Many patients ask me if  yoga is enough exercise, or great exercise, or the perfect exercise.  I cringe to inform you that the way most of you are doing it, yoga is NOT enough.  Yoga is wonderful for so many reasons: to find nirvana, to stretch the body, to settle the mind and to strengthen the body – but most of you are not doing the strength poses.  Not only that,  but yoga is complicated and it is really easy to hurt yourself if you have a weak back, tight muscles and take those poses too far.  In fact, I recommend one-on-one yoga training before going to yoga class.  (You can get one-on-one yoga training at the cutting edge training studio 4 Ever Fit in Saratoga – see Google and Yelp – and I recommend all my patients do that!)  When performed correctly, yoga is a great solution that provides strength, flexibility and peace of mind.  Don’t forget that a complete exercise program would also include cardio for endurance and heart strength as well as weight training or interval training.  A varied exercise program is the most fun and the most complete.   Happy Holidays!