Is hot yoga good for you? What to know about the benefits, potential risks and more

Yoga can be challenging to begin with, but doing it in a heated room can feel next-level intimidating.

Like most forms of exercise, hot yoga comes with benefits as well as risks to know about prior to your first class. The heated mind-body practice is beloved by some, while it’s a hard skip for others. But is it for you?

Read on to learn more about what is involved in hot yoga, any benefits and risks associated with the practice and a glimpse at what you could see in class.

What is hot yoga?

Hot yoga is just what it sounds like — yoga done in a heated room.  

The practice was popularized by Bikram yoga, a hatha-style class done in a 105-degree room with 40% humidity, consisting of 26 postures and two breathwork sequences. Bikram, named after its controversial founder who was the subject of the 2019 Netflix documentary, began in the 1970s, and many other practices of hot yoga have since emerged.

The length, temperature and yoga style that make up a hot yoga class is largely dictated by the studio you’re practicing at.

At Modo Yoga LA, for example, the temperature is kept at 99-100 degrees and 40-60% humidity, a formula that its co-founder Alice Toyonaga describes to TODAY.com as accessible, sustainable and follows one of their pillars, “be healthy.”

Toyonaga says their studios offer hot yoga classes in traditional yoga styles, such as hatha, vinyasa and yin, but also hybrid series that incorporate other workouts, such as HIIT or Pilates, in a heated room.

“Just like with everything else, not all hot yoga is created equal,” Toyonaga explains. “And so, quite often, we’ll have people who’ve been like, ‘Oh, I tried this, and that wasn’t for me.’ And that’s absolutely fair, and it doesn’t mean that one type is right or wrong.”

Hot yoga temperature

In Bikram hot yoga, poses are performed in a 105-degree room with 40% humidity. For other hot yoga classes, the studios determine the temperature. While Cleveland Clinic reports that the room for hot yoga is typically heated between 90 and 105 degrees, the temperature can go lower or higher than that range.    

Is hot yoga good for you?

The physical and mental benefits of doing yoga apply to its heated version. Common pros to the practice include building muscle, toning, increasing flexibility, dealing with the stresses of daily life and practicing mindfulness. But some of those benefits are amplified in elevated heat.

Improved flexibility

When exposed to higher temperatures, Toyonaga says muscles become more flexible and joints increase their range of motion.

“While there are definitely demographics of people who do yoga who are already quite flexible, what they need to work on is, let’s say, strength over mobility,” she continues. “We are working on a computer. We’re hunched over. We are behind the wheel of a car here in LA. So there’s just a lot. We’re just a static culture, so to speak.”

“And so, we do need any little assist to our range of motion to get a deeper stretch within poses,” she continues. “The heat is definitely something that helps to do that.”

Improved heart health

Another plus to doing hot yoga is that it’s more physically demanding and therefore makes the heart pump faster, which can improve cardiovascular health, as long as there are no preexisting conditions.

Reduced stress

Beyond the physical benefits, hot yoga can also help one’s mental state through the adversity faced inside of a heated room and the de-stressing that comes with it.

“It does play a big psychological role in that you are overcoming this challenge and adversity with your breath, and you’re doing that on your mat,” Toyonaga says. “It’s a controlled environment, but what an awesome lesson that we can take with us in line at Trader Joe’s.”

She added: “I feel like a lot of the times, with the heat and we’re trying to get through this class, we are in a way becoming more present than when we’re off of our mats because we are focused on this next breath, this next pose, this next sequence, and being that embodied and that present really helps us get out of our own way and (is) a really nice way to destress.”

Are there any risks or dangers to hot yoga?

When thinking about doing a hot yoga class for an extended period, you might be wondering if the heated practice comes with any health risks.

First, and most importantly, if you have any specific concerns or underlying preexisting conditions, always check with your doctor before taking a hot yoga class.

A common risk when it comes to practicing hot yoga is dehydration, due to the loss of water weight from sweating in high temperatures and humidity. This can lead to feeling faint or ill during class.

