What is Hot Yin Yoga

With so many types of yoga to choose from, finding the right one for you can come across as challenging. There are many styles and variations and they can range from intense to relaxing and the type you choose will all depend on your own personal requirements. This article is going to summarize hot yin yoga, how it can benefit you and what it involves.

Hot Yin yoga is a slow-paced form of yoga which involves holding poses for a longer period of time than other forms. The poses also called asanas will be held for varying amounts of time depending on your experience level. For beginners, each pose will be held for between 45 seconds to 2 minutes, whereas an advanced student would be expected to hold a pose for up to 5 minutes. It is the extended duration of the poses and the reduction of flexible muscle involvement that helps Hot Yin yoga work on a deeper level than traditional yoga.

Early Development

Developed in the early 1970’s, Yin yoga places a moderate amount of stress on tendons, muscles, and ligaments with the aim of improving circulation and building flexibility in the joints. Hot Yin yoga employs the addition of performing the poses in a heated room with a temperature raised to around 40 degrees celsius. The added heat permeates deep into the body and helps relax the muscle fibers and prevents damage from occurring during the session. It also provides a detoxifying experience as your blood is brought to the skin to help you cool off, this increase in blood flow helps produce sweat and remove toxins and impurities from the body.

Yin yoga is based primarily on the Chinese belief of yin and yang of opposite and complementary principles. Yin is cooling female, stable, passive and downward moving. Yang is Warming, masculine, mobile and upward moving. The sun is considered yang and the moon is Yin. The muscles and connective tissues in the body are considered as Yin and this is where the name originates for this type of yoga, mainly due to the focus and usage of Yin body parts combined with more passive asanas during the session.

Benefits

There are several benefits of practicing Hot Yin Yoga and these are directly influenced by the intensity and duration of the asanas. The increased duration helps stimulate muscle tone, flexibility and suppleness and the intensity can help build strength. It takes a great deal of determination to be able to hold a pose for 5 minutes but it can help you focus your mind and build clarity which can lead to a feeling of peace and relaxation. When combined with heat, Yin yoga is taking on the 2 elements of Yin and Yang and creates a session that is both complimentary and oppositional. It is the contrast between the 2 elements that helps make a Hot Yin Yoga session a success.

There are some notable similarities between Yin Yoga and Hatha Yoga, and anyone who has practiced either will notice these. In fact, many of the poses that are performed in Yin yoga are the same as Hatha yoga but are called different names. There is also the distinction that Yin yoga will require much less muscular involvement when performing a similar pose found in Hatha yoga.

How it Compares

Unlike other types of yoga, Yin yoga is recommended to be performed while the muscles are not yet warmed up. This makes them much stiffer and places more stress on the deeper, more rigid connective tissues. For this reason, it is recommended to use heat in the room to help slightly warm the muscles to prevent injury to them. Yin yoga is low impact and does not enable the body to produce heat from the session while the asana are designed to keep the larger muscles relaxed to avoid them tensing or going into spasms which can occur when a pose is held for an extended duration.

Yin yoga is ideally suited for beginners and introduces practitioners to the poses slowly but precisely. A beginner will hold poses for a shorter duration and they will slowly progress to a longer duration until they peak at the maximum of 5 – 6 minutes per asana. This slow introductory period to Yin yoga will enable you to build strength and confidence with the poses and push yourself in a way that is calming and removes the stress of performing too many poses. A Hot Yin yoga class should last approximately 60 – 90 minutes and will provide you with a deep tissue workout that will increase your flexibility with problematic areas such as stiff tendons and ligaments.

If you are looking to build up your core strength and improve your stamina and determination then Hot Yin Yoga will prove to be the ideal choice for you.