How Can Yoga Practice Improve Health and Strength?

In-me
Jul 8
3 min read

Updated: Aug 13

The way we live—always rushing and burdened with loads of responsibilities because everything moves and happens so fast—often leaves us with no time for movement or strengthening our bodies. What’s more, we lead increasingly sedentary lifestyles: sitting for eight hours at work, then again in the car, tram, or bus. As a result, our bodies and muscles simply don’t engage and gradually weaken. Importantly, this affects all of us—regardless of age. Although children tend to move more, the habit of sitting starts early due to the use of computers and mobile phones. That’s why, regardless of our age, we should keep moving—to take care of our bodies and prevent them from becoming weaker. Practicing yoga offers many benefits: it increases body awareness, gives you dedicated time for yourself, helps you calm down—and, importantly, it also strengthens your body.

Solution

Yoga – which can be described as “an ancient practice and a way of life that originated in India, and includes the practice of postures, regulated breathing and meditation”, is a form of activity found to have multiple benefits influencing physical function, health related quality of life and mental wellbeing (Sivaramakrishnan et al., 2019). For example, for older adults it has been shown to be beneficial in terms of promoting cardiovascular health (Barrows and Fleury, 2015), balance and mobility (Youkhana et al., 2026), soothing depression and improving quality of sleep (Wang et al., 2016).

Furthermore, according to other research in older adults, muscle-strengthening exercises may offset age-related muscle loss (sarcopenia), enhance functional performance, improve bone mineral density, and help prevent falls (Kelley and Kelley, 2001; Lang et al., 2010). Several national Physical Activity guidelines, including the UK and the US, have specifically recommended yoga as a muscle strengthening activity (Department of Health, 2018; United States Department of Health and Human Services,

From a scientific perspective

A systematic review and meta-analysis (Sivaramakrishnan et al., 2019) of randomized and cluster-randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of yoga—compared to both active and inactive controls—on physical function and health-related quality of life in older adults without a specific clinical condition reported the following findings.

Data from twenty-two randomized controlled trials included in the meta-analysis showed that yoga had significant benefits for physical function compared to inactive controls. These benefits included improvements in balance (effect size [ES] = 0.7), lower body flexibility (ES = 0.5), and lower limb strength (ES = 0.45). Compared to active controls, yoga also led to gains in lower limb strength (ES = 0.49) and lower body flexibility (ES = 0.28).

Furthermore, regarding health-related quality of life, yoga demonstrated significant positive effects compared to inactive controls in areas such as depression (ES = 0.64), perceived mental health (ES = 0.6), perceived physical health (ES = 0.61), sleep quality (ES = 0.65), and vitality (ES = 0.31). Compared to active controls, significant benefits were observed for depression (ES = 0.54).

For deeper dive return to the main article.

What Did We Learn?

Yoga, as a multimodal activity improves strength, balance and flexibility, as well as mental wellbeing
As such, the results of this study provide robust evidence for promoting yoga in physical activity guidelines

References

Barrows, J. L., & Fleury, J. (2015). Systematic review of yoga interventions to promote cardiovascular health in older adults. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 38, 753–781.

Department of Health. (n.d.). Physical activity benefits infographic for adults and older people. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/541233/Physical_activity_infographic.PDF(Accessed March 23, 2018)

Kelley, A. G., Kelley, S. K., & Tran, V. Z. (2001). Resistance training and bone mineral density in women: A meta-analysis of controlled trials. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 80, 65–77.

Lang, T., Streeper, T., Cawthon, P., Baldwin, K., Taaffe, D. R., & Harris, T. (2010). Sarcopenia: Etiology, clinical consequences, intervention, and assessment. Osteoporosis International, 21, 543–559.

Sivaramakrishnan, D., Fitzsimons, C., Kelly, P., Ludwig, K., Mutrie, N., Saunders, D. H., & Baker, G. (2019). The effects of yoga compared to active and inactive controls on physical function and health-related quality of life in older adults: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 16(1), 33. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-019-0791-2

United States Department of Health and Human Services. (2008). 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. https://health.gov/paguidelines/pdf/paguide.pdf(Accessed July 22, 2018)

Wang, Y. Y., Chang, H. Y., & Lin, C. Y. (2014). Systematic review of yoga for depression and quality of sleep in the elderly. Journal of Nursing, 61, 85–92.

Youkhana, S., Dean, C. M., Wolff, M., Sherrington, C., & Tiedemann, A. (2016). Yoga-based exercise improves balance and mobility in people aged 60 and over: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Age and Ageing, 45, 21–29.

Disclaimer: This post is primarily based on the original research by Sivaramakrishnan et al. (2019), and credit should be given to the original authors.