Five Basic Approaches to Yoga

Yoga was brought to the Western hemisphere from India in the late 19th century. Since then, it has gone many adaptations, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of individual variations. However, even with all of these variations, there are five major areas of practice, and all variations can be broken down into these base categories: as a method for physical fitness and health maintenance, as a sport, as a body-oriented therapy, and as a spiritual discipline.

Looking at these approaches, you will see that the first three are often grouped into a a category known as Postural Yoga. This is contrasted with the more Traditional style, where Postural Yoga concentrates (sometimes almost exclusively) on the posture of the body, Traditional Yoga, as its name suggests, seeks to adhere to the more traditional teachings that are its roots from India. Let us take a look at the five basic approaches.

Yoga as Fitness Training

The first approach that we will cover is the one that is most popular with the practitioners in the West. Also not hard to guess, this is the most radical change and revamp of Traditional Yoga that is practiced. More specifically, this is a change to traditional Hatha Yoga, which is more of a physical Yoga. This approach to yoga is concerned primarily with the physical body's flexibility, its resilience, and the strength of the body. Many newcomers to Yoga will encounter this tradition. And while some people will find that fitness training is indeed a wonderful sideline to this tradition, Hatha Yoga is also a profound spiritual tradition. Yoga masters have always stressed the need for a healthy body, but this is a mere sideline to the mind, and other vital aspects.

Yoga as a Sport

Primarily practiced in Latin American countries, these Yoga practitioners master hundreds of difficult Yoga postures to perfection. They then demonstrate these skills, and their physiques in international competitions. This new sport, sometimes considered an art form, has drawn fire from the ranks of traditional Yoga practitioners. They feel that competition and spot has no place in Yoga, as this discipline is for personal betterment. There is also a new form of Yoga drawing much attention called Acro Yoga which specializes in acrobatic moves done in combination with a partner. Only the most fit and flexible are able to perform this discipline.

Yoga as a Therapy

This variation on Yoga applies Yoga techniques to help restore health, or in some cases, full physical and mental function to those who have this impaired. The name for therapeutic yoga is quite new, but the practice in and of itself is quite old. This new discipline calls for far greater skill and training on the part of the Yoga Master than is the cast with other more traditional Yoga. Normally, Yoga is intended for those that do not suffer from any disabilities or ailments that may require other attention. Therapeutic yoga, on the other hand, focuses on these special needs and helps treat them.

Powerful And Gainful Fitness Marketing Approach

When you start to engage in a certain business, it's important to learn and to implement the fundamental steps needed to make it grow. Marketing is the significant key that makes every business loom. Without a doubt, it is the life blood of any business enterprise. Every business owner wants to have a flourishing business; however, not all know how to do and provide their businesses with proper business and marketing management. It will be rewarding when your endeavour has resulted to something beautiful. If you run a marketing campaign and it worked beautifully, then it will definitely give your business an edge. In order for you to generate high sales and revenue, you need to become competitive with concern to marketing your firm. You must let people recognise the services or products your business has to offer so that you will have more clients later on. Behind every successful health club there's a powerful and gainful fitness marketing approach used. In order to achieve your business goals, you need to attract many potential customers. Before you do this, you need first to ensure that you provide outstanding facilities and effective fitness programs.

No matter how effective your health programs are, they are useless if you don't know how to promote your gym and attract enough number of clients. You need to create unique and attractive ways in promoting your gym centre. It is advantageous to create awareness to the public regarding your personal gym. The interest of the people to go to a fitness centre must grow. To make it happen, you must take into account the necessary actions that could help you achieve a progressive business. Every campaign has its pros and cons; therefore, you need to weigh them before you decide to use them for your business development. In terms of advertising, you must exert a tremendous effort if you want to achieve a consistent and lucrative business.

Gym instructors must possess positive attitudes to make the clients feel that they are being valued. To keep them coming back in your gym, you must provide them with worthwhile and enjoyable training lessons. You need to motivate them in a good way so that they will get the right satisfaction and they will introduce your centre to their friends and other people. This is a great way to harness your business' potential.

In fitness center marketing, you must understand its importance so that you will be able to do it in a perfect way. Get to know all the pros and cons of it right from the outset if you want to obtain a guaranteed result. Advertising your business online is certainly the most effective and fastest way to make it become popular.

The Importance of Physical Fitness

In its most general meaning, physical fitness is a general state of good physical health. Obtaining and maintaining physical fitness is a result of physical activity, proper diet and nutrition and of course proper rest for physical recovery. In its simplest terms, physical fitness is to the human body what fine-tuning is to an engine. It enables people to perform up to their potential. Regardless of age, fitness can be described as a condition that helps individuals look, feel and do their best. Thus, physical fitness trainers, describe it as the ability to perform daily tasks vigorously and alertly, with left over energy to enjoy leisure-time activities and meet emergency demands. Specifically true for senior citizens, physical fitness is the ability to endure, bear up, withstand stress and carry on in circumstances where an unfit person could not continue.

In order for one to be considered physically fit, the heart, lungs, and muscles have to perform at a certain level for the individual to continue feeling capable of performing an activity. At the same time, since what humans do with their bodies directly affects the state of mind, fitness influences to some degree qualities such as mental alertness and emotional expression.

Physical fitness is often divided into the following categories in order for people to be able examine its components or parts. Particularly, physical fitness is judged by:

1. Cardiovascular endurance: This is the ability of the body to deliver oxygen and nutrients to tissues and to remove wastes over sustained periods of time.

2. Muscular strength & endurance: Strength deals with the ability of the muscle to exert force for a brief time period, while endurance is the ability of a muscle, or group of muscles, to sustain repeated contractions or to continue to apply force against an inert object.

3. Flexibility: This denotes the ability to move joints and use muscles through their full range of motion.

4. Body composition: Considered as one of the components of fitness, composition refers to the body in terms of lean mass (muscle, bone, vital tissue, and organs) and fat mass. Actually, the optimal ratio of fat to lean mass is an indication of fitness. Performing the right set of exercises can help people get rid off body fat and increase or maintain muscle mass.