Is Yoga Exercise? Depends What Kind You Do

What makes some yoga more physically intense

Other ways to increase the intensity of your yoga session include incorporating more standing and balancing poses, as well as jumping or quick-stepping between different positions instead of slow and controlled transitions, Larson-Meyer said.

She also found that more experienced yoga practitioners were able to more vigorously engage in the yoga poses, raising their METs higher than what beginners could achieve.

“The more you practice it, the more likely you are to go deeper into the pose so that you have a higher energy expenditure,” Larson-Meyer said.

Interestingly, Larson-Meyer found that neither the temperature of the room, nor its humidity, had any effect on the MET of individual yoga poses ? putting a damper on Bikram yoga’s claims that it will make you burn up to 1,000 calories during a 90 minute session. However, this data came from only a single study on Bikram yoga, which means more research is needed.

The literature Larson-Meyer reviewed did not measure the energy expenditure of some of the more difficult inversion or balancing poses, including Bakasana (crow/crane) or the Adho Mukha Vrksasana (handstand). When she did these poses in her own lab just to see how they stacked up, they produced MET values greater than three. However, her data is unpublished and needs further replication. 

Of course, yoga does much more than help fulfill the government’s recommendation to exercise moderately for 30 minutes a day. Larson-Meyer found that short bouts of regular yoga can improve treadmill walking endurance, enhance the performance of distance runners, and improve balance, muscle strength and control in young adult athletes ? to say nothing of the spiritual practice’s effects on calming anxiety and reducing stress. 

Bonus: A Yoga Flow That Gets Your Heart Pumping

Other ways to make yoga more vigorous would be to incorporate several repetitions of Surya Namaskar, or sun salutations, into your session. This is a series of 12 different poses that flow from one to the next, taking the practitioner from the standing position to the floor while strengthening both the upper and lower body. The estimated MET intensity for sun salutations ranged from 2.9 (light intensity) to 7.4 (vigorous) across various studies, which Larson-Meyer found intriguing.