By Wendy Lemus, The Cary News, N.C.
Jul. 16–Rob Rose of Apex figured if yoga is good enough for football players, he’d give it a try.
Eric Aittala of Apex had a shoulder injury from his martial-arts practice that never quite healed “100 percent.” He began taking yoga five months ago.
And Thani Kumar Cheran, a retired Cary engineer, says that at the age of 70 he feels more energetic these days thanks to his yoga practice. Yes, men are doing yoga, too.
They’re gaining strength, flexibility and overall health benefits from doing those same downward dogs, triangles and plank poses that have brought women to gyms and yoga studios in record numbers the last couple of decades.
After all, men face many of the same challenges as women — they’re seeking ways to relieve stress, improve fitness or just work out the kinks from our culture’s largely sedentary, but often stressful, lifestyle.
Men sit at computers all day, too, causing neck and shoulder tightness.
They’ve got knee problems and back problems and other ailments that have long had women seeking remedy in yoga.
Aittala has a black belt in hapkido — he’s an instructor at Raleigh Institute of Martial Arts. He also works out daily at the gym at Cisco Systems Inc., where he works in tech support.
He had surgery on his shoulder two years ago and recently started yoga to “try something different to try to rehab it,” he said.
“It’s getting stronger,” he said. “It’s not 100 percent but [yoga has] definitely made a difference.”
Rose also sits at a computer, resulting in that chronic shoulder tightness that so many computer users feel.
So when Rose took a yoga class offered at his church several years ago, the practice seemed a good fit.
“I kind of knew I would like it,” he said.
He even talked his wife into signing up for classes.
In addition to the physical relief that yoga offers for his neck and shoulders, Rose enjoys other benefits as well.
“It’s a great way to get your mind off most everything,” he said.
It’s hard to let your mind drift when you’re concentrating on sun salutations or warrior sequences, or remembering just to breathe.
And it’s a great workout, Rose said.
“I like to sweat, so I work pretty hard when I’m there,” he said.
Yes, gentlemen, don’t let what you might have heard about yoga — the meditation, the calming relaxation — fool you, Aittala said. “Yoga’s hard if you do it right.”
(Disclaimer: Yoga teachers will tell you that yoga is as challenging as one wants it to be; let your body decide. And yoga should never cause pain.)
It can be a challenge even for those who consider themselves physically fit, said Donna Enichen, a group fitness coordinator at the Cary Family YMCA who also teaches yoga at Peak Fitness in MacGregor Village.
“Men who can bench 100-plus pounds and think they’ve got it all going on, they come in and do a plank or chaturanga. Their abs sag, it kicks their butts,” Enichen said. “Sometimes holding a pose is a challenge in itself.”
Well, yoga used to be more challenging for Cheran when he first started taking classes four or five years ago. He didn’t even like it at first, calling it “monotonous.”
The more he practiced, the more he caught on and the easier it became.
“The more I did it the more I started liking it,” he said.
Cheran said he does other things, too, such as a “body flex” class offered at Peak Fitness where he has been a member for 11 years. He also does Pilates occasionally.
Historically men were the main practitioners of the ancient practice that combines breath and movement. But Cheran said yoga wasn’t widely practiced at all when he lived in India, where yoga originated thousands of years ago.
“I lived [in India] until I was 29 years old and I had rarely seen anybody doing yoga,” Cheran said.
Like in the West, media have more recently popularized the modern-day practice there.
Men are doing yoga, but in America those seas of purple and blue mats are still largely navigated by women.
According to a Yoga Journal article, a 2005 study showed 77 percent of practitioners were women. And that same article said only one in 10 subscribers to the magazine are men.
Even with those numbers, Enichen said she has seen more men both taking yoga classes and learning to become instructors.
“I feel men are becoming more comfortable going into a yoga class,” Enichen said.
When Enichen first started taking yoga about eight years ago, “it used to be ‘Oh look, there’s a man in class,'” she said. “Now it’s not an exceptional class if I have four or five men.”
Enichen said men and women can enjoy the same benefits from yoga practice including more flexibility — men tend to be less flexible than women — strength and lower blood pressure as well as learning to live in the present, be nonjudgmental and quiet the mind.
The first hurdle for men, though, may be getting through the door that first time. Apprehension and not knowing what to expect may be holding some back, Enichen said.
But what many men who have made it past that threshhold realize is that yoga has become an integral part of their overall well being.
Even though Cheran says he is gradually taking more “body flex” classes, yoga will always be a part of his routine.
“When I started I did not even know how to breathe [properly],” he said. “[Now] I make it a point to come if I’m not out of town.”
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