What is Hot Yoga?

Find out the origins of hot yoga and what are its benefits when compared to conventional yoga sessions.

Hot yoga has recently started gaining popularity as an alternative way of performing yoga. Although it is similar to traditional yoga in many ways, as the name suggests, hot yoga is perform in hot and humid conditions.

The whole point of doing hot yoga in humid conditions is to increase the sweating. While the practice is more commonplace in European and western countries where they seek to imitate the heat and humidity of India where yoga originated, many Eastern countries are also adopting the practice recently.

Indian American yoga guru Bikram Choudhury has mentioned that the heated environment during hot yoga helps to prepare the body and its various muscles for movement and also is essential in the ‘removal of impurities.’ Since hot yoga involves heat, it has the ability to give your heart, lungs, and muscles even greater, more intense workout.

There has also been a lot of confusion recently between hot yoga and Bikram yoga, the latter of which is also another form of hot yoga. People have used the terms interchangeably for both the practices, but there are some key differences.

Hot yoga means that the room is heated above normal room temperature. or whatever temperature is ideal for the yoga instructor. Though the temperature is typically between 80 and 100°F (27 and 38°C). As compared to Bikram Yoga which is quieter, hot yoga involves music and interaction with people during the class.

Bikram Yoga, devised by Bikram Choudhury, is based on the teachings of BC Ghosh and the classes consist of a fixed sequence of 26 poses while there is no such limitations involved in hot yoga.

The benefits of hot yoga are several fold and quite immense.

Hot yoga typically involves stretching after a warm-up session, which is much better than stretching out cold muscles. Doing this leads to a greater ease while performing the yoga poses and is also more effective. The condition of heat also allows the muscles to be stretched further and undergo a greater range of motion.

It is also associated with greater burning of calories. Studies show that a person weighing 160 pounds can burn around 183 calories an hour by practicing traditional yoga and they can burn more calories when heat is involved in hot yoga. The calorie burn can be as high as 460 for men and 330 for women.

There’s also an increase in bone density after performing hot yoga. It is beneficial for older people as well as pre-menopausal women whose bone density decline with age.

Studies have proved that hot yoga has increased bone density in the neck, hips, and lower back. 

The health of the heart is also promoted during hot yoga. The heat involved in hot yoga poses can give your heart, lungs, and muscles a more challenging workout than doing the same poses at a lower temperature. Studies have proved that just one session of hot yoga can get your heart pumping at the same rate as a brisk walk (3.5 miles per hour).