Yoga for Men: Why Guys Should Practice Yoga
It’s the Summer of 2020. The world had just shut down due to the Covid pandemic. Like many men across the world at that point in time, I felt trapped. My local gym was closed and I was forced to get creative with how I got my daily workout in.
It’s funny to look back on this time. My creative solution to moving my body while being stuck at home took many shapes that year. From digital beach body workouts in my tiny apartment living room to riding a hand-me-down road bike my brother gave me. I tried it all.
During that same Summer, my partner Keirst was getting more curious about the practice of yoga. She had attempted for months to get me to join her for some in-studio classes. For some reason, I had resistance. I dropped into a few classes here and there but never fully committed to developing a practice. Admittedly, I didn’t even understand the concept of what a yoga “practice” meant.
Similar to what comes up in conversations when I talk with other men about yoga, I simply didn’t think that I had the flexibility to be “good” at it. It just wasn’t for me. Until it was. Reflecting back, it seems things hit an inflection point. The world was a drastically different place and a dramatic shift was taking place both internally and externally.
After one too many beach body workouts, I decided to give yoga another shot. Deciding to commit, I was already transformed and I was just getting started.
Free Youtube yoga classes became part of my weekly routine. I recall vividly when a 15-minute yoga flow was about as much as I could handle. As I continued to develop my practice, a few days a week on my mat quickly turned into a nightly routine.
This is when certain things in my life started to became clear to me. My body felt good. My mind was clearer. I started to become more emotionally confident. As time went on, I kept finding myself craving those precious minutes and hours on my mat.
Over the course of the last 5 years, I’ve continued to develop a consistent yoga practice. No, it’s not perfect and that’s the point. As a male, here are a few of the learnings that have held the greatest impact on my life and why I strongly believe why men should practice yoga.
Increase your emotional intelligence
As men, many of us (not all) are led to believe that we should not or cannot express emotions. We’re told that it’s a sign of weakness. But following this line of thinking can often lead us down the path of failure in various areas of our life. Unhealthy relationships, physical, mental and emotional stress, lack of boundaries, and the inability to clearly communicate are just a few examples.
As I sit here and write this post from my life experience, I can say for certain that this is one of the most valuable learnings that yoga has taught me. I would not be the partner I am today without developing emotional intelligence directly via the time spent on my yoga mat.
As you develop a consistent practice, you quickly learn that your mat is the place you can return to as your most wholesome, authentic self. No matter if you had a horrible day or the best day ever, it’s the space that is there for you, without judgment. To move and breath through life’s ups and downs which in turn results in training yourself how to regulate your nervous system.
Stimulate Self-Growth
When we’re told as children that we should not express our emotions, the only other option is to bottle things up only to never see the light of day again or until we reach a point of explosion. Neither are ideal states for us as humans. We are complex beings. When we bottle up emotions, it simultaneously blurs our mental clarity. When we lack mental clarity, we lose sight of who we are, of the things that truly matter to us and where we want to go.
Developing a consistent yoga practice increases our mental clarity in turn increasing self-growth. In other words, we begin to learn who we really are. We learn how to say no to things that no longer serve us and say yes to the things that are more aligned. This opens a world of opportunities.
Learn how to Soften & Open
If you’re not familiar with the practice of yoga or have not experimented with the likes of meditation, this one may sound a bit odd. But hear me out. When we practice yoga, many of the poses help you understand when and how to soften. In other words, to loosen your grip or release tension in the body.
We all hold tension in our bodies. For me, it’s my upper back. Yoga helps you build awareness so that you know when you are clinching your jaw, or holding your shoulders up to your ears. The more that we practice, the more that this awareness makes its way into our daily life.
Ever heard of the term surrender? When we learn how to soften, we learn how to surrender to life’s challenges and to the things we cannot control. Someone cuts you off in traffic? No worries. Argument with your partner? Not worth it. We learn to recognize these negative patterns and are then able to choose a different path. The path of peace. We learn how to respond rather than react. Believe me when I say that life is much easier this way.
Yoga also guides us to become more open. Open to new relationships, to new opportunities and to life’s abundance. And with this, we learn how to become more vulnerable. When we become confident with being vulnerable, it means that we are comfortable with who we are.
I can confirm this to be more than true from my experience. As I’ve worked to become more open as a male, I’ve forged friendships that are much more aligned with the things that are important to me and have built a stronger understanding of what a healthy relationship means. I’ve also encountered more than just a few serendipitous life experiences where you sit and wonder if the universe is actually listening to your every word. Trusting and being open to what’s out there might just result in putting you exactly where you need to be.
Reinforce your other athletic pursuits
Beyond the mental and emotional benefits of practicing yoga, there are obvious physical benefits as well. Although the physical benefits are secondary in my opinion. If you spend much of your waking hours pursuing various physical activities, yoga is a great counterbalance.
For me personally, I love bikepacking and cycling. I live a very active lifestyle which can be taxing on my body. Yoga helps me slow down… like way down. It also helps me build strength in various muscle groups, tendons and ligaments that would otherwise not get much attention through my typical strength training or outdoors pursuits. And yes, it certainly helps increase mobility and flexibility.
If I could synthesize the above points into just a few sentences, here’s how I would explain it. As a male, if you are curious about ways to become a better partner, father, son, brother, the answer lies within. It doesn’t mean that we need to become stronger. Progress in these areas of your life come from committing to the consistency of the inner work. And learning how to come back to your mat is a great vehicle for facilitating this type of growth and change in life that so many of us are seeking.
