Yogaland Podcast

Most yoga backbend preparation focuses on opening the front body. That's valuable — but it's only half the equation. The posterior shoulders, rhomboids, and upper back muscles that should be driving backbends are almost never specifically strengthened in a yoga practice. The result: most practitioners push the floor away rather than pulling the chest forward — and no amount of additional stretching fixes a strength problem.

This week’s podcast fixes that.

Jason breaks down three targeted resistance band exercises for the posterior shoulders and upper back — and immediately applies each one to Locust, Cobra, Camel, and Bridge so you can feel the difference in real time.

What You'll Learn:

• Why posterior shoulder and upper back weakness is the most overlooked limitation in yoga backbends

• Three resistance band exercises — seated and standing row, elbow flare pull, and band pull-apart at three angles — that directly target the muscles yoga consistently under-develops

• How to choose the right resistance level and how many sets and reps to use for both pre-practice activation and longer-term strength building

• How to apply each exercise immediately to Locust, Cobra, Camel, and Bridge — and feel the difference in muscular recruitment in real time

• Why resistance provides proprioceptive feedback that bodyweight yoga cannot and how that feedback immediately improves your backbends

Registration opens for Jason's newest course, Strong Yoga on Thursday! Get on the waitlist and we'll let you know when you can enroll: jasonyoga.com/strength

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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If you've been wondering how to incorporate resistance training into your yoga classes without losing what makes yoga yoga — this episode is for you.

In this conversation breaks down his exact six-phase structure bringing resistance training into a yoga context. The central insight: resistance doesn't make yoga harder. Done intelligently, it makes yoga easier, more embodied, and more effective than ever before.

We talk through:

-Why Jason developed this approach — the personal and professional reasons behind this evolution

-Why yoga props have always facilitated length and support

-How resistance training and yoga are complementary modalities that address each other's gaps directly

-Andrea's personal experience of how targeted strengthening resolved years of chronic SI joint pain

-Why pranayama and meditation are non-negotiable in this structure

-The interdisciplinary philosophy behind Jason's approach — why looking at embodiment through multiple lenses produces greater truth than any single ideology

-Why Jason is not replacing his existing yoga teaching — this is an addition, not a substitution!

NOTE! Jason's Strong Yoga: The Fundamentals of Resistance Training for Yoga Teachers will be open for enrollment soon! Click here to join the waitlist and we'll send you the details: jasonyoga.com/strength

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The summer went quickly; we thought we'd reconvene and catch you up on our latest in life and yoga. As a reminder! Yoga-ish conversations are where we share life stuff, and although it may cross over into yoga territory, it is decidedly non-technical. This week, we cover a lot of ground and talk about:

• Books we loved this summer
• What we're watching (spoiler: We're divided over Widow's Bay)
• Surprising joy in our journey with memory care
• Jason's professional evolution and the vulnerability that comes with it
• What's coming next — a new resistance training course for yogis called Strong Yoga. Join the waitlist to learn all about it: jasonyoga.com/strength

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is yoga — really?

Most practitioners and teachers can answer that question with a pose, a breath, or a feeling. Far fewer can answer it with the philosophical depth the tradition actually deserves. This week's episode does just that.

Drawing on academic scholarship, Sanskrit etymology, and nearly 30 years of teaching and study, Jason identifies the six core teachings that appear consistently across the diverse spectrum of yoga traditions — from Hatha to Jnana, from Karma to Bhakti, from Patanjali to modern practice. Not a single reductive definition, but a genuine philosophical framework that holds up across lineages, eras, and approaches.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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Most yoga twists are done to the spine — not with it.

In nearly every conventional yoga twist, the arms and legs do the work: The hand presses against the knee. The elbow hooks outside the thigh. The leverage of the limbs produces the rotation, while the spinal muscles — the obliques, the multifidus, the deep rotators — remain largely passive. The spine is being twisted. It is not doing the twisting.

I turn this on its head in this week’s solocast. In 15 minutes, you’ll transform the quality and depth of three yoga-informed spinal rotation exercises by adding resistance bands.

This is not just about better twists. It's about building functional rotational strength that yoga's conventional twisting patterns cannot provide.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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This week Jason and I have a conversation the yoga world has been dancing around for years: Does yoga build strength?

Jason offers an honest framework for understanding the ways that yoga builds strength — and where it genuinely falls short.

