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I am a big fan of yoga. I am looking to start practicing at least 3 times a week. My issue is I do not have time for a trainer as my job is time consuming. I have tried watching videos but I get annoyed with the spiritual aspects. Does anyone know of any video series or books that teach Yoga primarily focused on the physical exercise rather than the spiritual guidance?

Sorry, I also wanted to say I am not looking to offend anyone. That is just not what I am looking for in an exercise.

John
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    Are you comfortable doing something besides Yoga, such as Pilates? – Aaron McIver Feb 15 '12 at 23:55
  • As an atheist, Yoga is exercise and church at the same time for me (at least the closest thing to it). I go to classes occasionally and a good instructor / environment is key to making it work. As far as non-new age stuff goes - I agree with the P90x answer - it's really quite a good Yoga workout. – Koobz Jul 04 '12 at 22:07
  • I encourage you to find a class some day if you've never had the chance. – Koobz Jul 04 '12 at 22:13
  • What do you mean by "spiritual"? Pranayama and meditation-like exercises? – Olav Oct 21 '12 at 17:29
  • Or "Spiritual talk" – Olav Oct 21 '12 at 17:29
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    Voting to close as this is basically a shopping recommendation. Judging from the title this could have been a good question, but asks for list of books and videos. The StackExchange model isn't made for these types of questions. – Baarn Sep 03 '13 at 12:39
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    i think most yoga studios are strictly physical with no 'religios' elements. i know that Bikram Yoga is for sure. – amphibient Dec 09 '13 at 18:47
  • There have been various attempts to divorce the physical praxis from the religion, most of them in prior century. Just focus on the physical doing up to and including breathing and concentration/relaxation, body consciousness, and ignore the religion. Kinda funny that even some people that call themselves atheists are actually, in effect, religious. – Juan Daugherty Apr 04 '16 at 01:06
  • I like Tara Stiles on YouTube. They are short videos, but I have found her yoga practices to be refreshingly non-spiritual. I think she does say ‘namaste’ at he end of some of them, but many times it’s just ‘great job, see you next time’. :) – Hannah Jul 06 '18 at 16:29

9 Answers9

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First of all yoga is not a physical exercise. What people call Yoga in the west is actually called HathaYoga which deals with the body. HathaYoga involves the whole body system including the breath. If you do it only as a pose, it gives only the benefits what a normal strech will give you. Yoga is powerful and it will do miracles only with that spiritual element(I mean not religious). It can be more dangerous sometimes if you do it unproperly. Yoga is like electricity, it is of great potential,but if you handle it improperly it can cause great damage.

If you really want a great result to your body system, it has to be done in a certain way.There are some good teachers out there who can teach you that.

Still If you want something totally non spiritual, there are some less complex poses which can be done at home..

shiv
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    Hi shiv, glad to see your answer here and thanks for sharing that perspective. Is there more information that could provide that could address the user's question then? –  Aug 30 '12 at 15:01
  • A wise man about the real yoga. See this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV7BrUs9HFQ – user1539 Dec 12 '12 at 00:42
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Look for the p90x yoga, ok it's a big package with everything (kenpo, abs, weight training) but the yoga dvd is really nice; no spiritualism: only poses (and hard one)

It's a bit pricy but it's a good buy

The other solution would be to look poses on the internet and time yourself for every poses, no need of a dvd.

Greg
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  • I definitely agree with this. It is a very good yoga workout which can accommodate beginners and experts alike. – Moses Feb 15 '12 at 22:18
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    Sorry it took me so long to vote the answer. I actually tried the p90x and really liked it. Thanks. – John Jul 05 '12 at 04:41
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If a physical exercise program is what you want: what about "Pilates"? (DVD Sample I haven't tried it myself)

Do you also want develop mindfulness but without any far-eastern "religiousness"?

Do you want to get rid even of the "breathing part" of yoga? Then be warned: Breathing also seems to play a large role in Pilates.

