Missing the sweat of your Hot Yoga Studio? Make your home studio to get you through lock-down. This towel is our very own Archer designed for Bikram Yoga. If you would like to look at it closer click here.
DIY Hot Yoga Studio at home.
As many of us have been forced to deal with serious withdrawals from our hot yoga addiction without access to the hot room I decided this week to set up my own temporary hot yoga studio (with minimum expenditure). This way I can practice from home until the enforced isolation comes to an end we can all run at full speed back to our beloved hot yoga studios. I set mine up in the spare room this week complete with temperature gauge for a total of $73.99 and have achieved a consistent 40 degrees celsius for my home practice. If you had to buy all of the items on the shopping list below it would cost you $143.99 to start from scratch. (Obviously this doesn't include the possible increase in your electricity bill but I figure my sanity is worth it!).
What you need for your home hot yoga room?
Shopping List
- Electric Oil Heater $35
- Electric Fan Heater $39
- Humidifier $29.99
- Temperature Gauge $8.99
- Mirror $19
- Bluetooth Speaker $12
Items already on hand:
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Curtain/blind (or use a towel)
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Draught excluder (or use rolled up towel)
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Yoga Mat
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Yoga Towel (try The Archer!)
Step One - Windows and blinds
1. First step, close up any windows and if you can use a blind that has a honeycomb structure as they are more effective at maintaining the room temperature. Mine is a cheap one from Ikea that was already in place so no outlay there.
Step Two - Declutter the space.
2. Next, as much as possible try to declutter the space. Think minimalism. The more crowded the room with furniture, stacks of boxes or baskets of washing etc the harder it is for the warm air to circulate - not to mention it isn't that good for you to try and practice yoga surrounded by piles of stuff! If this is your bedroom then just do the best you can but if you are lucky enough to have a spare room then clear it out!
Where would you prefer to practice?
Step Three - Turn up the heat.
3. Heating!! My experimenting and research resulted in a two pronged approach. Firstly an electric oil 'fin' heater is good at heating a room but tends to need a while to be effective and doesn't move the air around so this goes on for my baseline heat and then I've an electric fan heater placed to blow through the oil heater fins to circulate the hot air from the oil heater in conjunction with its own heat.
From left to right. 1. Electric Oil Heater - similar one available from Kmart $35. 2. Electric Fan Heater from Big W $39 and 3. My home set up.
We already had the oil heater and bought the fan heater this week from Big W. I find if I heat the room up around 2 hours before I practice it gets to 40 degrees celsius and stays there.
Step Four - Block any draughts.
4. Stop any cool draughts by using a draft excluder to block any air that may come in through gaps under doors. You can get them from Spotlight for around $12 or just roll up some towels for zero cost like I did!
Left: Yoga towels rolled up to block draughts. Right: Sausage shaped draught excluder from Spotlight.
Step Five - turn up the humidity
5. All the heating might make your room feel hot but also make the air a bit dry. Introduce a little moisture with a humidifier. These can be cheap and cheerful like this one from Amazon that I bought for $29.99 or spend a little more for a bigger more efficient unit.
From left to right 1. Small aroma diffuser for use as humidifier from Amazon 2. Beurer humidifier from Harvey Norman (images not to scale!).
While these will help the air be a little less dry in your hot room this isn't exactly precision heating and it is unlikely you will be able to perfectly replicate the precise heating and humidity of the studio you practice at home. One low tech way to measure the humidity in the room is to place a few ice cubes in a glass and put the glass in the room. Leave it for a few minutes and when you come back check if the glass has some condensation forming on the outside. If it does't you might need to think about adding some moisture to the air.
Read the room temperature!
If you have a temperature gauge handy then put it in the room. I have this one that I found at a local $2 shop. It actually cost $5....
From left to right: 1. Temperature before heating the room at around 22 degrees celsius. 2 After heating the room for approx. two hours the room was at 40+ degrees celsius. 3. Temperature Humidity Gauge available online from Ebay for $8.99
Finally, Mirror, Audio, Mat, Action!
I had this mirror leaning against a wall that I had planned to put up a while ago (when I got time) that I bought from Big W for $19 but you could use any mirror that you have handy. I've been using youtube videos by a variety of teachers using my mobile phone. To avoid overheating the phone I have connected it to a bluetooth speaker and left the phone outside. I had this already but you can buy them from lots of places relatively inexpensively - Target has them for $12.
The best towel for hot yoga.
If you don't already have a great yoga towel try The Archer. Super absorbent, designed with your alignment and hot yoga practice in mind. Free shipping worldwide.
You are good to go! Put a sign on the door and get changed into your regular yoga clothes. Set a time to start class and go in 5 minutes before and be sure to keep yourself honest - work hard. Enjoy a nice long savasana at the end.
Smile, you did it.
Let me know how you get on and if you have any tips or hints or improvements in the comments below! Namaste!
2 comments
Aug 05, 2020 • Posted by Daisy
Oh this is perfect! You’ve inspired me to get on my yoga game without relying on the studio. Amazing.
Aug 05, 2020 • Posted by Jen
Thank you so much for this detailed tutorial! It’s exactly what I was looking and not really too expensive either. I can’t wait to have my own little hot yoga space.
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