Most yoga twists are done to the spine — not with it.

In nearly every conventional yoga twist, the arms and legs do the work: The hand presses against the knee. The elbow hooks outside the thigh. The leverage of the limbs produces the rotation, while the spinal muscles — the obliques, the multifidus, the deep rotators — remain largely passive. The spine is being twisted. It is not doing the twisting.

I turn this on its head in this week’s solocast. In 15 minutes, you’ll transform the quality and depth of three yoga-informed spinal rotation exercises by adding resistance bands.

This is not just about better twists. It's about building functional rotational strength that yoga's conventional twisting patterns cannot provide.

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This week Jason and I have a conversation the yoga world has been dancing around for years: Does yoga build strength?

Jason offers an honest framework for understanding the ways that yoga builds strength — and where it genuinely falls short.

What You'll Learn:

• Why strength matters — particularly for longevity
• The two primary components of strength development and how yoga addresses each one
• How yoga builds neuromuscular strength, efficiency, and coordination — and why that's more valuable than most practitioners realize
• Why yoga will never produce hypertrophy — and what that means for long-term health, muscle mass, and metabolic function
• What progressive overload is and why bodyweight training alone cannot provide it
• Why yoga primarily recruits Type 1 fibers and almost never accesses Type 2 fibers and why it matters
• Why resistance training and yoga are not competing modalities — they are extraordinary partners
• The Iyengar yoga innovation argument: why adding resistance training tools to yoga is no different from what the greatest yoga innovators have always done

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If you've been meaning to teach pranayama in your classes but keep finding reasons to wait — this week's podcast is for you.

Most yoga teachers want to include breathwork. The problem isn't interest — it's knowing where to start, how long to spend, and whether students will actually value it. This episodes solves all three problems in under 20 minutes, with three simple, immediately usable techniques you can bring to your next class.

No restructuring required. No special training needed. Just three practical breathwork tools, three locations in your class to use them, and the confidence to begin.

The Three Techniques Covered:

• Coherence Breathing / Sama Vritti Pranayama — 5.5 x 5.5 seconds, ideal for class openings

• Breath-linked movement — half sun salutations, Utkatasana flow, eagle arms transitions

• Extended exhale breathing — 6:2:8:2 ratio, ideal pre-Savasana for nervous system downregulation

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — why yoga teachers keep putting pranayama off

01:20 Concern 1: Will my students get bored?

02:06 Concern 2: Which technique should I use?

02:27 Concern 3: Where does pranayama go in class?

03:49 Location 1: Class opening — coherence breathing

07:07 Location 2: Within dynamic movement — breath-linked movement patterns

10:31 Location 3: Pre-Savasana — extended exhale breathing

13:51 The final challenge — pick one technique and try it this week

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Most yoga teachers cue Full Boat Pose as an abdominal exercise. It isn't — and once you understand why, you'll also discover Low Boat Pose: the most underused core exercise in yoga.

Full Boat Pose (Paripurna Navasana) is primarily a hip flexor exercise. Low Boat Pose (Ardha Navasana) is primarily an abdominal exercise. Understanding why — and how to use both intelligently — is one of the most practical yoga anatomy insights you can bring to your teaching and your practice.

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Most people assume tight hamstrings are a stretching problem. They're not. Hamstring tightness is almost always multifactorial, which means the solution requires a broader range of strategies — not more of the same stretching that hasn't worked.

On this podcast, Jason breaks down 6 evidence-informed strategies for improving hamstring flexibility that go well beyond passive stretching. Whether you're a yoga teacher, yoga student, or anyone focused on mobility and movement quality, these strategies will change how you think about — and train — your hamstrings.

What you'll learn:

-Why foam rolling works neurologically — not just mechanically — and how to use it as a primer before you stretch

-Why strengthening your glutes may do more for your hamstring flexibility than more stretching ever will

-How weak hip flexors limit anterior pelvic tilt — and why that directly limits hamstring length

-Why your adductors (especially adductor magnus) may be quietly working against your hamstring flexibility

-How dynamic stretching and engaged stretching give your nervous system more feedback — and unlock more range than passive stretching alone

-Why hamstring tightness is almost always multifactorial — and why there is no single magic technique

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Wow wow wow -- it's been 10 years since the launch of Yogaland! It feels like it's been a heartbeat and also a lifetime. There's been so much learning, growth, and love while making these episodes for the past decade. I spent time compiling precious insights--gems if you will--that stood out to me from the past 10 years.

We revisit moments with:

Amy Ippoliti — free diving, environmental activism, and asking young people about purpose instead of popularity

James Woods (Dat Yoga Dude) — bringing yoga and social-emotional learning into schools and communities

Maty Ezraty — why even the most accomplished yoga teachers still get nervous before every class

Susanna Harwood Rubin — navigating metastatic cancer with devotion, sacred spaces, and grace

Judith Lasater — the concept of inner gold and what distinguishes a truly good teacher from an abusive one

Jill Miller — the five Ps of inducing the relaxation response and harnessing vagal tone

Andrea Jain — an unbiased take on academic history of yoga's globalization

Julia Lowrie Henderson — the psychology behind why Bikram's cruelty registered as trustworthiness

Sally Kempton — the mantra that changed her relationship to failure

Tias Little — perfectionism as a cul-de-sac

Tara Stiles — doing it your own way, softness, and building a yoga practice around ease

Daya Grant — what neuroscience tells us about the yoga practitioner's brain and interoceptive awareness

Lisa Walford — four pillars of health developed after an HIV diagnosis in 1985, decades ahead of her time

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This week's podcast is such a special one because it focuses on our family. Jason sits down with his brother, Todd, to talk about growing up together, the chaos of addiction within family, anxiety, self-compassion, and healing as an ongoing process.

