Custom Yoga Room + Heat = Studio Workout?

Hi there dank and welcome to the forum!

Your experience is pretty typical – the “heat index” at home is usually wildly different to a studio for many reasons (search for “heat index” on this forum and I think there are a couple of threads that will give you more info). The level of wetness won’t really make any difference to the benefits, though I must admit, there is something very satisfying about working up the sweat!

In a studio, you will also have much higher humidity (simply from other sweaty bodies) which will affect the heat index on its own, plus possibly less well-controlled conditions compared to the nice setup you have built, so this may mean higher temps.

There is also the radiant heat output from all the other bodies, especially in close proximity, again this can raise your body’s cooling efforts (ie sweat for one). We mostly practice just Gabrielle and I in our private home studio, but occasionally we have 1-3 guests and boy does that ramp up the sweat in a small space! (Depending on the time of year)

Your higher level of evaporation (from the air circulation) will also help you body self-regulate, so again this might reduce sweat levels.

Finally, make sure you compare apples with apples – ie the conditions in your local studio today with the conditions at home today as the local weather conditions have a huge effect. For us (in Australia) at this time of year and sub-tropical location (hot, humid) we only need half of our heaters on for 15 mins … and be sweating in Pranayama, but in winter (not cold, but dry), we’ll have them ALL on for 40+ and still hardly break a sweat.

Hope that helps! Sounds to me as if you are well on track 😉

(And no, your post was not at all long-winded!)

No worries dank, happy to help out!

Rather than say what is best (since it is about how it feels really), I’d suggest you go more for the heat index.

Higher relative humidity = higher heat index (ie feels hotter; hard to cool down)

Higher ambient temperature = higher heat index

Personally I’m pretty happy with 35-55% rel humidity – 60% is a kind of sweet spot – so in your situation where it isn’t exactly dry it might be interesting to play with ambient temperature levels first. Below about 20% rel humidity it really doesn’t feel like you’ll ever work up a sweat, even if the temp shows 115F/45C as the heat index is quite low compared to 106 w 55%.

If it starts to take too long to heat up, the straightforward answer is that it is “all about the power”. Underpowered heating will never “fill the bucket” fast enough (sorry for the mixed analogies!). You could try adding a radiant heater for the “pre-heating stage” and switch it off when you begin and the hot bodies can radiate their own heat.

Here’s a handy heat index calculator that may help (and Gabrielle & I quickly discussed this and we think from researching this a while back that anything up to 150 is fine for a “standard 90-min class” but definitely do your own research on grounds of safety; oh and here’s a disclaimer – consult 3 physicians before you attempt this at home blah blah blah):

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex.shtml

Also make sure (as I’m sure you have) that you measure the average of rel humidity and the ambient temp as it varies a lot even around a small room. For a while we suspended ours in the middle of the room (it measure both) to get a feel for it). I remember being very surprised half-way through class one day when the device was on the ground, that the humidity was apparently 85% … then I saw it was resting gently against an EDGE of my towel. Sensitive little thing. 🙂

Hopefully that will point you in the right direction!

Robert

Interesting thread. We specialise in providing humidifiers for hot yoga studios in the UK, and we definitely notice that our clients’ clients complain of the humidity not being high enough.

What they tend to actually say is that they are not hot enough, as they are not sweating. It isn’t so much they are not sweating, it is just that because the air humidity can get very low when taking the temperature so high, the sweat literally evaporates off the surface of the skin so fast you can’t see it!

By creating a more humid environment (much like Robert has alluded to) you will get more of a sweat effect.

Most domestic humidifiers are not really capable of adding enough humidity to a hot yoga room, so you’d need to go down the commercial route. Either a couple of portable units, or go for something a bit more heavy duty.

Something along the lines of a HygroMatik mini steam will do the trick. I don’t know where you are based, but if you need help with this let me know. Whether you buy from us or not, it doesn’t matter, I just want to reinforce the need for having a humidifier installed to get the most out of your practice.