Iron Yoga

Iron Yoga is a full-body workout developed by Anthony Carillo in the early 2000s that integrates weight training exercises into power yoga poses.  As a nationally-ranked Ironman Triathlete, Carillo was no stranger to forging the connection between mind and body: the ironman includes a 2.4 mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and 26.2 mile run, all within a 17 hour- time limit!  Carillo found himself watching a yoga class on TV one day and experienced an instant sense of calm.  He began practicing yoga and learned that his weaknesses (breath, inflexibility, and balance) would drastically improve his abilities in triathlon if he turned them into strengths.  He began incorporating yoga into his training regimen and as a result, felt stronger, flexible, streamlined, balanced and powerful.  

According to Carillo, “I opened up a whole new energy source by incorporating a proper manner of breathing.  At the same time, I sharpened my focus and concentration skills, which are so important during training and competition.  Most important, yoga was keeping me healthy and injury-free and accelerating my recovery time from intense workouts and races.”  Eventually Carillo combined common weight-training exercises with his favorite yoga poses to develop “Iron Yoga.”

Iron Yoga is rooted in the principles of both yoga’s mind-body-spirit connection and weight training’s mind-muscle connection. An Iron Yoga class will include a combination of standing, seated, prone and supine poses as well as isolation and compound exercises, or movements.  An isolation movement targets only one muscle group (ie. bicep curl, tricep kickback), while a compound movement combines two or more joints and targets large or primary muscle groups (ie. chest press targeting the back and shoulders using the elbow and shoulder joints).