HEALTH SPECIAL.....YOGALATES ?

YOGALATES

The latest in the line of funky fitness fusions is yogalates, which mashes the best elements of yoga and pilates
    For those who wish to lose weight or keep fit by choosing new paths to good health, there are enough interesting fads that may suit their tastes. Like yogalates — a blend of yoga and pilates. While yoga focuses on making your body supple and aligning your body and breath, pilates focuses on toning and making your core area stronger.
    Yogalates, which has been around internationally for a few years, tries to combine the advantages of both and promises to offer a winning solution. For example, in yogalates, you are breathing laterally or through the rib cage, whereas in yoga, it’s full yogic breathing. Rashmi Ramesh, a dancer and teacher of yogalates at Oris, has been teaching it for almost a year now. Trained in both yoga and pilates, Rashmi decided that creating a separate discipline would be a fun deviation at staying fit.
    Yoga is as effective for health as it is for your spiritual well-being, and pilates is great to give your body a fine shape. But on their own, they aren’t the best weightloss solutions. So Ramesh decided to combine the two and incorporate some cardio as well as toning. “Most people came to me for weight loss,” Ramesh says, “When I thought about yogalates, I checked online and realised there are a lot of people who are already doing it in the West. But in India, it’s new.”
    Ramesh, who also has a yogalates fitness DVD by Times Wellness to her name, takes yogalates classes at Sion (Arts in Motion) and Prabhadevi (Unique
    Industrial Estate). Each hour-long session begins with six to eight surya namaskaars. But the difference between a yogic surya namaskar and a yogalates one is you hold your ab muscles and the movement flows with the breath.
    This is followed by a 300-second relaxation, after which there are exercises — you get into position and focus on toning. Every class pays attention to different body parts. So some days it will be the thigh and abs, arms and shoulders or spine and some days are dedicated to a total body workout. A typical yogalates exercise would be combining the naukasan (the boat pose) in yoga with pilates. In yoga, you hold the pose and focus on your breath. In yogalates, you control the ab muscles while moving hands and legs as if they were scissors. So you move them sideways while breathing normally. Such movements tone your limbs, while strengthening your ab muscles.
    The sarvangasana is a shoulder stand, where you lie down and lift your legs and hold your back in such a way that your body weight is supported by your neck, shoulders and head. In yogalates, from sarvangasana, you go into halasan, which involves pushing your lifted legs over your head. Then you go back to sarvangasana, and come back to the lying down position without using your hands and elbows for support. When repeated ten times, it helps strengthen the back and brings flexibility to it. It also tones the lower abs. Each class ends with the shavasana, or the corpse pose, for complete relaxation.
    Yogalates adds strength, flexibility and toning. On an average, three hours a week can reduce about two waist inches every month. It is also known to work well for women who wish to lose post-pregnancy weight.

Anuya Jakatdar MM120629