I love both of these men so much, and I'm so proud of them for sharing so openly. 

This isn't a yoga-specific episode — it's a conversation between two brothers about family trauma and the instability that addiction creates for everyone, not just the person with the addiction.

I hope you will listen, and if you or someone you know is struggling with addiction or is in recovery, I hope you will share it. 

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As yogis, we’re certainly aware of the many benefits of stretching — but are you aware of what the research actually says about how to stretch effectively? Or how to evaluate that research honestly?

On this week’s Yogaland, I’m sharing meta-analyses and systematic reviews to give you a clear, accurate, and intellectually honest picture of what actually increases flexibility.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why dynamic and passive stretching work through completely different mechanisms — and why you need both.

•  What the research consistently shows about stretch intensity — and why moderate intensity outperforms both light and maximal stretching for tissue adaptation.

• The sweet spot for hold duration — and why total weekly volume matters more than any single session variable.
•  
• The most important and most under-appreciated variable in flexibility training.

I'd love to know what you think of episodes like these, so please leave a comment. It also helps others find our work.

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What happens when two yoga teachers fall down a NASA rabbit hole and can't stop thinking about non-duality, The Overview Effect, and Grandmother Moon? This episode of Yoga-ish — our more personal, less technique-focused podcast — is exactly that kind of conversation.

Yoga-ish is where Jason and Andrea talk about their actual lives: what they're reading, watching, thinking about, and how all of it connects (loosely) to yoga, mindfulness, and the work of being a human.

We covered so much this week, including:

- Artemis II & The Overview Effect — and why astronauts returning from space sound a lot like meditators coming out of deep practice

- Christina Koch's transmission from the far side of the moon and what "moon joy" actually means

- Our review of Project Hail Mary + what we're reading

- Neurodivergent kids, intrinsic motivation, and letting go of the sticker chart

- 10 years of Yogaland — and what's coming next

For more of Andrea's essays and access to free guided meditations, subscribe to her Substack: yogaland.substack.com

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If you've ever felt lonely as a yoga teacher — you're not alone. And that's exactly what this week's podcast is about.

Teaching yoga is one of the most isolating jobs most people never see coming. You're surrounded by students, immersed in a tradition built on connection, and somehow you still end up feeling like you're doing it alone. In this video I'm naming that honestly — and talking about what we can actually do about it.

Jason talks about:

• Why teaching yoga is more isolating than it looks from the outside
• The structural reasons yoga teachers feel like ships in the night
• The real cost of isolation — burnout, imposter syndrome, and self-doubt
• Why community with fellow teachers is irreplaceable
• How connecting to your lineage and tradition sustains you
• What I built to solve this problem — and how you can do the same

Become part of Jason's community of yoga teachers:

✅ Get your 300hr & 500hr Teacher Training Certificate with Jason: https://learn.jasonyoga.com/300

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You've been told to stretch more. You've tried the releases, the routines, the one weird trick. And you're still not as flexible as you want to be. Here's why: flexibility isn't one thing — it's four. And until you understand all of them, you're only ever solving part of the problem.

Chapters

00:00 — Why flexibility is misunderstood

00:33 — The 4 Factors that contribute to flexibility

01:47 — Factor 1: Structural factors — your fixed container

06:01— Factor 2: Tissue quality — muscle, fascia, tendons and ligaments

14:07 — Factor 3: Neural factors — how your nervous system governs range

21:24— Factor 4: Lifestyle, age, and training context

27:06 — The flexibility matrix — putting it all together

28:13 — What this means for your practice and your teaching

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

-Why two people can do the same practice for years and have completely

different ranges of motion

-The difference between flexibility and mobility — and why it matters for

how you train

-How your joint architecture sets a ceiling that no amount of stretching can change

-Why muscle and fascia respond to training differently — and what each one actually needs

-The role your nervous system plays in governing range of motion in real time

-Why stress, anxiety, and feeling unsafe in a class literally make you less flexible

-How strength training improves flexibility — and why the yoga community gets this wrong

-What happens outside the studio that is working for or against your flexibility every single day

WHO THIS IS FOR

-Yoga teachers who want a deeper, more honest understanding of how flexibility works

-Serious practitioners who have plateaued and want to know why

-Anyone who has ever been told they're "just not a flexible person"

-Movement educators who want science-backed frameworks they can actually teach

ABOUT THIS SERIES

This video is part of a deeper curriculum I teach inside my yoga teacher training. If you want the full version of this content — including sequencing protocols, progressive loading strategies, and how to design classes that actually produce lasting change — get more information here: jasonyoga.com/300

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.

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