Which one is more effective, yoga or tai chi?

In fact, there is no absolute "better" at all. The two types of sports are suitable for different people and focus on exercise. The best results will be achieved by choosing the right one that suits your needs.

There are two particularly typical examples around me. Xiao Zhou, a colleague at the company who suffered from lumbar protrusion, first heard about Tai Chi from his elders to maintain health. He stood for half a month with the uncle in the park. Every time he stood, his knees were so sore that he trembled when going down the stairs. However, Uncle Zhang, who suffers from essential hypertension in the same neighborhood, was pulled by his daughter to practice flow yoga twice before. He almost fainted on the yoga mat following a set of movements. After switching to Tai Chi, he slowly performed a set of twenty-four poses every morning. Now his blood pressure is very stable, and he has even reduced the amount of antihypertensive drugs he had been taking all year round by half as prescribed by the doctor.

If you sit for a long time and want to improve your posture with rounded shoulders and hunched head, or want to improve your body flexibility and core strength, the effect of yoga will indeed be more intuitive. After all, many of the action designs in regular yoga classes are in line with the logic of sports rehabilitation. They will perform targeted stretching and strength activation for tight muscle chains and limited joint mobility. I used to have severely rounded shoulders, and my back was bulging when I wore tights. After practicing the shoulder-opening sequence for three months, my back is now significantly flatter, and most of my bags have disappeared.

But if your needs tend to regulate qi and blood, improve cardiopulmonary function, or you have underlying diseases or are older, then Tai Chi will be much more suitable. Tai Chi emphasizes "leading the breath with the mind and moving the body with the breath". The movements are slow and stretched. There is no need to hold your breath during the whole process, and there is no explosive force. It puts very little pressure on the joints and cardiovascular systems. Previous studies on sports medicine also mentioned that the balance ability of the elderly who insist on practicing Tai Chi for a long time is more than 30% higher than that of people of the same age who do not exercise, and the risk of accidental falls can be reduced by nearly 40%.

Don’t believe the extreme comments on the Internet such as “Yoga hurts the waist” and “Tai Chi is useless”. I have seen yoga enthusiasts who ruptured their ligaments while doing straight-up horse training, and I have also seen Tai Chi beginners who wore their meniscus during knee-stuck exercises. If you want any exercise to be effective, the prerequisite is that the movements are standardized and adapted to your own physical condition. If you are really confused about which one to choose, why not try two or three classes together? Your own body’s intuitive feelings are much more reliable than online debates.