Yoga is a healthy and fun exercise for men of all ages. Whether you’re looking for a means to relax your body after a long day of work, or a way to stretch after a strenuous exercise, yoga matches your needs perfectly. Yoga enhances your body and muscle movement, which leads to improved overall mobility and flexibility. You only require a yoga mat to begin your journey into a fit and flexible life. Selecting a proper mat for doing yoga is as important as doing yoga. Here, you will discover how to pick the right yoga mat for your needs.
What's the purpose of a yoga mat?
A yoga mat plays such a huge role in enhancing your yoga experience. Try imagining running a marathon without shoes. It may be possible at first, but the more you run, the more pain you feel in your feet. That is how doing yoga without a mat feels like. Mats cushion your joints and muscles from the cold hard floor. Yoga mats also prevent your hands and feet from slipping when doing extreme poses. Well, some may argue that you could replace a yoga mat with a cheap carpet but, carpets will give you rug burn if you use them while yoga mats won’t. Yoga mats are specially designed mats for doing yoga. A cheap mat also allows you to practice yoga in different environments and on different surfaces. Whether you’re doing yoga indoors or outdoors, a yoga mat will provide you the grounding support you need. On different floor types, concrete, wooden floors, mosaic tiles, a yoga mat ensures that your energy and body heat don’t get dissipated to the ground. If you like listen music during your activity then you can find here indoor and outdoor speakers.
How do you use a yoga mat?
A yoga mat isn’t at all difficult to use. Once you get to your desired location, ensure the surface you’re planning to practice on is free of any rubble and sharp objects as these could damage your mat and hurt you. Once you’ve cleaned out a nice area, you just roll out your mat and ensure it can lay flat. If you’re planning on doing a meditating pose like just sitting and crossing your legs, then that’s all you need. But if you plan on doing complex poses like the cat or cow pose, you want to ensure your mat is on a surface that isn't slippery. This will also help you maintain your balance and grip on the mat. If you’re in a yoga class, a yoga mat also helps you mark your space. Since yoga is an exercise that requires a lot of movement, defining your space is important to prevent collision during yoga class.
How do I choose the right yoga mat?
When it comes to selecting the right mat, there are several factors you will need to consider. First, if you sweat a lot or you practice yoga just after working out, you will prefer a mat with some grippy texture to a smooth one. There are different yoga mat textures to cater to different yogis’ preferences. A rough mat enhances grip while a smooth mat is comfortable for more laying poses. Also, if you’re a tall person, you will want to go for a much longer mat to accommodate your height. The material for the mat is also key when selecting a good mat. If you work out at home a lot, a firm rubber mat can also be used for workout routines such as leg ups, ab crunches, and planks. There are two different types of yoga mats; open-celled mats and closed-cell yoga mats. Open-celled yoga mats are made of porous fabric cells that can allow sweat and fluids to pass through into the mat. The absorbent quality prevents slippage while practicing yoga since it absorbs all the sweat from the mat’s surface. While open-celled mats are great for yoga, they pose a danger when they aren’t cleaned regularly. The absorbed sweat contains germs and therefore can cause infections if it comes in contact with an open wound. Closed-cell yoga mats on the other hand lack the absorbent quality of open-celled mats and hence can’t absorb sweat. This prevents the build-up of germs that can breed bacteria in the yoga mat pores. Whichever mat you settle on ultimately depends on the qualities you’re going for and what your preferences are.
Is it better to get a thick or thin yoga mat?
The thickness or thinness of the mat you need boils down to the comfort and cushioning you want. Yoga mats come in a variety of thicknesses, from extra thick to super thin. Thinner mats tend to maintain more stable contact with the ground, hence they allow you to shift poses easily without losing stability. Thicker mats, on the other hand, can provide your joints with a soft surface but tend to hinder movement from pose to pose since the squishiness hinders stability to a degree. If you have achy joints, however, you may want to go for a thick mat as it is much easier on the knees and elbows. Thicker mats also tend to be bulkier and take a lot more space compared to thin mats, so if you’ll be carrying your mat around with you, you may want to consider a thinner mat. There are so many different factors to consider when selecting a mat, such as thickness, material, purpose, and size, so you have to pay attention to each of them before making your decision on which mat to get.