“Everyone Knows Men Don’t Do Yoga”

You rock up to your yoga class. It’s a busy in the gym this week. You scan the room to find a space for your mat. There’s about 30 people already here. John is in his usual spot at the back left. The “acroyoga guy” is next to his (presumed) girlfriend at the front. They are warming up with handstands again. Everyone else is a 20s-something woman, exclusively athletic-looking. This is probably not the class for you. Maybe there will be more people like you at the Wednesday class? Maybe stay at home next week and watch the football instead?

The statistics on men practicing yoga are pretty damning, and anecdotally I’d suggest published figures paint an even more balanced picture than I see in classes I attend. This whole situation is, perhaps a bit odd, and surely just a western phenomenon. There are many popular male yoga celebrities, so why is there a marked gender imbalance among regular practitioners? Let’s dig into that…

Statistics – Anecdotal

In live classes in Cambridge, UK, pre-pandemic, I’d estimate about 20% of students were male. This 20% tended to be in the regular set of students. Male “drop-ins” were rare. Except for one substitute teacher in one class I had never had a live, face-to-face, class with a male teacher.

When we all switched to zoom, men seemed to disappear. More often than not, I was the only male in classes I attended. It wasn’t until more recently, when I’ve been joining classes live-streamed from Los Angeles, that I’ve had the pleasure of following a male teacher in a class with a significant fraction of men in attendance.

On my workplace messaging platform, we have a channel for yoga chatter. About 25% of participants are men – but I know that most are more interested in the idea of yoga than the practice and they don’t attend classes and don’t have a personal practice. Nonetheless, I believe that 4 out of 65 men (under 7%) in my company genuinely practice yoga to some regular extent. I know that 5 of the 35 women practice regularly (more than 14%) but I suspect that at least that number again practice occasionally. This isn’t a statistically significant data point, but I doubt it is too atypical of knowledge-based workforce.

Within my own family, the females are all interested in the concept of yoga they hold (which admittedly my differ from mine) while the other males have no interest – maybe even active disinterest. This may very well be an age-related split rather than a gender-related split though.

Statistics – PUBLISHed

There’s been a small number of studies into the demographics of yoga practitioners that can shred some light.

A 2012 Australian study found that, excluding teachers, 15% of yoga practitioners are men.

Yoga Alliance commissioned a survey in 2016 that found 28% of yoga practitioners are men.

A 2020 UK-based survey found that 13% of yoga practitioners are men.

DoYou.com held a global survey in 2021 that found 11% of yoga practitioners are men.

This data is not published, but I help moderate a significant yoga-related Facebook group that consists of just 6% men. (As an aside, levels of physical activity decrease progressively with age, with a greater decline among women. Does that explain the female peak age of members being 35-44 in that group while the male peak age is 45-54?)

Why is this the case?

I attempted to reason about this clearly observed gender inequality.

Maybe men find “holistic” practices less appealing, generally? A National Health Interview Survey in 2017 showed that 16.3% of women used meditation, compared to 12% of men. That’s a 25% difference, which a much smaller difference than seen in yoga. That might be a minor contributor to the difference, but there must be more to it than this.

I wondered whether the “class” concept appeals more to women. Looking at a study of fitness class participants in the UK is interesting. As of May 2018, approximately 4.3 million men and 4.6 million women in England participated in fitness activities with at least moderate intensity for more than 150 minutes a week. In 2018, it was found that 78.4 percent of the respondents who attended group exercise classes were women and 21.6 percent were men.

That fraction is close to the split seen in Yoga, so maybe that is a key contributor to the gender trend. Could it be that people see yoga as a class-based activity and therefore “something for women”?

Is one reason for a lower male fraction because men are more attracted to other competing options? 40% of cross-fit participants are men. I couldn’t find stats on calisthenics, but I suspect that this has greater appeal to men than women. Both of those may be advertised to a similar demographic (certainly I see lots of adverts for these activities). That might explain some of the reduction. Maybe, the more competitive and extremely A-type potential yogi (which I imagine is a more-frequently male trait) is more attracted to these competing activities. That’s a hypothesis I don’t know how to test just now.

What are the Consequences?

Many men would benefit from a regular yoga practice. I see that even among my own friends and colleagues. Anxiety is currently rife – and yoga gives practical tools to control that. Stress affects many – and yoga is a great antidote to that. In the male dominated field of software engineering, physical issues (even among moderately active men) are rife due to the excessive hours of sitting over many years. That’s a large population of people that could benefit directly from yoga – even ignoring the multitude of less direct benefits – but they don’t.

As an example of the most severe case, during 2021 I was talking to a friend who had recently learnt that a former partner of hers had killed himself, as a result of depression. Her words were that not everyone partakes in yoga which can help them fight their demons. This is undoubtedly a very sad circumstance. I have colleagues that struggle with clinically diagnosed issues including anxiety and stress. I am confident they are receiving the professional help they need – but I’m equally convinced that aspects of a yoga practice would help further.

It’s easy to argue that we have a moral duty to share our yoga practice. (That’s not something I was previously doing very much at all.)

What can the yoga industry do about this?

In what ways is yoga currently marketed to men? I think the answer is generally not at all. Maybe that’s because there isn’t a big market worth adverting to, or maybe there is a significant opportunity.

There are yoga brands explicitly targeting a male audience. Broga for example (https://www.broga.com/) is apparently popular and many gyms offer Broga-branded classes. These are advertised at the fitness and sports communities – using phrasing such as “holistic mobility”.

There is a book entitled “Yoga for Men” by Dean Pohlman. Its description is, “Maximise athletic performance and increase strength and endurance through the power of yoga. Incorporating yoga into your fitness regime can help you perform better on the sports field and in the gym!”

Both of those examples emphasize the physical aspects of yoga. Is that because this is identified as the best marketing approach?

What can I do about this?

I probably understand some of the apprehensions of men like me (which I can probably say is a 40-something software engineer with a family) and can avoid brushing up against those.

As noted above, maybe the “class”-based view of yoga is one thing that reduces the popularity within my demographic. On-demand and solitary delivery mechanisms might alleviate this.

I know that yoga competes with activities that are (nominally) free – such as running, cycling, informal team sports. As a result, some of my colleagues are hesitant to pay for activities themselves. They are very keen, however, when activities are offered to them, e.g. through our employer. I know that there is a massive trend in the UK currently for companies to offer staff “well-being” support. Major corporations that don’t have a corporate wellness strategy are probably now in the minority. Maybe one avenue is to find ways that people’s employers will bear the cost.

With demanding job and a busy family-life, practice needs to be bite-sized and flexibly timed for many men. Maybe yoga practices can be broken into short blocks suitable for break-time down-time. This gives ample opportunity to offer techniques from yoga that enhance focus, problem solving, motivation alongside the practices for physical and emotional well-being.

Putting the above three points together, a possible model to try – and I absolutely plan to do this – is a series of short practices to be primarily marketed more to organisations and teams with the ultimate participants being offered access through that.

Watch this space. Or this.

Credits: Photos used in this article were provided by Unsplash and are used, with gratitude, under the terms of the Unsplash License.