icon-account icon-glass

Join the community!

We'll keep you up to date with interesting news, product information and offers so you never miss out.

No boring newsletters and we'll never share your address. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Popular Products

The Lean Protein
Whey protein powder for weight-loss.
The Energy Booster
Pre/intra-workout powder with BCAAs.
The Glow Booster
Collagen supplement for skin.

Our Must-Read Guide To Getting Started With Yoga

30th March 2023

30th March 2023

By Adele Webb

Calling all yoga newbies!

We can all claim the fact that the past few years have not been an easy ride. With the world constantly throwing out new challenges for us to deal with (yeah that’s you COVID), and our stress levels rising as a result of this, there has never been a better time than the present to embark on your very own yoga journey.

Now, you may be questioning – ‘but I’m not flexible?’ and ‘there’s no way I can lift my legs above my head?’. However, yoga is not just about stretching your body into difficult poses, but a combination of physical and mental exercises to calm both the mind and strengthen one’s core. We all need a bit of that right now.

Yoga is in fact steeped in tradition and on further inspection more complex, with the philosophy of yoga a massive topic that even us here at Innermost won’t be able to go fully into – just saving you reading pages on pages. For beginner’s yoga, it is always beneficial to know the basics, so instead we have enclosed a handy guide giving you all the necessary details to get started…let’s just take it one stretch at a time.

History Of Yoga

Yoga’s rich history is vast and complicated, with a timeframe dating back around 5,000 years ago. From religion, philosophy, and of course the form of exercise we know it as today, the origins are somewhat cloudy. However, it has been stated that the earliest signs of yoga are in fact from the Vedic Period around 1500-500 BCE. Instead of exercise, this was found as transcriptions in Vedic literature. The written poems and hymns were thought to have encouraged spiritual enlightenment through a broadening of the mind, body, and soul.

Travelling from this period, yoga adapted through the Pre-Classical, Classical, and Post-Classical periods until it reached the current Modern Period from 1900 onwards. Seeing the presence of yoga in the West wasn’t actually well-known until the late 1800’s. The two main reasons for its spread were due to both Monks and Gurus spreading their knowledge within their local communities which then went from mouth to mouth, and also through travellers to India hearing all about this fascinating state of mind. They subsequently travelled back to their homeland to spread their exciting findings. Yoga was and still is a hot topic.

Yoga Today

Bringing us all very much back to the present, yoga is practised throughout the globe – from professional classes hosted by an instructor to a solo session at home upon an exercise mat. Today, yoga centres around the ethos of living in harmony with the universe - a physical, mental and spiritual system that us humans can practice to get in touch with our senses and ourselves. The three main aspects are focused around asana (poses), breathing exercises and meditation. However, unknown to many, there are in fact eight limbs of practice:

  • The Yamas – moral principles
  • The Niyamas – personal conduct
  • Asana – the physical exercises
  • Pranayama – breathing exercises
  • Pratyahara – control of the senses
  • Dharana – one-pointed focus on meditation
  • Dhyana – devotion
  • Samadhai – union with a higher power

Within the most common arm of practice, the physical exercises (Asana), you'll find all sorts of styles:

  • Alignment-focused Iyengar Yoga
  • Sweaty Ashtanga Yoga
  • Relaxing Restorative Yoga
  • Cardiovascular Rocket Yoga
  • Spiritual Kundalini Yoga
  • Deep Yin Yoga

Within some styles, there’s huge variety based on who’s teaching. For instance, a Vinyasa class could be fast and led by pop music, or silent with deep holds and controlled movement. In short, your physical yoga practice can be as hard as you want it to be.

Whilst each of this will bring their own unique benefits, whichever you pick, throwing yourself headfirst into a steady yoga routine will have profound benefits on your system:

  • Increases strength, flexibility, and physical fitness
  • Decreases anxiety, pain and depression
  • Grounds emotions
  • Allows you to focus on the present instead of the past or future
  • Lightens the weight on your shoulders, creating peace
  • Allows time for appreciation

Knowing all this information is good and all – but the tricky component is knowing where to start. First and foremost, before yoga – you should always warm up!

Warming Up For Yoga

As for any sports and activities, we all know that allowing your body to warm up prior is important for both performance and injury prevention. Yoga is no exception here. You may be questioning that surely as yoga is composed of stretches it could be counter-intuitive to warm up first as you’ll be warming your body up as you go along. This is incorrect. A pre-yoga warm up is great for many reasons including heating up the body from within to increase blood and fluid circulation, loosening muscles and joints, as well as getting your body and mind fully prepped for a session. It allows you to focus on the task in hand.

