Yoga fusion: a new more dynamic practice
Fusion yoga is a popular trend in fitness right now. It offers an ideal combination of exercises of different styles and trends for the perfect mixed workout. Burning more calories than yoga alone, fusion yoga can help you burn more calories and build aerobic and anaerobic fitness. Challenge yourself today and try a fusion yoga class near you!
In all this effervescence of well-being, the different yoga practices keep exploding. Purists will stay away from it, but the curious will see in these innovations new ways of working their body and mind. This is the case with fusion yoga. A workout that combines fitness, dance and yoga. A whole program that we explain to you.
What is fusion Yoga?
Yoga can be dynamic, gentle, meditative, or anything else. In the case of fusion yoga, we are undoubtedly in the first category of dynamics.
This method was created by Jason Olson, a seasoned American athlete who excels in yoga, fitness and dance classes in New York. He ended up merging the different movements specific to these disciplines to derive the best benefits and create a practice that muscles and makes you sweat.
Yoga combined with strength training can help tone, build muscle, and stay flexible through yoga stretches. A trainer may choose to incorporate ten strength training exercises into their class and mix them with yoga to keep the class fluid and stimulating. Some fitness trainers may choose to do just a few strength exercises to mix them up and do more reps. Each trainer will customize their class according to their style and tastes.
What is a fusion workout?
Reactivity and sequences are the two most appropriate words in the practice of fusion yoga. Barefoot on our yoga mat, we quickly let ourselves be led to the rhythm of music that is sometimes funk and sometimes urban. For an hour, we perform movements, more or less, of the arms and legs with the help of weights or not. We then go without incident from the posture of the dog upside down then to that of the feet in second position as in classical dance. No part of the body is left out and our glutes are strained as much as our backs and the backs of our legs are stretched. All this at a regular and intense pace.
Fusion yoga sessions usually begin with a brief warm-up, followed by cardiovascular or strength training. Participants then move on to breathing and centering, followed by flexibility and balance training. Classes normally last 30 to 60 minutes. Teachers can include individualized programs for people who want to achieve specific goals.
Challenge yourself today and try a fusion yoga class near you!
Who is fusion yoga for?
For those looking to build muscle, sweat and relax at the end of the day with Zen minutes. There is no apparent contraindication other than for pregnant women or people with severe back pain. “During my classes in New York, I was surprised to see students suffering from certain ailments. They came because they knew that here they could continue to build up very gently. However, you have to listen to your body. So, tempted?
What characterizes this sport?
– Diversity of movements
– Speed of the sequences
– Rhythmic and varied musical playlist
– Free weights or body weights
What are its advantages?
– Work of the whole body (“full-body”)
– Multifunction (muscle strengthening, cardio, flexibility, balance, endurance …
– Wide audience, even pregnant women taking certain precautions
The biggest benefit of yoga fusion is that the whole body works and every part of the body can be targeted by combining two techniques at once. It can also provide a new challenge for someone who is only used to traditional yoga. Fusion Yoga exercises provide all of the mental and spiritual benefits of yoga while adding the use of strength and endurance to the whole body. Unlike traditional yoga, fusion yoga classes are constantly changing due to the sheer amount of exercises that can be created by merging two types of fitness. Fusion yoga can also be easily adapted for beginners and people with special needs.
What are the disadvantages?
One of the downsides of fusion yoga is that it provides a less intense yoga experience, which followers of traditional yoga might find disappointing. Additionally, beginners who have never taken a yoga class may find it difficult to follow. You will need to learn basic yoga poses before trying a fusion yoga class.
What types of fusion yoga are there?
The most common type of fusion is Yoga and Pilates, commonly known as Yogalates or Yogilates. Pilates focuses on strengthening the small core muscle groups of the body in the back and abdominals. Pilates balances yoga by offering targeted, intense resistance exercises followed by controlled stretching. Both practices involve achieving specific postures, with an emphasis on correct breathing and meditation.
Another type of fused yoga is spin yoga. Spin yoga combines the cardiovascular training of spinning with the benefits of yoga. Thanks to this type of fusion yoga, the muscles that are called upon during cycling get a complete stretch of the body as well as the mind and spirit.
Booty ballet is a type of complete fitness yoga that combines yoga with ballet dance techniques. These classes integrate classical dance movements and poses with the flexibility and balance positions of yoga.
HIIT does what yoga can’t: it allows you to improve your fitness, increase your heart rate and cardiovascular system to optimize oxygen processing and fat burning, and activate fast-switching muscle fibers (which tones, sculpts and defines your body). Yoga is a perfect complement to HIIT, as it targets slow-twitch muscle fibers, allowing you to maintain endurance-based strength, and provides you with cleansing and flexibility to aid your potency. and your HIIT transformation.
What is the difference between yoga & pilates?
Certainly, the two practices tend towards the same goal: to harmonize the mind gently and to strengthen the whole body. However, many people still equate yoga and Pilates as two types of gentle gymnastics, the latter being only one degree of intensity greater than the other. But it goes much further.
• Yoga
Appeared several millennia ago in India, it works body and mind at the same time. The objectives of this discipline are to adjust breathing, develop flexibility and learn the intricacies of relaxation. This practice also helps balance, and allows you to better manage stress for better mental development. The activity also includes breathing exercises and meditation.
• Pilate
This practice is above all a physical conditioning or rehabilitation activity that focuses on the development of the body. The Pilates method is a set of physical exercises developed by Joseph Pilates at the start of the 20th century. The activity aims to develop deep muscles, improve posture and joint flexibility. The method focuses mainly on the core muscles while maintaining good general posture. The exercises aim to relax the muscles when the postures are held and to strengthen the weaker muscles.
One works only the body while the other also works the mind.
Body and mind
Indeed, the main difference between yoga and Pilates is that unlike yoga, Pilates is not a spiritual discipline. Indeed, Pilates aims to improve the body while exercising physical activity. Although Pilates requires great concentration, this practice does not include philosophy of life or meditation. Yoga can be seen as a way of life or a state of mind. The word “yoga” comes from Sanskrit and means “union”. This activity therefore aims to unite body and mind, especially through breathing and awareness of the body. Each pose is physical activity, meditation and breathing at the same time.
Breathing
However, in yoga, like in Pilates, students should focus on their breathing. It is important that their breath is synchronized with the movements they are performing. However, the breathing techniques are different for the two disciplines. In the Pilates method, you have to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth during the exercises. In yoga, we don’t breathe the same way. Indeed, we inhale and exhale through the nose and not through the mouth. Sometimes a yoga teacher will ask you to alternate the two nostrils.
The exercise sets
As in gymnastics, Pilates requires performing the same movements several times. These repetitions are called “sets”. Between sets, we sometimes take a break to control our positioning and check that we are working the right muscles. Sets and timeouts do not exist in yoga. We perform the posture once on each side and the movements remain chained.
To conclude
Far from the stereotypes of yoga, fusion yoga modernizes the discipline. However, practitioners retain the mental and spiritual benefits of traditional yoga, zenitude … On the other hand, it is advisable for novice practitioners to learn the basics of yoga. And if you teach yoga yourself, it’s a potential way to energize your sessions and diversify your targets.
See our article on Katonah Yoga here.
See here a video on Yoga Fusion.
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