Week 4 – The Yoga Solution with Tara Stiles
This week I tried Yoga with Tara Stiles on Live Strong Woman YouTube channel. I wanted to see if these home Yoga routines would give me a cardio element as well as the tone and stretch I have experienced before. I began with the Cardio Workout which consists of a series of poses and transitions which are repeated at a reasonable pace. This definitely raised the heart rate and got the body nice and warm. The only draw back is if you are new to Yoga, you will need to follow some of her other videos first to learn the basic poses. Tara speaks quite fast which keeps you alert but at the same her tone is calm and steady. I repeated this sequence 4 times and by the end of it I was very sweaty and out of breath!
I then went onto the Full Body Yoga Routine. This was just as intense but incorporated some different poses which worked additional areas of the body which I repeated 4 times. The flow of this routines was lovely and the transitions created smooth movement through key areas such as the hips. With these transitions the core was also worked pretty hard along with the arms and chest. I real like Tara’s style of Yoga as it has a lovely combination of energising movements and focus.
How long did the whole thing take? – 60 minutes
What equipment do I need? – Mat or on carpet
Was it enjoyable and was the content good? – Yes. The routines left me feeling very tired but calm and lengthened at the same time. You got a good cardio element to the workout and still gained all the stretching and toning which usually comes when practising Yoga.
How did you feel the next day? – Interestingly my pecs (chest) felt very achy the next day, but not particularly anywhere else. My joints and muscles felt good from the movement of the routines as you moved through a lot of those niggly areas such as the hips.
Overall rating? – 8/10