Community
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knb
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    -1 This is no way answers the question. – Aaron McIver Feb 14 '12 at 18:30
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    @Aaron, you have just voted down all 3 answers in a sweep. Seems too harsh to me. Why are you so fixated on the "yoga" keyword of the title? I for one, however, think the question could be generalized a little bit. Therefore I pointed him to Pilates, and in the answer I've linked to a DVD is mentioned - exactly what the OP asked for. To my understanding, he didn't say something like "Please make some recommendations, I'll consider them as long as it's about yoga". – knb Feb 14 '12 at 21:35
  • The question was simple, Does anyone know of any video series or books that teach Yoga primarily focused on the physical exercise rather than the spiritual guidance? You mentioned Pilates, not in book nor video form mind you, that in no way answers the question at hand. This isn't about being harsh, it's about trying to hold the answers to a higher standard. – Aaron McIver Feb 14 '12 at 21:40
  • @aaron "about trying to hold the answers to a higher standard" - no you are just enforcing others to read questions in a verbatim mode. – knb Feb 14 '12 at 21:51
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    @Aaron actually, I believe knb made a very good answer. Pilates are considered by many to be Yoga without the spiritualism, though that may be a over-generalization. knb thought outside the box and ended up making a great recommendation which John may not have taken into account. +1 – Moses Feb 15 '12 at 22:16
  • I will check out Pilates. – John Feb 23 '12 at 18:44
  • Pilates and Yoga are completely different. – jontyc May 23 '14 at 11:22
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I started with yoga at SATS, one of the local Swedish gym chains. Their approach is focused on the physical part of yoga, they have their own branded style "SATS Yoga". For me, that was a good choice. Just for experimentation, I have tried other, more spiritual forms but it was not for me.

I put my own routine in place based on the SATS yoga and exercises I picked up from YouTube and DVD. One form developed in Sweden that I think has a more independent perspective vis a vis the spiritual (based on a workshop over a couple of evenings a few yeras ago) is Viryayoga.

Regarding books, I can recommend two books: - Cool Yoga tricks by Austin, Miriam - Yoga as Medicine by Mccall, Timothy

FredrikD
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfvd8ZgU8rw

I turned up this on a search for "Yoga for Beginners" on YouTube.

It's good instruction for the sequence in "Flow" or "Vinyasa" classes. I'm not a huge fan of the spirituatl aspects (although I really do like pranayama classes), and there's nothing in there that annoyed me.

There are some longer yoga videos on YouTube as well, not sure which of them have a spiritual focus or a physical focus, but the spiritual bent should be evident quite quickly and you can just hit back and try a different one instead. You can run them in a different tab while you're doing other things on the net to vett them for spiritual content, and then select whichever ones you prefer for when you do your workouts.

For books, both Anatomy of Yoga by Leslie Kaminoff and Anatomy of Hatha Yoga by David Coulter, unsurprisingly based on the titles have a primarily physical focus. Kaminoff has a weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to as well.

Robin Ashe
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Ashtanga yoga and vinyasa flow styles are usually focused more on 'asana' (physical postures). This might be a good place to start: http://grimmly2007.blogspot.com/

There you can find tons of resources, reviews etc.

On developing a home practice: http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/developing-home-practice-parts-1-26.html

Book and DVD reviews: http://grimmly2007.blogspot.com/p/zdfbkdngf-wednesday-20-april-2011-still.html

Free practice ebook: http://grimmly2007.blogspot.com/p/my-complete-vinyasa-yoga-practice-book.html

On strength: http://grimmly2007.blogspot.com/search/label/Jump%20back%20jump%20through

BKE
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    Not sure if this is undisclosed advertisement. Please post more than link only answers, as soon as the blog dies your answer will be useless. – Baarn Sep 04 '13 at 14:51
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I feel exactly like you, I'm most concerned about the physical part of yoga.

I'm not an expert, but I enjoyed the Power Yoga classes from Bryan Kest, especially the 2nd:

An innovative series of lunge moves provides the primary activity in this workout that emphasizes finding your personal edge - the maximal yoga pose that still permits proper yogic breathing. Kest guides you and an in-studio class in a total-body regime that helps maintain flexibility and suppleness while building strength and well-being. Features comprising various poses are described so that you can add elements as you become more adept.

cYrus
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Video lessons contains poses and and can fast-forward video lessons directly to poses and concentrate on the exercise perfromance.

But note that yoga is a spiritual practice. Probably you don't need yoga, but some fitness program to achieve your goals.

Sergey P. aka azure
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  • -1 This is no way answers the question. – Aaron McIver Feb 14 '12 at 18:30
  • @Aaron While it might not be an ideal answer, and while you might not agree, "fast forward through the spirituality" and "maybe yoga is inseparable from the spirituality" are most definitely answers to the original question. – Dave Liepmann Feb 14 '12 at 22:00
  • @DaveLiepmann Does anyone know of any video series or books that teach Yoga primarily focused on the physical exercise rather than the spiritual guidance? That was the question. Telling me to fast forward through a video does not provide me any video series or books that focus on the physical exercise. The answer is of no value IMHO, hence the -1. – Aaron McIver Feb 14 '12 at 22:21
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I can't give you a great answer, but I agree with you that the "other" things can be distracting sometimes. I've looked into this as well and found that if you look for "workout" videos with Yoga in then VS "yoga" videos that have workouts in them, you can find a few that are close.

My best suggestion would be Jillian's Yoga Meltdown. It's cheap, it's filmed in an actual gym, and it's more about fitness than "wholeness" and all that.

Amazon link to Yoga Meltdown

Matt
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