What You'll Learn:

• Why strength matters — particularly for longevity
• The two primary components of strength development and how yoga addresses each one
• How yoga builds neuromuscular strength, efficiency, and coordination — and why that's more valuable than most practitioners realize
• Why yoga will never produce hypertrophy — and what that means for long-term health, muscle mass, and metabolic function
• What progressive overload is and why bodyweight training alone cannot provide it
• Why yoga primarily recruits Type 1 fibers and almost never accesses Type 2 fibers and why it matters
• Why resistance training and yoga are not competing modalities — they are extraordinary partners
• The Iyengar yoga innovation argument: why adding resistance training tools to yoga is no different from what the greatest yoga innovators have always done

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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If you've been meaning to teach pranayama in your classes but keep finding reasons to wait — this week's podcast is for you.

Most yoga teachers want to include breathwork. The problem isn't interest — it's knowing where to start, how long to spend, and whether students will actually value it. This episodes solves all three problems in under 20 minutes, with three simple, immediately usable techniques you can bring to your next class.

No restructuring required. No special training needed. Just three practical breathwork tools, three locations in your class to use them, and the confidence to begin.

The Three Techniques Covered:

• Coherence Breathing / Sama Vritti Pranayama — 5.5 x 5.5 seconds, ideal for class openings

• Breath-linked movement — half sun salutations, Utkatasana flow, eagle arms transitions

• Extended exhale breathing — 6:2:8:2 ratio, ideal pre-Savasana for nervous system downregulation

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — why yoga teachers keep putting pranayama off

01:20 Concern 1: Will my students get bored?

02:06 Concern 2: Which technique should I use?

02:27 Concern 3: Where does pranayama go in class?

03:49 Location 1: Class opening — coherence breathing

07:07 Location 2: Within dynamic movement — breath-linked movement patterns

10:31 Location 3: Pre-Savasana — extended exhale breathing

13:51 The final challenge — pick one technique and try it this week

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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Most yoga teachers cue Full Boat Pose as an abdominal exercise. It isn't — and once you understand why, you'll also discover Low Boat Pose: the most underused core exercise in yoga.

Full Boat Pose (Paripurna Navasana) is primarily a hip flexor exercise. Low Boat Pose (Ardha Navasana) is primarily an abdominal exercise. Understanding why — and how to use both intelligently — is one of the most practical yoga anatomy insights you can bring to your teaching and your practice.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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Most people assume tight hamstrings are a stretching problem. They're not. Hamstring tightness is almost always multifactorial, which means the solution requires a broader range of strategies — not more of the same stretching that hasn't worked.

On this podcast, Jason breaks down 6 evidence-informed strategies for improving hamstring flexibility that go well beyond passive stretching. Whether you're a yoga teacher, yoga student, or anyone focused on mobility and movement quality, these strategies will change how you think about — and train — your hamstrings.

What you'll learn:

-Why foam rolling works neurologically — not just mechanically — and how to use it as a primer before you stretch

-Why strengthening your glutes may do more for your hamstring flexibility than more stretching ever will

-How weak hip flexors limit anterior pelvic tilt — and why that directly limits hamstring length

-Why your adductors (especially adductor magnus) may be quietly working against your hamstring flexibility

-How dynamic stretching and engaged stretching give your nervous system more feedback — and unlock more range than passive stretching alone

-Why hamstring tightness is almost always multifactorial — and why there is no single magic technique

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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Wow wow wow -- it's been 10 years since the launch of Yogaland! It feels like it's been a heartbeat and also a lifetime. There's been so much learning, growth, and love while making these episodes for the past decade. I spent time compiling precious insights--gems if you will--that stood out to me from the past 10 years.

We revisit moments with:

Amy Ippoliti — free diving, environmental activism, and asking young people about purpose instead of popularity

James Woods (Dat Yoga Dude) — bringing yoga and social-emotional learning into schools and communities

Maty Ezraty — why even the most accomplished yoga teachers still get nervous before every class

Susanna Harwood Rubin — navigating metastatic cancer with devotion, sacred spaces, and grace

Judith Lasater — the concept of inner gold and what distinguishes a truly good teacher from an abusive one

Jill Miller — the five Ps of inducing the relaxation response and harnessing vagal tone

Andrea Jain — an unbiased take on academic history of yoga's globalization

Julia Lowrie Henderson — the psychology behind why Bikram's cruelty registered as trustworthiness

Sally Kempton — the mantra that changed her relationship to failure

Tias Little — perfectionism as a cul-de-sac

Tara Stiles — doing it your own way, softness, and building a yoga practice around ease

Daya Grant — what neuroscience tells us about the yoga practitioner's brain and interoceptive awareness

Lisa Walford — four pillars of health developed after an HIV diagnosis in 1985, decades ahead of her time

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.