How To Integrate Yoga Into Your HIIT Fitness Routine

As a fitness buff and a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) practitioner, incorporating yoga to your regular routine is truly one of the best ways to add more spice and variety to your practice. 

While most people think that yoga and HIIT are worlds apart, and incomparable, integrating them can only lead to positive gains in your fitness and overall health.

Mixing up fitness routines prevents burnout. It also allows for the use of muscles that aren’t often used in the usual HIIT routine. Plus, yoga helps build muscles in the upper body, thanks to its challenging strengthening poses.

As a matter of fact, even the most experienced bodybuilders will find it difficult to execute some of the strengthening poses of this ancient art of longevity, health and fitness.

The Benefits Of Adding Yoga To Your Fitness Routine

As you combine yoga with your HIIT routine, you get to enjoy the best of both worlds. With yoga, practitioners get to enjoy a plethora of health benefits, including weight loss, stress reduction, flexibility and increased fitness.

Not to mention, yoga helps manage chronic conditions, such as sleep problems, depression, anxiety and pain.

HIIT, on the other hand, results in overall improvement in physique, toned muscles, better bone density, prevention of muscle loss, and flexibility in joints. Of course, it also helps weight management because it burns more fat than any other cardio workout.

Yoga is a low-impact and effective way to lose a few calories during your non-HIIT days, without compromising your recovery.  In addition, this ancient art helps prevent injuries from your intense HIIT workouts.

With yoga, you are flushing out excess lactic acid in your over-worked muscles, helping you reduce your chances of experiencing stiffness and soreness that can make your next HIIT workout a lot more challenging.

Yoga, ultimately, draws oxygen into your muscles, allowing them to perform in a more efficient manner ... as well as become stronger.

The Ideal Yoga Style To Pair With Your HIIT Program

As with HIIT, yoga comes in a variety of styles and mehods. As expected, each yoga style or discipline has its own specific path and end goals. There are some yoga styles that are tailored for those who want to build strength, while others are designed for stretching, meditation and relaxation. 

But in this case, you should stay away from Vinyasa style and other power yoga styles, as it can stunt muscle growth. Furthermore, combining these yoga styles with your HIIT routine can make it difficult for your tissues to recover.  It is so very important to have a balance between the two.  Since you will be pushing your body with your HIIT workout, it is a good idea to select a yoga practice that will allow your muscles a chance at rest and repair.

Just imagine doing a power yoga session the day after a vigorous full-body HIIT workout with dumbbells and kettlebells.  Your body may not have enough energy to execute the demanding flows of Vinyasa. But, if you opt for a lighter style of yoga, then this ancient practice can be a great complementary restorative workout for your HIIT program. 

Hatha Yoga And HIIT: A Winning Combination

As a HIIT practitioner, the best yoga style you can pair with your regular routine is basic Hatha, particularly a restorative, therapeutic style. Founded in India more than five centuries ago, Hatha is a gentle, slow-paced yoga style that is focused on meditation and breathing.

In fact, any style of yoga that incorporates physical postures can be considered to be a Hatha practice. With basic Hatha, you get to improve breathing, relieve stress and stretch out fatigue muscles. Moreover, it introduces you to the relaxation techniques and basic poses of yoga.

Schedule

As a form of active recovery, yoga can be practiced during your off days, when you are not doing any cardio workouts and intense exercises. A good and relaxing yoga session will only take thirty minutes to an hour.

It is also possible to practice yoga after an exhaustive workout.  It’s good for stretching, cooling down, and restoring the body to its normal functions. Really take the time, as well, to allow yourself a proper Savasana, or corpse pose, at the end of your yoga practice in order to reap the full restorative benefits. In this case, yoga can help balance your energy after a stimulating activity like a full-body HIIT workout.

Can You Handle It?

Anyone who regularly participates in HIIT workouts can pretty much handle anything. High Intensity Interval Training is one of the most intense workouts in fitness, and Hatha yoga in comparison is like taking a nap, at least as far as exertion and endurance are concerned, though the poses are certainly no cake walk.

Learn the proper way to do Hatha yoga by taking a class with a qualified instructor or by purchasing any one of the great Hatha Yoga workout programs on DVD. One of the best books on the subject of Hatha Yoga (one of my absolute favorites, I adore Sivananda style yoga) is Hatha Yoga: The Hidden Language, Symbols, Secrets and Metaphors. There is also a fabulous selection of DVDs to choose from right here, available on Amazon. Lastly, there is a DVD which I consider to be a hidden gem.  This is the one I used myself in between professional dance seasons, and I love everything about it, including the music and the scenery: Ali McGraw: Yoga--Mind and Body.

It is important to learn the proper techniques for the poses, along with establishing the proper breathing exercises, in order to get the most out of incorporating yoga to your HIIT fitness lifestyle.  Dedicate yourself to your practice ... body, mind and spirit.  And have fun with it!