A no-nonsense introduction to yoga for men who want to build strength, improve performance, and increase flexibility.
Maximize your athletic performance, reduce your post-workout aches, and help prevent injuries with yoga. With more than 25 yoga routines and over 50 key postures, you’ll discover how yoga can make you stronger, fitter, and more flexible. Professional athletes are making yoga a regular part of their fitness routines, and GQ, HuffPost, and Men’s Health have all advocated yoga for men.
Flexibility is one of the most important yet overlooked elements of fitness, and stretching has been proven to help you improve your gains in the gym, prevent and relieve injuries, and help you beat your competition on the field. If your muscles are tight, they won’t let your body move as it should. Yoga increases flexibility, building a bigger range of motion and allowing you to work more muscle fibers with every movement.
With straightforward language and easy-to-follow steps, Yoga Fitness for Men will teach you how to execute the key yoga postures you need for greater endurance, flexibility, balance, and strength–no chanting required. It also includes yoga routines and programs tailored to help you meet specific performance and health goals, such as increased core strength and back pain relief.
You’ll find that incorporating yoga into your training will help you get stronger, play harder, and feel better.
Reviews of Yoga Fitness for Men
Yoga Fitness for Men Review 1: This is the definitive book on Yoga for the athletic man
Really put together well. I started Yoga years ago and then dropped out because the women were bending in places that were just impossible for me to get to–I am very muscular and athletic and if you look at a yoga book (not this one) or magazine you will see that the men in it are all very thin and not heavily muscled (Dean is what I call ‘heavily muscled’).
What he has done is bring the benefits of yoga to the athletic man, plain and simple. His explanations of how to get into the poses and what they do for you are excellent. He also has a set of yoga workouts targeted to various goals; e.g., restorative and strengthening, as well as programs for general fitness, athletic performance and spine and core targeting.
I could not be more pleased with this book.
Yoga Fitness for Men Review 2: Intelligent, well organized fitness centric book on yoga for men
Yoga Fitness for Men by Dean Pohlman is one fantastic book. This is the first day of publication. I received my pre-ordered copy. I was so impressed that the book jumped 25 other books in line to be read. I reviewed each and every page of the 190 page book.
Dean dispels several myths and then presents a very reasonable approach to using yoga for athletic, for body repair, for strengthening. Dean presents 55 poses, 25 workouts and 3 programs 2 for 12 weeks and one for 16 weeks.
Each of the 55 poses is presented on facing pages with starting posture or pose with complete detailed instructions, pro tips, if you can’t quite reach the full pose, text bubbles on the large well images that present the pose very very well. The only thing better would be to be in a class with Dean correcting your pose.
Each workout is on one or two facing pages with small images from the pose presentation and instruction.
Each workout is listed with references back to the workouts.
Dean himself is the model for all the many images in the book. Dean displays each and every pose in good detail, with easily followed directions.
The formatting and layout is superb. The images are all superb.
And I only saw one Sanskrit word in the whole book. Dean does mention the “spiritual” aspects as possible, then just does not ever refer to them again. There is no music, no chanting, no prolonged holding of hands in prayer position.
A purist could argue with the English names of the poses, the choice of poses, and the emphasis on athleticism and posture and body repair.
I highly recommend this book for all men with even a passing interest in doing yoga, as this makes yoga accessible to men of all ages. This is a fitness centric book doing exactly what it claims, “to get [men] stronger, improve mobility, and prevent injury.”
Yoga Fitness for Men Review 3: Yoga Fitness for Everyone
Full disclosure: I’m not a man, and I came very close to passing on this book because of the title. I am so glad that I purchased it anyway. While the book is marketed to men, the content applies to anyone interested in yoga for fitness.
The bulk of the book is dedicated to a detailed pose guide, which is exceptional. Not only does it show the final pose, it uses pictures to explain how to get there, with detailed descriptions of how it should feel as well as look. Some of them even offer modified versions, which can be used to work up to the full pose.
This book has given me a much better understanding of poses that I have struggled with than any class I have taken. Whether you’re new to yoga or have been practicing for years, this book is an essential reference.