No matter how unconventional a new workout or exercise seems, chances are you’ll try it if you can envision the results it provides. Until recently, the same couldn’t be said about yoga. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of Americans doing yoga grew by 50 percent. In that time, the amount of American men practicing yoga more than doubled from four million to 10 million, according to The Good Body.

Your favorite athlete? Chances are they’re now practicing yoga. Even with its growth, accessibility, and popularity at their highest, there are still men who have the typical assumptions that many used to have of the practice: it’s expensive, it doesn’t help build strength, it’s too quiet, and the list goes on.

Anthony Chavez is CorePower Yoga’s director of personal transformation and mindful leadership, and he’s been teaching yoga for 10 years. He was once one of those men who bought into the myths of what yoga was and scoffed at the thought that it could bring him any true benefit. But he quickly discovered that the benefits served him on and off the mat.

We reached out to Chavez to talk about some of his own prior misconceptions about yoga, how it’s gone mainstream in recent years, and why yoga will more than likely kick your ass like any other workout. Here, he gives his take on some common misconceptions surrounding yoga for men and the benefits they’re missing out on.

Man with Yoga Mat

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