Yoga scares ManU’s soccer players When former Manchester United star Ryan Giggs practised yoga for the first time as part of his training routine a good decade ago, he couldn’t believe how hard it was: "It tests parts of your body that you just don’t use in football. The first time I did it [in 2003], I was completely knackered. I went home from the training ground and slept for three hours in the afternoon. I actually dreaded yoga for the first year because it made muscles I

The Running Boom Over the past decades, running has become a popular activity. Some people start running to gain or maintain general fitness, some start running as part of their training routine in other sports, and some are keen to compete in running events. There are good reasons to choose running as your regular fitness routine: It’s cheap as you can easily do it without joining a club or a gym, and the trails and footpaths are free of charge. You only need to buy a pair o

Have you ever heard about “FUNCTIONAL TRAINING”? Most likely yes as more and more gyms and personal trainers use this term to describe their method. But – what does it mean? And is this really the revolutionary new form of exercise it seems to be, or is yoga maybe an early version of functional training, developed thousands of years ago? The origins of Functional Training To understand the idea behind “functional training” or “functional exercise” we need to go about three de

What...? The other day, my hubby came across an article which identifies yoga to be the worst kind of exercise, based on a scientific study conducted by the Mayo Clinic in the USA. This study ranks different forms of exercise by the number of calories burnt within an hour. But is this really a suitable measurement for good or bad exercise? The question is, when choosing to practise a particular form of exercise, what do I want to achieve? Is the primary goal of yoga burning a

Last week I had a lovely conversation with one of my students. She asked me how the business is going and how I cope with all the tasks involved. If I was a plumber this would have been a normal question, but as a yoga teacher running my own business I was DELIGHTED. Why? In a country where becoming a personal trainer or fitness coach to make a living is heavily promoted in the media the profession of a yoga teacher is pretty much neglected – despite the fact that more and mo

When people enquire about our yoga classes I'm often asked if we offer Hot Yoga or Bikram Yoga. No, we don't. Although these styles have become more and more popular in the past years we have decided to stick to the "normal" way - for good reasons. Supporters of the Bikram/Hot Yoga movement bring forward that practising yoga in a hot environment has many advantages, such as: increased DETOXIFICATION of the body due to massive sweating improved FLEXIBILITY and MOBILITY as musc

There is a number of very good reasons to start with yoga, at any time of the year. However, especially in winter you might benefit even more from a regular practise. Here comes our Top 10 list: 1. Stress relief - Most illnesses are related to stress! Through conscious relaxation yoga helps to reduce cortisol & adrenalin levels in the body, normalises blood pressure and reduces the heart rate. Your body gets a break from ongoing physical and mental activity and can recover p

As a mum of three (our youngest one is only 4 months old) I experienced the benefits of yoga for pregnancy and birth several times – although I hardly ever attended a pregnancy yoga class myself. However, I learned a lot of useful exercises and breathing techniques in a birth preparation course led by my wonderful midwife when I was pregnant with my first child. Together with some advice from fellow yoga teachers and mums and a bit of research I was able to adapt my personal