About Bikram Yoga

The days of the musty, carpeted, stuffy yoga studio where people pose and breathe their way to better health have long since been supplanted by something much healthier.

You're never too old, never too sick to start over again. This thought drives me back into the 105-degree room day after day.

My bra's too tight. Is that cellulite on my biceps? I might be having a heart attack. And why does everybody in here have a tattoo?

Jenny McCarthy swears by this strength and stretch plan. Put it to work for you.

Millions of Americans are discovering this ancient exercise. Here's the skinny on why it makes you feel so good.

Heat gives practitioners greater flexibility and reduces chance of injuries. It didn't smell. That was my first thought upon entering Bikram Yoga Richmond's new location in Lansdowne Centre.

The hottest trend in fitness is heat itself - a unique form of heat torture that combines 38° temperatures and humidity with intense yoga postures.

It's funny that Bikram yoga-the kind that's done in rooms heated to 100 degrees-has for years been exclusive to California.

Dubbed "hot yoga" a bikram class begins with the thermostat cranked to 40C (105F) Devotees burn up to 400 calories an hour stretching and steaming their way through a series of 26 poses.

It's 9am Sunday morning and the big ballroom at Canada place is cooking quite literally so hot that to enter wearing anything weightier than a hankie would be foolhardy.

I never thought it would happen to me. I started taking Bikram Yoga on Jan.2 as an exercise experiment.

I am a conscientious but nondenominational exerciser, and coming to Bikram (a.k.a "Hot") Yoga began more as a scheduling convenience than devotion to it's unvarying regimen of 26 poses (asanas)

Whether your goal is to improve flexibility, calm a racing mind or get closer to the universe, there's bound to be a yoga that can help.

I often think that if I had done yoga during my competitive soccer training I may have added five years to my career.

If the idea of a yoga competition seems like a contradiction in terms, you're looking at it from a western viewpoint, according to David Groves.

At the L.A. Convention Center, contest puts participants' agility and control on display. "You're not competing two persons against each other. You're competing with yourself." Bikram Choudhury, host of yoga competition

It's the heat that first gets you. Forty minutes into a Wednesday morning "hot" yoga class at Richmond's new Bikram Yoga College of India and I;m not just glowing, but soaked with a rivulet-inducing sweat.

A modern man's guide to yoga, the world's oldest fitness program.

It was about flexibility and concentration yesterday at the fifth annual Western Canadian Hatha Yoga Championship at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre.

There are bendy people, and there are really bendy people. Then there's the 4th annual Western Canada Yoga Hatha Championship, which take place Sunday and will feature Western Canada's most skilled yogis.

The word yoga usually conjures images of inner peace, bliss and harmony. One rarely associates it with the sweaty world of competition.

Forget the serene meditative ashrams of old. The new Power Yoga is hot, gruelling-and stinky.

A little more than seven minutes into my first Bikram, or "hot", yoga class-105 degrees heat, 26 poses, and already I'm soaked, red-raced, exhilarated: My eagle has landed.

Studies determine that those suffering from conditions associated with heart disease risk improved after three months of yoga.

Steve Hawkins is hauled up on stage for a no-nonsense lesson on how to better is cobra posture. He's 42, a cameraman for City-TV and has Chronic shoulder problems. Or at least he did until he discovered hot yoga more than a year ago.

Maetche says the yoga comes close to replicating the game-day heat generated by playing under 25 pounds of goalie equipment.

Yoga enthusiasts flocked to Bikram's Yoga College of India Metrotown Sunday for a chance to meet one of the world's most recognizable yogis.

A parachute jump gone horribly wrong broke this sailor's legs, shattered her pelvis and severed her left arm. Look at her now.

Celebrity yoga guru Bikram Choudhury is planning to be in Vancouver July 16-17 to scout out new locations for his rapidly expanding franchise in this yoga-crazy city.

Hot yoga was developed in the 1970's by the Calcutta-born yoga therapist Bikram Choudhury as a way to heal the body after injury or illness.