Is hot yoga a good workout? Yes, for most healthy adults it is. A 90-minute Hot 26&2 class keeps your heart rate near 80% of its maximum, which is vigorous territory. It won’t replace a squat rack or a long run, though, so the useful question is how it fits around your gym week.
Is Hot Yoga a Good Workout? The Short Answer for UK Gym-Goers
If you already train in a UK gym, you probably want a straight comparison. Here it is. Hot yoga is a good workout for sustained effort, flexibility and balance. A weights session is better for heavy loading, and a treadmill is better for pure running fitness.
That doesn’t make hot yoga a soft option. A University of Wisconsin team measured Bikram classes and reported a mean heart rate close to 80% of maximum. The class lasts 90 minutes, so that effort has nowhere to hide. For what that means for your heart, see is hot yoga good for your heart.
So is hot yoga a good workout for you? That depends on what you want from the hour. Here is how it breaks down for most people who already lift or run:
- Good fit: you want cardio, mobility and mental quiet in a single session, and you don’t mind sweating through it.
- Fair fit: you lift or run most days and want one session a week that undoes the stiffness.
- Poor fit alone: your only goal is a heavier deadlift or a faster 5K, because hot yoga doesn’t load the body that way.
This guide stays on the training question. How hard is the work, and what does it do for a body that also visits a gym?
Heart-Rate Zones: Hot Yoga Against Weights and the Treadmill
Heart rate is the fairest common yardstick, so start there. The NHS physical activity guidelines for adults describe moderate effort as the point where you can still talk but not sing. Vigorous effort means you can say only a few words before you need a breath.
Using those definitions, the same body feels three different loads in three common sessions. Picture them as three shapes on a heart-rate chart:
- Treadmill run: a steady line. Your heart rate climbs, then stays in one band for as long as you keep the pace.
- Weights session: a saw tooth. Each hard set pushes it up, and the rest between sets lets it fall back.
- Hot yoga class: a long plateau. The heat and the unbroken sequence keep it high for most of the 90 minutes.
Porcari and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin (2014) tested exactly this plateau. They reported about 333 calories for women and 460 for men in a 90-minute Bikram class, at roughly 80% of maximum heart rate. We can’t link the paper because the host site blocks automated checks, so search the title if you’d like to read it.
Here is the arithmetic for a 35-year-old. The common rule of thumb says maximum heart rate is about 185 beats a minute, which is only a rough estimate. Eighty percent of that is around 148 beats a minute, held for an hour and a half.
Treat that as an illustration, not a prescription. Your own heart rate depends on fitness, hydration, medication and how the room feels on the day. Our guide to how many calories hot yoga burns goes deeper on the energy side.
How a Hot Class Compares With a Gym Session, Side by Side
So is hot yoga a good workout next to a gym session? Numbers only help if you can set them side by side. The table lines up three sessions on what they train and how they count towards the NHS targets, using published guideline wording rather than invented gym statistics.
| Session | Typical heart-rate shape | Main thing it trains | Counts towards the NHS target for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot yoga (90-minute Hot 26&2 class) | Long plateau, near 80% of max in the Wisconsin study | Stamina, flexibility, balance, muscular endurance | Vigorous minutes, and the NHS lists yoga as a strengthening activity |
| Weights session | Saw tooth: spikes in sets, falls in rests | Maximum strength, muscle size, bone loading | Strengthening days (2 a week), all major muscle groups |
| Treadmill run or jog | Steady line in one band | Running fitness, leg endurance | Moderate or vigorous minutes, depending on pace |
Look at the last column. The NHS wants 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, plus strengthening work on at least two days. One session type rarely covers all of that, which is the real argument for mixing them.
That explains why gym regulars who add a hot class often feel the benefit fast. They aren’t swapping training. They’re filling a gap.
What Hot Yoga Builds That a Gym Week Often Misses
Is hot yoga a good workout for strength? Partly. Most lifting programmes load the big muscles in straight lines, but the 26 postures in a hot class ask for something different. You hold a shape while your breathing, balance and focus stay steady.