Toyonaga stresses the importance of having an ample amount of water before and after class, because if you start to feel unwell during the practice, you might already be dehydrated and “drinking during that yoga class is not going to make much of a difference.”

While heat helps muscle flexibility and loosens joints, Dr. Jordan D. Metzl, a sports medicine physician at Hospital for Special Surgery, says it’s important to avoid exaggerating your stretches at the risk of injury.

“The risk is you can overstretch a hamstring or a quad or a hip, and sometimes put yourself in a position where you’re getting a little more stretch out of that muscle than it’s used to being,” he tells TODAY.com.

“You can sometimes make an injury a little more pronounced than it would normally be because you get the position a little more exaggerated than you normally would be because you don’t feel it as much when you’re in that really hot environment,” he continues.

Metzl gives simple advice to prevent yourself from going too deep into stretches: Listen to your body.

“You just have to be smart about not looking at the person next to you and trying to emulate them,” he continues. “Just listen to your body … to make sure you’re not overdoing it, and just being mindful that you’re not feeling really faint or it’s too much for you, especially at the beginning.”

Natalia Perez-Segnini, a yoga teacher, functional and therapeutic breathwork coach, Tone House coach and mindset guide, encourages taking a rest or stepping outside the studio, if you start to feel unwell.

“Stop, lay down, get in child’s pose, Savasana, a restful position for you and find your breath again,” she tells TODAY.com. “And when you’re able to feel that steady flow within your inhales and your exhales, then ask yourself if you want to try it again.”

What should beginners know before going to class?

 In addition to staying hydrated before and after class, and understanding the potential risks of the practice, people who are new to hot yoga should generally take their first few classes slow and focus on adjusting to the temperature.

“The first three to five classes, you’re getting used to the heat. That’s what you’re doing,” Toyonaga says. “You need to rest as much as you need to rest in that room, so that we’re getting used to the heat. So if you lie there for the whole hour, just pretend you’re on the beach in Mexico. You’re still doing it.’”

Perez-Segnini emphasizes that for all yogis, but especially beginners, it’s important to pay attention to how they feel throughout the course of the practice.

“This practice, hot yoga, regular yoga in general, is less about the shapes that you’re making with your body, and more about what you feel in your body,” she explains.

Perez-Segnini says that when she first started taking up hot yoga, she wishes someone told her that you don’t have to stick to just one intention, but rather figure it out as you go.

“In class, in the middle of a posture, halfway through, after, you’re allowed to change your mind about the why,” she says. “You’re allowed to change your mind about what you’re doing, and if that means coming out of a pose because you don’t feel great, or realizing that you’re taking it too far … there’s always time to change our minds, no matter where we’re at in life, no matter where in class we are.”

What to wear to hot yoga

What do you wear while exercising in an over-90-degree room for an extended period of time? When in doubt, go with something that you feel comfortable in — and avoid cotton.

“What we will see in the hot room will be more technical fabrics, like things that you would wear to the gym, as opposed to cotton,” Toyonaga says. “A lot of our favorite brands have sweat-wicking clothing, whether it’s tights or shorts, sports bra, a tank top, T-shirt, whatever it is.”

Perez-Segnini says that while it may seem “counterintuitive,” she wears a sports bra paired with pants, which absorb her sweat and gives her more traction.

“If there are any arm balances in class, (there’s) no shot I’m able to pop up into crow with shorts on because I’m sweating so hard, and then that’s dangerous, because you’re slipping off of your own skin,” she explains. “There’s more traction, you have more grip available, depending on the posture that you’re in, when you have skin to fabric contact.”

However, Perez-Segnini says that everyone has different preferences, and that finding what works best for you clothing-wise is part of the process.

Poses in hot yoga classes

Just like in any yoga class, the postures you’re asked to do will vary by location and instructor, and there aren’t any poses specific to hot yoga itself. However, here are some common postures to get you in the right mindset for what’s to come.