health & fitness

Yoga is a great form of exercise that can help you build strength, flexibility, and balance, but it may not be the most effective way to build large amounts of muscle mass.

While yoga does use your body weight as resistance and can help build lean muscle over time, it generally doesn't provide the same level of muscle-building stimulus as more traditional strength training exercises, such as weightlifting. However, certain types of yoga, such as power yoga or hot yoga, may provide a more intense workout that can help build muscle more effectively.

That being said, the amount of muscle you can build with yoga will depend on a variety of factors, including your body type, your fitness level, the specific types of yoga you practice, and the frequency and intensity of your practice.

If your goal is to build large amounts of muscle mass, you may want to consider incorporating additional strength training exercises into your routine, such as weightlifting or bodyweight exercises. However, if you're looking for a low-impact, full-body workout that can help you build functional strength and flexibility, yoga can be a great option.

Yoga actually can be a pretty difficult exercise, in contrast to what many people believe.
While it is generally a more slow paced exercise that mainly utilizes your body weight, it can still be a very difficult workout.

Yoga uses muscles you may not actually use on a daily basis or in other sports, and it puts you in positions that are quite difficult to hold for those that are not used to it or new to yoga.

In addition to the difficulty on the muscles in terms of holding positions, yoga also puts you in positions that require more flexibility than you may have. These poses may stretch your muscles in ways that cause slight pain or discomfort, just as stretching before or after exercises.

If the pain you are feeling is different or is more intense, then it may actually be a more serious reason and is something that should be checked. You can ask the yoga instructor about this pain, it may be a sore muscle, or a weakness in some muscles, in this case, they can give you different poses or variations of the poses for you to do until you build the strength and flexibility to be able to do the original pose.