Welcome to the GuyogaBEGINNER’S GUIDE

In Part 1 of this informative, practical guide for people just starting yoga (as well as inflexible guys), I answer the most frequently asked questions I receive regarding the Guyoga Program – and beginner’s yoga for men in general.

The more often you do yoga, the more noticeable your results. If Guyoga is the only workout you’re doing, I recommend doing at least 1 workout 6 days per week. You can increase that to 2 Guyoga workouts per day when your body becomes more accustomed to the workouts.

If you’re doing Guyoga in addition to other workouts (i.e. if you are adding Guyoga to your existing workout routine), then I recommend doing at least 3 Guyoga workouts per week.

In terms of aesthetic differences, you should expect to notice a change in your body composition in just about 4 weeks.

You want to pay attention to 3 things in particular during your Guyoga: Beginner’s Yoga for Men workouts. In order of most important to less (but still) important, these are:

Your Body

The most important thing to do is to pay attention to your body. You have to develop your intuition to understand what your body is capable of; when it can be pushed, when you need to back off, and when something just doesn’t feel right. You might not have a good sense of this at first, but you will as you practice over time.

You also need to be able to focus on what you’re feeling in your body. Are the right muscles engaged? Are you feeling the stretch in the right areas? Is your spine in the right position? It takes focus on your body to make sure you are doing the poses correctly and feeling them the right way.

Technique

This is the second most important thing to focus on. If you aren’t doing the poses correctly, you are not going to get the benefits. Worse, you may end up injuring yourself. That’s why we devote so much of the dialogue in these workouts to explaining the technique. We want you to be confident that you are doing the postures correctly, so you can get stronger, avoid injury, and get results as quickly as possible.

In particular, listen to instructions regarding the placement of your hips, your spine, feet, and shoulders. Core engagement is a constant in yoga, so you’ll want to focus on that as well. Focusing on technique is also a great way to immerse yourself into the workout, and that helps to improve your mental strength and counter stress.

Breathing

Breathing is one aspect of yoga that is incredibly important. Focusing on your breathing allows you to work deeper into the poses, maintain control over your body as you begin to reach your limit, and relaxes your body so you can relieve stress and increase flexibility.

But how will you focus on all of these things at once?!

Don’t worry about being able to pay attention to all of those things simultaneously – at least, when you’re just starting. It’s difficult to focus on all 3 of these things, even for advanced yoga practitioners. The more you do it, the easier it will become. Just do your best to actively listen to the instructions I give you throughout the Guyoga: Beginner’s Yoga for Men workouts, and you should be fine!

The answer here is to do your best to FEEL the posture the way the instructor tells you to feel it. Most people get so hung up on trying to mirror the instructor, or doing what everybody else in the yoga class is doing, and they forget that the goal of the posture is to feel the right muscles engaging and stretching.

What works for a flexible person who has been doing yoga for years probably won’t work the same for somebody who is just starting out. For example, if you have tight hamstrings from sitting often, then it will be difficult for you to touch your toes while keeping your back flat. If this is the case, you’ll bend your knees and use a block to touch the ground. Doing this, you’ll feel the stretch the way you’re supposed to feel it, but won’t do so in a way that is bad for your back.

The bottom line is to do the pose in a way that works for you, rather than just mirroring what somebody else is doing. Throughout the Guyoga: Beginners Yoga for Men workouts, I’ll tell you what you should be feeling in your body, and what you should avoid. Listen to the instruction, and you’ll understand what you should and shouldn’t be experiencing in your body.

We created Guyoga: Beginner’s Yoga for Men specifically for those who were inflexible. Nearly every posture in these workouts is presented with modifications, so if you aren’t flexible enough to do one version of the pose, you can do a different variation instead.

Using yoga blocks (we recommend cork ones) is one of the main modification methods we’ll give you throughout the workouts. So make sure to pick up a set of 2. Don’t worry, they’re relatively inexpensive and can be purchased on an obscure website called “Amazon”. (Maybe you’ve heard of it?) Otherwise, just pile up a stack of books and use that instead.

Those are the 5 most commonly asked questions I receive when it comes to Guyoga: Beginner’s Yoga for Men, as well as [men’s] yoga for beginners in general! I hope this helps give you the confidence you need to start your Guyoga journey – and if you’ve already started, I hope it makes you excited to keep going!

See you on the workouts!

Other Resources:

•  Guyoga Road Map
•  Sleep Better, Recover Faster – The Guyoga Guide to Better Sleep & Faster Recovery
•  Man Flow Yoga Community on Facebook