Is your usual mode of movement feeling a little stale? Are you just going through the motions with your daily yoga practice? Mix it up a bit with a fast, efficient yogalates routine.
What Is Yogalates?
Yogalates is a combination of yoga and Pilates. Like yoga, Pilates tends to be low-impact, with a focus on core strength and correct posture.
That said, the strength-building component is more intense than many yoga flows. This is why yoga practitioners love Pilates, too; it is a fast-track to a stronger core, which helps them access more challenging yoga asanas.
Plus, it can help you tone up a little faster than many styles of yoga if that’s one of your goals. The main benefit of adding yoga to Pilates is that yoga helps us improve flexibility better than perhaps any other exercise. Flexibility preserves mobility and makes other types of activity and movement safer for our joints and muscles.
Whether or not you’re new to Pilates, yoga, or both, know this - they require patience and mindfulness. Yoga and Pilates ask us to settle into position, engage certain areas of the body and stay trained on our breath. So if you’re looking for active mindfulness practice, look no further.
Yogalates with Dansique Fitness - and Silent Mind!
Our friend Desiree at Dansique Fitness recently shared the perfect yogalates routine. Best of all, it clocks in at just under 30 minutes!
This beautiful yogalates flow starts just right with a Silent Mind singing bowl. The sound of a singing bowl has long been used to mark the beginning and end of any practice that’s sacred to the user.
From there, we begin warming up with some gentle, easy yoga postures. They lead into even more lengthening and gently strengthening postures until the real core work begins. While it isn’t too intense for cautious beginners, this was a good time to revisit and improve upon our side plank!
The final third of the flow is particularly invigorating, as it centers on a popular yoga inversion - plow pose. As we stimulate blood flow to the heart and head, we enjoy moderately paced, highly controlled leg-toning Pilates movements.
Finally, our workout is capped off by a brief seated stretch and a nice, relaxing savasana.
If you want the satisfying, relaxed-yet-accomplished feeling we had after this routine, try it today. You can also check out more videos from Dansique Fitness, which offers plenty of ballet barre-based fitness and HIIT (high-intensity interval training) sessions to complement your flexibility-fostering yoga practice.
In Closing
The hardest part of any wellness routine is starting. Last week, we went over some ways that we can keep ourselves on track with at-home movement. It’s worth revisiting some of those suggestions as you give yogalates a try this week.
You’ll be glad you did!
How often do you exercise, or engage in mindful movement? Have you ever tried yogalates? How do incorporate your singing bowl into your yoga or exercise routine? We’d love to hear your thoughts below!
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