was given to create proper balance. In the more modern 20th century times Bishnu Charan Ghosh who was dubbed the greatest yoga therapist of that time period discovered that by pairing asana practice with jogging, cycling, weight lifting and the therapeutic exercises produced really astounding results in both mind and body. I myself can say this is true from personal experience.

What does dynamic exercise give you that isometric exercises don't? Lets keep it really simple to understand this. When we move dynamically through a full joint range with proper muscular contraction we stabilize muscles, ligament and tendons under constantly shifting load. Which greatly improves elasticity in the body and also allows the muscles to glide freely in the fascia. Thus making our movement more efficient for everyday life.

In the sense of isometric contraction we are still working in, or working toward a full joint range. However we are under what's called static (unmoving) load with our body weight. This in turn stabilizes muscles in both a fully contracted state and fully elongated state. Its an extremely important muscular function to have the ability to contract in it's eccentric (elongated) position and its fully contracted (shortened) position. This in turn leads to a fully functioning muscle. Isometric holds also stimulate greater bone density in which the dynamic counter part is not quite so effective for.

You're probably wondering how to integrate this into your routine. To the average person I realize doing 2 practices a day let alone practicing every day is bit of a stretch. No pun intended. Let's say you have the time to practice 6 or 7 days a week. Use the 70/30 rule, simply being 4-5 days asana practice and 1-2 days therapeutic exercises. Do this to start and see how you feel.

Personally for myself I put my therapeutic exercises in with my practice of animal movements and kettlebells for time efficiency. I do about 4-5 days of Classic 84 practice with 2-3 days of this other mentioned routine. That for me provides optimal physical performance and mental wellbeing.

You're also probably asking where can I find out more about this "Therapeutic Yoga Exercise?" Well for starters you could train "The Aptum Way" or you can start out by reading Ghosh Therapeutic Exercises. This is a great starting point and one of my personal favorites. Click the link below.

Ghosh Manual

We'll cap it off there for now! Feel free to reach out with any topics you would like to see in these emails or if you'd like me to elaborate more on things like this.

-Peace-