She is like many women who do yoga and want their spouse or partner to give it a try. But the many myths about yoga stand in their way: Yoga isn’t a decent workout; it’s too touchy-feely; you have to be flexible to do it; men’s bodies just aren’t built for pretzel-like poses.

Adrian Hummell has heard all the excuses.

“What happens is, a guy who doesn’t know about it associates it with things like pilates or aerobics,” says Hummell, who has been doing yoga for the past three years and now teaches Bikram yoga, a particularly strenuous form of the practice, in Maryland. They think of it as a “women’s workout”, he says.

“It’s almost a joke when guys say, ‘I don’t think I should do yoga because I’m not flexible,’ ” he says. “It’s like saying, ‘I’m too weak, so I can’t lift weights.’ “

Hummell and many other yoga practitioners extol its many benefits beyond a pleasant post-class buzz. Several studies have linked a regimen of yoga classes to a reduction in lower back pain and improved back function. Other studies suggest that practicing yoga lowers heart rate and blood pressure; helps relieve anxiety, depression and insomnia, and improves overall physical fitness, strength and flexibility, according to the US National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. Still, despite many studies, no firm evidence has been found to show that yoga improves asthma or arthritis.

The centre is funding research to determine whether yoga can benefit in the treatment of diabetes, AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder and multiple sclerosis.

Loren Fishman, a Manhattan physician who sees patients suffering from a variety of ills, says his prescription is often yoga.

Fishman has written several books on using yoga as a supplement for rather than as a substitute for medicine. He has studied yoga since the early 1970s and noted that the practice was developed centuries ago by men in India. But its modern form has become feminised.

“There’s been a flip,” Fishman says. “When it came to the US, yoga became a sort of gentle gym, a non-competitive, non-confrontational thing that’s good for you. Yoga has this distinctive passive air to it. You get into the pose and stay there.”

Among those who reject the idea that yoga is just for women is Danny Poole, a Denver teacher and trainer who uses yoga to help athletes. In 2009, his students included about a dozen members of the Denver Broncos.

Poole came to the practice reluctantly himself. A basketball player at Grand Valley State University in Michigan four decades ago, he was dragged into a yoga class by his girlfriend.

“All I knew is that there were hippies doing it, and I was intimidated because I didn’t know what it was,” Poole said. “Then I got hooked on it because I never felt so good.” Poole kept up with yoga and said it helped him avoid sports injuries as he grew older. About 15 years ago, he went full-time as a teacher.

Poole decided to drop some of the elements of a traditional yoga class that could turn off men: no chanting, no Sanskrit terms for poses, no music, no headstands or handstands that are difficult and prone to causing injury. “I keep it easy and gentle, and I avoid trying to make the client not look good,” he said.

Poole says professional athletes like yoga because it keeps them loose and focused before a game and helps ease post-game soreness. During his year with the Broncos, he says, he kept his yoga group injury-free. But he understands why many men, especially former athletes and men who have spent years pumping iron, have trouble with the physical and mental aspects of yoga.

“Athletes with big muscles take a regular yoga class and it kicks their butt,” Poole says. “They tend not to come back.” But Poole said that those who stuck with the yoga program remained injury-free during the football season, which turned the doubters into converts.

When men say they are bored with yoga, Poole thinks there may be something else going on.

“Our egos are deflated because we can’t do some of the poses,” he said.

The Washington Post

And then this, from the Telegraph in London –

Forty-eight hours after their win over England in the opening match of the Rugby League World Cup last month, the Kangaroos went for a warm-down at Manchester’s Yoga Lounge, a fitness studio dedicated to yoga and pilates.

Here, Bikram yoga, the “hot” kind that’s performed in a super-heated room to ensure an instant sweat and enable deeper stretches, is a speciality. And 40 per cent of those attending classes are male.

The Australian team are not alone in striking a sweaty yoga pose to speed their post-match recovery, improve general flexibility and guard against injury. Their English opponents have also supplemented their training with the ancient discipline at the insistence of Mark Bitcon, head of performance with the national team as well as at the Wigan Warriors rugby league club.

“It’s not about lying around on a mat,” says Bitcon. “It’s an intense physical workout which has numerous positive benefits. There’s a lot of work with weights in rugby league, plus intense, competitive action. In the past, we tended to neglect the flexibility aspect.”

The old-world, macho view that “yoga is for girls”, or at the very least only for blokes who are a “bit spiritual”, is history.

This season, Wasps, the London rugby union club, has introduced yoga sessions for its players.

Manchester United’s veteran winger, Ryan Giggs, who turns 40 this month, is such a talisman for its benefits he has released his own yoga-for-men DVD.

Andy Murray has credited Wimbledon-winning frame to Bikram.

But the elite sportsmen that yoga attracts aren’t interested in the path to enlightenment. “What they are interested in is prolonging their career,” says Nisha Srivastava, instructor at the Yoga Lounge.

“If they can tap into that 1 per cent that enhances their game, they become interested. When they see the benefits of yoga, that’s when they persevere with it.”

Wasps and England forward James Haskell, 28, who has been practising for three years, admits: “I’m not there to get my chakras aligned – I use yoga to give me an advantage in my game and to keep me on the field.”

Haskell is convinced of its benefits.

“When I was 18, I’d just go straight out and train hard. Now my first port of call is to get out the mat – otherwise I’m like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. I seize up.”

Dense muscle is notoriously inflexible, but the benefits from yoga-style stretching are measurable. “We test various physiological aspects, and one is range of flexibility,” says Bitcon. “We have seen as much as an extra couple of centimetres in areas like the hamstring. Any marginal improvement in an area like that can be very useful.”

It can also improve upper-body stabilisation, especially around the shoulders, where players grapple.

It’s not hard to sell men poses, or “asanas” – such as the Warrior or the Hero – but yoga has other advantages, explains Srivastava.

“The work we do appears to be purely physical, but the goal is the mind, and that’s where it can be most beneficial. If they can control their mind, learn to concentrate, then they will make more correct decisions on the pitch.”

Nick Chadd, the strength and conditioning coach who introduced Wasps players to yoga, says: “We have found it has a real impact on the way the guys perform, and that comes from aspects of relaxation and focus. It also improves mood and interaction among the group.”

The Telegraph, London