Monday, May 21, 2007

Yoga STILL Sucks

So much for the body-mind connection myths perpetuated by the yoga fanatics.

In a head to head comparison between an aerobically trained group of senior citizens and a progressive stretching group (all participants were previously untrained), the aerobically trained grandmas showed a 25% greater cognitive improvement than the stretchers.

Now before you yogi's get your panties in a bunch, I think that if you enjoy yoga, by all means, continue to do it...then do something productive.

Source:
Stanley J. Colcombe, Arthur F. Kramer, Kirk I. Erickson, Paige Scalf, Edward McAuley, Neal J. Cohen, Andrew Webb, Gerry J. Jerome, David X. Marquez, and Steriani Elavsky
Cardiovascular fitness, cortical plasticity, and aging, PNAS, Mar 2004; 101: 3316 - 3321.

Bill

13 comments:

sevendash said...

I am starting your progam for burning the last ten pounds and I need a description for dumbbell face pulls. Can you help?

Anonymous said...

It's on the men's health website.

Bill

Chris Correia said...

I didn't know yoga had dumbbell face pulls.

???

;)

I used to enjoy yoga, and probably still would. Nice mind/body connection. But I realized I don't have enough time for it. I gotta do what I gotta do.

Anonymous said...

I won't quarrel with the study result, however I do take issue of you recharacterising "progressive stretching" as yoga. Yoga does involve stretching, but it's more than that.

That said, I'm also not going to say yoga is a huge fat-burning or muscle-building form of movement -- but it does build some strength and probably burns more calories than the typical stretching program.

Anonymous said...

Great citing, Bill! I am a health professional (Personal Trainer/Educator/Authour) in Vancouver - where the yoga fad is out of control! I am often criticized by the yoga cult for suggesting that there are better ways to utilize time when you have only 3 hours/wk to exercise. In fact, if you look closely at most of the studies favourable to yoga - it is often used in conjunction with other interventions.

In short, if people have a couple of hours per day to work on health-enhancing behaviours and they like yoga - then by all means enjoy. I just think it is an overrated form of exercise. And don't even get me started on "power yoga"

Mike

Anonymous said...

why do you waste so much energy bashing yoga, and just talk about what you believe in?

You seem very threatened by a 5,000 year old practice, that has proven the test of time, and is here to stay......

Anonymous said...

I would like to see a photo of your body billy..

can't seem to find any on your site.

Anonymous said...

Still as for me one of main yoga benefits
is that your body and your soul are developed in a complex! You are learning to love your body in yoga!

shaunschon said...

Mr Anonymous "threatened by a 5,000 year old practice, that has proven the test of time" ?????????????

So I guess Sati, the Dowry system and caste system are all glorious since they're part of the same 5000 year old culture and have 'proven the test of time'?? I am so sick of Indians harping back to a glorious past because they're bankrupt of any real pride or modern glory.

B/w before you accuse me of being a skinhead or racist or some such nonsense, I'm very much Indian and am probably as frustrated as I am cause I'm surrounded by idiots since I live in Bombay.

Yoga does have its benefits and there's a lot that science still has to unravel, but a lot of it is superstitious nonsense. For example energy in the bottom of the spine coiled as a snake and the objective being to unleash it???!!! There's gaseous energy up my arse for god's sake and I can prove that scientifically.

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