Muscular endurance and posterior chain strength
In a 2013 study, Tracy and Hart reported about a 20% increase in posterior chain strength after Bikram practice, alongside gains in flexibility and body composition. The posterior chain is the line of muscles down the back of the body, so it matters to anyone who sits at a desk and then deadlifts. As with the Wisconsin paper, the host site blocks automated checks, so we haven’t linked it.
Postures such as Utkatasana (Awkward Pose) keep the thighs under load for a long, fixed time. That is endurance, not maximum strength, and it is a fair description of what the class gives you.
Flexibility and balance
A 2025 systematic review by Willmott and colleagues pooled 43 studies and 942 participants and reported benefits for flexibility, bone density and well-being from Bikram practice. The authors, like most researchers in this area, note that study quality varies. We read that as encouraging, not conclusive.
Balance postures such as Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose) train the small stabilising muscles that a machine circuit leaves alone. If your ankles and hips feel stiff after a heavy leg day, this is where a hot class earns its place.
A calm head after a hard week
Many students tell us the mental effect surprises them more than the sweat. The class follows a scripted dialogue with no music and no demonstration, so you listen and respond instead of copying a screen or counting reps.
Please keep this in proportion. That is how students describe it, and it is not a medical claim. If low mood or anxiety is a worry, speak to your GP first.
What Hot Yoga Does Not Do: Honest Limits for Gym-Goers
A fair answer to is hot yoga a good workout has to include the gaps. Otherwise you’d be reading a sales page, and you deserve better than that.
- It doesn’t load you heavily. Bodyweight holds build endurance. They don’t replace a barbell if your goal is maximum strength or muscle size.
- It doesn’t train speed or impact. If you race, you still need to run, and your bones still need impact work.
- Sweat isn’t a score. A drenched towel mostly reflects your body’s cooling system. It tells you little about how hard you worked.
- Warm muscles can mislead you. Heat makes stretching feel easier, which tempts people to go deeper than their joints are ready for.
Is hot yoga a good workout for runners and lifters?
The last point matters most for gym-goers, who are used to pushing. In a hot room, control beats depth. Mr Ian Terry holds E-RYT 500 and has more than 12,000 teaching hours, and sitting out a posture is always allowed in his classes.
If you want the broader comparison with other low-impact options, our guide to hot yoga against regular yoga and Pilates sets them side by side.
A Realistic UK Training Week With Hot Yoga in It
Most readers already have a routine, so don’t rip it up. If you’re still asking is hot yoga a good workout to add, then add it where your body is crying out for it. Here is one pattern for a lifter or runner on a standard working week, and you can shuffle the days.
| Day | Session | Why it sits there |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Weights: lower body | Fresh after the weekend, so you can lift properly |
| Tuesday | Hot yoga (90 minutes) | Loosens hips and hamstrings after leg day |
| Wednesday | Rest or a gentle walk | Gives the heat and the effort time to settle |
| Thursday | Weights: upper body | Strength day number two of the NHS two |
| Friday | Easy run or rest | Keeps moderate minutes ticking over |
| Saturday | Hot yoga (90 minutes) | Long session when you aren’t rushing from work |
| Sunday | Rest | Sleep, food and fluids catch up |
Notice there are only two hot classes. That is deliberate. If you’re new to heat, start with one class a week and build slowly, because the body needs time to adapt to a hot room.
Our guide for new students, hot yoga for beginners, explains what to eat, drink and bring so the first class doesn’t flatten you.
UK Health Checks Before Your First Hot Class
The heat changes the demands on your heart and your body’s cooling system. That’s why a quick conversation with a professional is sensible if anything below applies to you. The NHS exercise pages are a good starting point for general activity advice, and your GP or pharmacist can speak to your own case.
- You have heart disease, or high or low blood pressure.
- You are pregnant, or think you might be.
- You take medication that affects hydration or blood pressure.
