10 tips for surviving Bikram

The Bikram yoga bandwagon has brainwashed its latest rider.

Though I’ve long looked to running for its unique capacity to clear my mind, free my spirit, strengthen my body and burn major calories all in one fell swoop, it's beginning to weather these achey old joints of mine.

Enter hot yoga. With Bikram, I get all of those benefits wrapped up in a low-impact (albeit high-cost) package: a full 90 minutes of stretchy misery in 104 sticky degrees. It alleviates daily stressors in a number of ways, perhaps the most evident of these being that it forces you to so unwaveringly focus on staying alive that your mind has no energy — or sweat — left for the small stuff.

It is not a task to be undertaken lightly. Class can prove more of an exercise in patience than in fitness when it comes to battling sweaty yuppies for mat space; balancing precariously on the toes of one foot with pretzel-twisted limbs akimbo is often a labor of pain as much as it is one of love.

What follows are mainly nuggets of wisdom (if you can call it that) I wish someone would’ve offered me before I went into the experience. I may still be a Bikram rookie, but can only hope that a few of the things I’ve learned so far along this journey will keep you from spending your first class passed out in a puddle of your own vomit.

1. Raid the web for coupons before signing up — Groupon, Living Social, Google Offers, Amazon Local…dig and dig and dig for a deal before you settle on paying full price for a class. Hot yoga is mad expensive, but you can find bargains hiding among the annals of the ’net with a little patience, some perseverance and moderate interwebbing skills.

2. Skip the bra — Let the ladies breath. Trust me, they’ll need it. You won’t be moving quickly or abruptly enough to necessitate the support of one, anyway. If you want to stash one in your car to weather the speed bumps on the drive home, then so be it, but you’ll be much better off either without one or with a wireless cotton style that isn't too tight. Wear the lightest, loosest-fitting tank top you can find. Yes, it may look a little obscene, but the people around you are worried far more about the black spots they’re seeing in front of their eyes than what’s protruding from beneath your shirt.

3. No Bikram on squat/lower body days — Depending on your conditioning schedule, it’s better to do the class on upper-body workout days. The postures are heavily focused on hips, knees, glutes and quads, with lots of balancing, stabilizing and flexing leg muscles. Doing squats in the morning and Bikram at night can be overkill on your stems.

4. Get a good yoga towel — This doesn’t seem like something that would make a big difference, but good gracious does it ever. Standing on one locked knee with both elbows contorted in some warped fashion is difficult enough, but when the surface below is uneven twisted terry cloth, what should just be a minor annoyance can ruin a perfect pose. Get a long, flat yoga towel. In fact, get three or four. Laundry less often — that’s my motto.

5. Only fill your water bottle halfway — If your bottle is completely full at the start of class, the bottom half of it will be hot by the time the end rolls around. And after 90 minutes of hot yoga, the last thing you’ll want to drink is hot water. If you only fill it up halfway, you’ll have drained it halfway through class and can refill your bottle with nice, cold water. If you don't want to interrupt your zen session to refill then just jam your bottle with ice before class.

6. No big meals or difficult foods on yoga day — Eat small, light meals, and avoid foods that are prone to give you gas. Indigestion can ruin the whole experience…for everyone.

7. Don’t just hydrate; preserve your hydration — It’s not enough to just drink water all day leading up to yoga. Also avoid ingesting any high-sodium foods within three hours before class (or just in general, in life, at all. Except pickles and kimchi. ’Cuz yum.)

8. Do not wear pants — I love yoga pants as much as the next person, but they will feel like suffocation instead of freedom during Bikram.

9. Avoid the 6 p.m. weekday session — It may work best with your schedule, but there’s a reason for that — it works best with everyone else’s, too. Bikram requires an exceptional amount of concentration, and the more crowded the class is, the harder it is to focus on not dying everywhere all over everybody. Hold out for the 8 p.m. instead, or even get up for the morning class if you can summon the energy.

10. Wait 10 minutes after class to drive — Driving on a yoga high is not advised. Cool off in the AC for a few before attempting to operate heavy machinery…neighborhood pedestrians will thank you (since they’ll be alive to do so.)

11. BONUS TIP — Eat blueberry Greek yogurt afterward. Not only is it the perfect post-Bikram snack to cool down with its tart creaminess, it’s loaded with good protein and carbs for recovery while still being light on calories.