When the first time, Bikram Choudhury, started to heat his yoga studio, can be traced in Tokio, Japan back in the 60’s. He was joining his students to the steam sauna during their lunch breaks "because" of cold winters. That’s when he personally started to practice yoga to release his knee pain, after he had injured his knee during a weight-lifting accident in his teenage time.
That would be one of his versions….
If you ask Bikram you will get many different answer every time; and one of the other versions is: “To mirror the temperature of his hometown of Calcutta, India”
Bikram started to heat his yoga classes to 28 degrees Celsius (about 82 degrees Fahrenheit) at beginning. He noticed that the increased temperature made people sweat and exert themselves more in class, increasing the benefits from the yoga. So he increased the heat…more and…more and….more!
Today, Bikram yoga takes place in a room heated to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and 40% humidity.
The Benefits of short - term heat training (see details HERE).
Regardless of how, why or where he did it, he discovered a method that science is increasingly pointing to as an effective training methodology, already well established altitude training regimens of top athletes.
Come and discover for yourself at Hot Yoga Romania!