If you are someone that attends a class, then your practitioner will lay the warm-up sequence for you. However, if you are embarking on this solo, then the general rule of thumb is that warming up should last for around 5 to 15 minutes until your skin is warm to the touch and your heartbeat is elevated. Some of our best yoga warm-ups include the palm tree pose, pelvic tilt, planks, and leg stretches.   

What Kit Will You Need For Yoga?

So, you have decided to finally take the plunge and have either joined a local class or have cleared some space within your own four walls to practice yoga at home - but what kit will you need? For many, this may conjure up an expensive shopping spree of picking out patterned leggings and tops, large drinks bottle as big as your head, and a fancy roll up mat. Buying equipment for this new endeavour doesn’t have to break the bank, and you’ll probably find that you already have some of these within your possession already – great idea to have a good house rummage we think.

  • Movement friendly clothing – leggings, loose fitting trousers, or shorts, tops (opt for ones that won't ride up) or sports bras, hair ties or headbands.
  • Yoga Mat – roughly 2 feet by 6 feet in size. Many studios will provide these!
  • A bottle filled with an energy kick in the form of The Health Protein!
  • A small towel.

When things get a little more serious you may also want to consider:

  • Yoga block
  • Mat towels (great for hot yoga classes!)
  • Mat carrier – if bringing your own mat

Best Beginner Yoga Moves

You know all the vital yoga background information – tick. You have bought all the necessary equipment to get started – tick. Now it’s onto finding your signature yoga position. Let’s start easy here. First up we have Sukhasana, a simple pose that helps ease stress. For this one, you need to sit crossed-legged on your yoga mat with your hands on your knees and your palms facing up. Here you need to make sure you keep your spine as straight as humanly possible and with your bottom bones – push these into the floor. Now all you need to do is close your eyes and inhale – relax.

This next one is great for those of us who suffer with back pain. Start by getting onto you mat in an all four position with your hands in line with your shoulders and knees inline with your hips. Even out your weight equally and spread your fingertips wide. Now it is time to inhale, and as you do this your echoing movement should be to arch your back and lower your chin towards your chest. Hold…and then exhale back to your starting position. These are only some of the best yoga poses – with so many more to get started with.

Summary

We hope that has answered all your yoga related queries – I’m sure you have now conjured up a newfound excitement to progress with your beckoning yoga pathway. We all have to start somewhere, and of course improvement is only achieved through practice. Practice makes perfect after all. So start the journey of connecting with your mind, body and spirit through signing up to a local yoga class, or by rolling out that yoga mat in your living room. Us beginners are ready to pose…

    What's the next step?

    Head to your local studio and they’ll probably have some kind of introductory offer.

    We recommend that you chat to the staff team and find out the more introductory classes to start with, and as you become more confident with your abilities, you can begin to work your way on to try as many styles/teachers as you can until you find some that resonate with you.

    If your studio's options are limited, try online yoga like Udaya. They're ace!

    Bottom line, ignore the hype, don't get involved in the drama and let your yoga practice be a personal experience. Check out the below for some more information on getting started with yoga, too:

    Product Spotlight

    Need Expert Advice?