- You feel unwell, feverish or dehydrated on the day.
Tell the studio at the front desk as well. A good teacher will adjust the pace and watch your face as well as your posture.
In class, stop if you feel dizzy, sick, short of breath or notice chest pain, blurred vision or a pounding head. Sit or lie down, sip water and tell the teacher. Pushing through is never the goal, and our guide to the risks and side effects of hot yoga lists the warning signs in full.
This article is general information, not medical advice. Consult a healthcare professional before starting any heated exercise, especially if you have a medical condition.
What Students Say After Hot Classes Stack Up
One class tells you about the room, while a week of classes tells you about yourself. Is hot yoga a good workout in a student’s own words? Here is what three YogaFX students told us.
I left those sessions physically drained but mentally sharper and stronger than I’ve felt in a long time. If you want real growth and not just a workout, this is where you raise your standard.
Jason, Google review, 2026
Doing yoga many time made my body more strong.
Cherry, Google review, 2019
Sandra, a trainee in our YouTube review series (2025), put the effect on video. She called the experience humbling and empowering, and said she never expected to feel that way about the whole thing.
None of these are trial results, so treat them as stories. They do line up with the direction of the research above: hard work, steady effort and a clearer head afterwards.
From Gym Floor to Teaching Hot Yoga: The Bali Route for UK Students
Is hot yoga a good workout or a first step into teaching? For some UK students it turns out to be both. They try a hot class for the effort, then ask what it would take to teach. If a week in a hot room appeals to you, the YogaFX MasterClass is built for that.
- Format: a 6-day hybrid course, with an online pre-course and an intensive in Bali.
- Next batch: check-in on Sunday 24 January 2027 and check-out on Friday 29 January 2027, at the Soham Wellness Center in Seminyak.
- Certification: Yoga Alliance RYT 200-Hour and the Bikram Hot 26&2 200-Hour International Yoga Certification.
- Price: the current Early Bird price is US$1,899, with instalments from US$250 a month. Ask the team for today’s deadline.
Mr Ian Terry trained for five years, from 2014 to 2019, alongside the founder of the Bikram Hot 26&2 method. YogaFX has taught more than 1,500 graduates from over 80 countries since 2017.
How does training in Bali compare with a UK course? Our guide to yoga teacher training in Bali against the UK lays out what to compare, from format to time off work.
Is hot yoga a good workout for you? Try one class, notice how you feel the next day, and decide from there. If you’d like the same question seen through a trainee’s week, our team’s look at what six training days ask of the body picks up where this article stops.
FAQ: Is Hot Yoga a Good Workout? Your Questions Answered
Is hot yoga a good cardio workout?
It can be. In a University of Wisconsin study, a 90-minute Bikram class held heart rate near 80% of maximum, which is vigorous effort. It differs from running because the effort comes from heat and held postures. If you have a heart or blood pressure condition, check with a healthcare professional first.
Is hot yoga a better workout than the gym?
Neither is better in every way. The gym is stronger for heavy loading, while hot yoga is stronger for flexibility, balance and sustained effort. The NHS asks adults for strengthening work on at least two days a week, so most people benefit from combining both.
Is hot yoga enough of a workout on its own?
For many healthy adults, a few classes a week cover vigorous minutes, flexibility and some muscular endurance. It doesn’t give heavy resistance or running impact, though. If you want maximum strength or race speed, add weights or running, and speak to a professional about your goals.
How many hot yoga classes a week should a gym-goer add?
Start with one a week and build to two if you recover well. Space them away from your hardest lifting day, and keep at least one rest day. Heat adds stress, so listen to your body, drink steadily and cut back if you feel dizzy or unusually tired.
Is hot yoga good after a workout?
A hot class straight after hard training can be too much, because you stack heat on top of fatigue. Most people do better on a separate day, or at least several hours apart. Eat, drink and rest first, and skip the class if you feel drained or unwell.
Still have questions? Message Mr. Ian and the YogaFX team on WhatsApp and we will answer them personally.
