Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss spent some time gathering dust on my shelf before I finally tried it. When I finally did, I loved it, and this may well become my "go to" yoga video for busy days.
I happen not to like "flow" videos so much, and it seems most yoga DVDs out there are exactly about that. I love the feeling of breathing into a pose, and the challenge of using my muscles to maintain a strong pose for a little while. Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss gives me just what I need: a good combination of standing, sitting, and lying poses; lots of twisting poses (which I've also found lacking in flow videos); a few poses which gently, but powerfully, build abdominal strength.
The video allows you to do the workout at different levels of modification, which means that you can measure yourself to someone at your level as you check your position. It's hard to know if you're doing a pose right if the only model you get a yoga master, or if the modified pose is somewhere behind the yoga master (hard to see on a small screen). Almost every breath is cued, which I also appreciate, and Deason keeps up a running commentary with advice on what you should be feeling and doing during each pose. Her voice is soft enough that you can ignore it if you wish, but I found her suggestions very useful for working on strength and balance, especially during standing poses.
And, the entire thing is only forty-five minutes long! It really fits into a busy day, and is wonderfully restorative. I'm not sure what it does for weight loss, but I can tell you that I feel physically good after doing the video, with just the right combination of energy and pleasant fatigue.
Labels: workout, yoga