    Other Insights

    What Is CrossFit And How Do I Get Started?
    There’s a plenty of discussion around CrossFit exercise at the moment and for good reason. What once started as a simple workout concept has now grown to engage entire open workout communities; all with one goal – building a supportive and multidisciplinary workout. With more than 15,000 affiliate CrossFit gyms across the world and over 500 in the UK, you’d probably assume everyone knows what the workout involves and how you can get started right?    Well… Despite its popularity CrossFit still remains one of the most misunderstood workouts around. Asking someone to explain its meaning will 9 times out of 10 give you a long ‘uhh’ followed by words like “tough”, “intense” and “athletic”. It’s this preconceived notion that it’s only for those at the peak of their fitness that can make the prospect of starting so intimidating. What if I instead told you that CrossFit offers the optimal full-body workout for everyone – especially those looking to begin their fitness journey? We at Innermost have prepared this all-in-one guide to clear up a few misconceptions about the workout and make the prospect of getting started a breeze.    What Is CrossFit? It’s important to understand exactly what CrossFit actually is, what it involves, and how it can benefit your workout routine. Unlike strength training and cardio exercises that target specific muscles in the body, CrossFit aims to build entire body muscle mass through sequential high-intensity workouts. Established in 2000 by Greg and Lauren Glassman, what also makes CrossFit so unique is that individual routines are entirely flexible and as such no two workouts are the same. While training will be tough, you and your trainer can create perfectly scaled CrossFit workouts to improve your relative fitness. These alterations could be based on the duration, type, speed, load, and frequency of your training. You will thrive in a genuinely varied but personalised training program that is crafted to improve your functional strength and conditioning. It’s also important to remember that CrossFit improvement is based just as much on diet and nutrition as the training itself.  By pairing your workout with supplements like Innermost’s The Fit Protein you will be able to push your workouts comfortably further than most. Benefits Of CrossFit Whether you’re looking to lose weight, keep fit, or build muscle, it’s no surprise to say that CrossFit workouts have plenty of benefits. This is because the variety of functional high-intensity exercises within each session allows for positive physical effects all across the body. CrossFit functional workouts benefit these 10 core fitness areas: Cardiovascular endurance – Your ability to gather oxygen. Stamina – The processing, storing, and utilising of body energy. Strength – Your muscle’s ability to apply force. Flexibility – Maximises the motion of your joints. Power – The speed to which you can apply maximum muscle power in the quickest time. Speed – The efficiency of repeated movements. Coordination – Merging multiple movements into a single motion. Agility – Minimises the transition time between your movements. Balance – Control over your body’s centre of gravity. Accuracy – Your control over movements. While this might sound like a lot, trust me, getting into it is not as complicated as it sounds. Most of these core tenants are built into multiple individual exercises, providing a diverse range of benefits for your body. With a strong sense of community within each gym, taking part in CrossFit can also greatly improve your mood and even mental health.   How To Get Started Now you know why you should give CrossFit a go, you might be anxious about how exactly to start your workout routine. Remember, everyone has to start somewhere, so don’t go pushing too hard at the start before you can walk. With that in mind, here are a few key pointers to get started. Preparation First of all, get some appropriate training gear. Those who try CrossFit training in standard Vans will quickly realise the need for versatile and durable footwear. Your cross shoes should be fully supportive of multiple movement patterns and applied forces. You also want to look for workout tops and bottoms that are fully adept at soaking up a sweat – the last thing you want is to be itching the whole time. Finding The Right Gym The next step is to find the perfect personal trainer and CrossFit gym. This is something unique to everyone. Will you be motivated more by a gym with a supportive or competitive culture? When do you want to attend and what is the standard of coaching like? Most CrossFit facilities provide a trial period which we recommend you use first to get a feel of whether the gym works for you. Tailor Your Workout Before the first workout, it’s a good idea to work out what you want to achieve. As previously mentioned, exercises are completely scalable meaning they can be tailored to you. Are you looking to build strength, endurance, or speed? Do you want to focus on concentric or eccentric exercises? Even if you’re recovering from injury, CrossFit can be altered to speed up rehabilitation rather than force you to push through the pain. Track Your Progress Getting started with CrossFit is all about having a journey-based mindset to develop ability and fitness. No one is reaching the stars on session 1, but by tracking your training ‘firsts’ and personal bests you’ll have added excitement and motivation to keep going from the get-go. Tracking your progress from the start has also been scientifically proven to drive improvement in performance and goal attainment. We’d also recommend monitoring you’re nutrition and protein intake and looking at how it improves your workout. Consider adding one of Innermost’s many supplements such as our Fit Protein Powder to your daily routine. CrossFit Exercises For Beginners For individuals just being introduced to the world of CrossFit, knowing which exercises and training plans to go with can feel intimidating. To make things easier for you, here are just a few workouts to try that are perfect for those at the start of their training. Every Minute On The Minute (EMOM)  EMOM workouts are fairly self-explanatory but perfect for your development plans. These workouts see individuals deviate between start and rest exercise intervals while completing as many reps as possible. By measuring performance across a defined time period, progress and recovery can be closely monitored.   As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) While AMRAP exercises can be tough they make for the perfect introductory CrossFit workout. Essentially, it’s all about quick-time high-intensity aerobic exercise. The focus is pushing yourself to complete as many exercise reps as possible within a given time and monitoring your progress. Ladder  Ladder workouts are also a good choice for CrossFit beginners, as they provide the best of both training plans. Instead of high-intensity or interval workouts, muscle workload is increased or decreased over a given amount of time. This change in muscle demand offers great benefits to speed and agility.     Interested to learn more about Innermost The Fit Protein? Looking for the ultimate gym bag essentials? Maybe you want to share your own experiences of getting into CrossFit? Message us on our Instagram @liveinnermost. Read more
    The Exercise Ball Workouts You Didn't Know You Needed