By Helaina Thompson
“Exiting the room is against our policy. Please return to your mat,” the instructor said, blocking the doorway.
I was dehydrated and dizzy, a healthy young woman reduced to a desperate, sweaty ball of stress. When class finally ended, the instructor took me aside and recommended I bring coconut water with me next time to replenish my electrolytes.
This humiliating experience was my first foray into hot yoga — a style of yoga typically held in studios that exceed 100 degrees. Its purpose? To detoxify, burn fat, and challenge one’s sense of willpower. Whatever willpower a room of individuals who have opted to exercise in a glorified oven may be lacking, that is.
Despite claims that hot yoga removes “toxins,” basic human physiology proves otherwise. “Sweating is not a purification system. It is a cooling system,” writes one Yoga International expert. Purification happens in the kidneys, the liver, and the intestines (which means hot yoga will not cure your hangover).
And while the temperature may make hot yoga feel more difficult than traditional yoga, it does not result in more calories burned, a Colorado State University study reported. The same study found that after eight weeks of hot yoga, participants’ body fat decreased by only 1.1 percent. Any weight loss that occurs in hot yoga can occur in a normal yoga class — or on a brisk walk, the scientists concluded.
As another Iowa winter approaches, hot yoga’s charm becomes obvious: The warmth feels, well, amazing. While cold weather makes for tight, sore muscles, hot yoga loosens those muscles right up — and then some. Hot-yoga practitioners should understand that extreme heat allows muscles to stretch beyond their normal thresholds, which can be damaging to muscles and corresponding ligaments. Muscles will return to their normal shape following class, but ligaments remain stretched for good. This can create hypermobile, unstable joints that increase an individual’s risk for dislocations and sprains, especially as aging occurs.
Two years after stepping into a hot yoga studio for the first time, I became a certified yoga instructor (perhaps, by some measure, in defiance). Today, as a spokesperson for yoga in my community, I must confront the inevitable existence and popularity of hot yoga. Clients and friends often ask about it, and I suggest they give it a try, reminding them to keep in mind the normal limits of their bodies. I also ask that they consider the carbon footprint of hot yoga studios.
For some, hot yoga is the best way to achieve relaxation and stress relief. Like nearly all forms of yoga, it offers a window of time to tune into one’s mind and body in the present moment — a benefit that should not be diminished.
Nonetheless, my yoga practice will remain below the normal human body temperature for the foreseeable future.
