Yoga for Gaining Mass
Yoga for Gaining Mass
Weightlifting 3 – 4x weekly
Optional: Cardio 1 – 2x weekly
“Why should I do yoga if I’m trying to gain muscle?”
Yoga is the perfect supplement to a mass building program. Yoga provides benefits in flexibility, core strength, muscle recovery, and cardiovascular ability that you need to keep up a healthy mass gaining routine.
Flexibility lengthens your muscles and increases your range of motion, which allows for increased gains in muscle mass. It makes your muscles more efficient, allowing you to lift and longer using less energy.
Doing a couple of ab exercises at the end of your workout does not come close to the workout your core gets from a yoga session. You need a strong core to do deadlift or squat, the two most important lifts for gaining muscle mass (you can quote me on that). Every standing, and most supine (lying on your back) and prone (lying face down) poses require you to utilize your core. It teaches you to engage your core in all body movements. That means that the more you do yoga, the more natural it becomes for you to engage your core in every movement that you do. In regards to weight lifting, an engaged core allows you to lift more and lift longer while minimizing the risk of injury to your lower back that stems from underutilization of core muscles. Whew. Long explanation for core strength there.
Weight lifting is very taxing on the muscles, and if you don’t take care of your muscles after you break them down with hundreds of pounds of iron, you’re not going to see the gains that you want. You may end up getting injured. Yoga is a great form of active muscle recovery that simultaneously provides you with increased strength while allowing your muscles to rebuild. Sounds magical, doesn’t it?
Yoga is a great form of cardiovascular exercise that requires you to engage multiple muscle groups throughout your entire body for minutes at a time. It makes you sweat, breathe hard, and increases your heart rate without the monotony of a tread mill. Think of a wall sit, and then think of doing variations of that for an hour. Easy, peasy, lemon-squeezy… right?
Good post once again! Thank you!
Hey Dean, I’ve found that adding keeping up with yoga and adding mat Pilates has helped me lift more with greater control. Do you create your own weightlifting workouts? I’ve been doing a barbell strength class at Lifetime regularly to build a good base, and I get stuck doing the same workouts when I create my own. Curious if you’ve gone to bodybuilding.com or another source to create your workouts. Thanks John