In recent years, some training trends have taken hold in Italy, bringing a breath of fresh air from abroad for those who want to embark on a training journey to keep fit far from classic fitness programs. Yoga, an ancient Indian discipline already practiced in the Bel Paese since the early 70s, has now entered the daily habits of thousands of Italian yogis. The success of this art of psychophysical well-being is partly due to its flexibility. Yoga can in fact be practiced anywhere and to put into practice the asanas, the positions of the discipline, all you need is a mat and possibly a meditation cushion and yoga blocks, which help you to best reach the positions to obtain optimal relaxation. After the yoga of laughter and power yoga, the latest trend of 2021 is urban yoga. In vogue in the States for a few years, this variant essentially transfers the practice of yoga from the classrooms of gyms and sports centers to the urban environment.
In this way, the city becomes the setting for training and it is not uncommon today to find groups of people practicing asanas on the roofs of buildings, in the parks and squares of the main Italian cities, while in the summer yoga also moves to the seaside . An excellent way to fully benefit from this type of training given that outdoors and especially in the spaces that nature manages to create between the streets and concrete of the cities, you can breathe better and try to rediscover contact with the greenery which benefits of the "company" of trees and various vegetation. Benches and any elements of street furniture become supports to facilitate stretching while the positive effects of the discipline, even in the urban version, always remain the same and the variations of yoga to be practiced outdoors are always the classic ones from ashtanga which focuses on physical and is also more demanding on a muscular level (same goes for power yoga), at bikram yoga which instead uses high-temperature asanas to burn off fat (ideal outdoors in the scorching summer heat) through to Hatha yoga which instead prefers breathing or pranayama practices.
After all, yoga has now entered the training routine of several famous sportsmen and also in disciplines that are not too demanding on a physical level such as poker or chess., several practitioners integrate with targeted asanas and micro relaxing sessions their daily play sessions. Several white-collar workers have also started practicing urban yoga to stay in shape as this discipline can be practiced anywhere and avoids the hassle of taking out expensive gym subscriptions and wasting time in traffic to get to the place where you train.
Another trend of 2021 is cross training or cross training that suggests in its nomenclature the combination of different sports disciplines. The alternation of different stimuli allows the body to burn more calories by not accustoming the muscular and nervous system to the same type of repeated movements and also removes monotony given that the training sessions are varied and range from running to muscle strengthening and free body exercises than with weights. So for example, a cross training routine for beginners could include a muscle awakening in the morning (stretching or yoga for 20 minutes), followed by a running, exercise bike or swimming session before lunch or before dinner. The next day, the classic morning muscle awakening could be followed by a session of kettlebells, body building in the gym or classic gymnastics both free body and with the use of bars or parallel bars. The next day you could go back to training at an aerobic level and so on. This practice promotes the improvement of the general state of fitness by bringing the athlete closer to achieving a correct percentage of body fat, at the same time increasing strength, joint mobility and aerobic capacity while thanks to the mix of stimuli the effects of overtraining are avoided, promotes muscle recovery and physical and mental overload is reduced.