Yoga can provide proper muscular development

As a yoga instructor and endurance athlete who knows a thing or two about fitness, I read Kelly Turners article on yoga and Im pretty perplexed with the following statement:

Your muscles, however, must be worked through their full range of motion, against resistance, a minimum of two times a week to properly develop. Yoga, of any kind, just doesnt provide that [Dont make yoga your only form of fitness training, seattletimes.com, April 29].

There are plenty of athletes from world-class mixed-martial-arts fighters to marathon runners to Olympic gymnasts whose fitness routines are entirely based on body-weight exercise. I do purely yoga-based body-weight exercise for strength training, and it is perfectly possible to build professional-caliber athletic strength without the use of weights.

Im also interested to know if the author is truly familiar with forms of yoga like Ashtanga, in which the movement through the poses certainly involves resistance.

Im all in favor of weight training and mixing up fitness routines, but to say that yoga isnt going to provide proper muscular development just isnt true. Id encourage the author to be a little more careful with her research.

Josh Schrei, director, BODY Yoga School, Santa Fe, N.M.

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Don’t replace the gym with yoga