Hot Body Yoga: iPhone App Review

This tab offers two buttons. One for workouts and one for poses. You can click on either one which will bring you to all the workouts or poses in this app.

Workouts - Fast and effective routines from the world's best yoga instructors.

Poses - Essential yoga moves to slim your body and calm your mind.

This tab offers workouts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced yoga practitioners. Explore each workout according to your needs. This is what workouts are given:

Beginner:
Bounce Back ASAP: (Duration 8:00 minutes) Rolling your ankle off a curb may lead to a vacation from stilettos, but that doesn't mean you have to give up your yoga prctice. In fact, certain poses can help heal wounds by relaxing surrounding muscles, so you can maintain your range of motion and strengthen the affected area. These poses will set you on the path to recovery no matter what ails you.
Fast Track to Fit: (Duration 3:00 minutes) A study by Springfield College in Massachusetts found that doing five minutes of yoga after a thorough workout helps stretch your muscles so you can see results sooner. Do each of these moves both before and after your workout for the ultimate get-fit gain.
Stamp Out Stress: (Duration 4:00 minutes) It's one thing to put your feet behind your head. It's another to get inside of it. These poses help balance both mind and body. Hold the first pose for 30 seconds, release, and repeat. Then proceed to the next move.
Straighten Out: (Duration 2:30 minutes) There's nothing sexy about stooped shoulders. These yoga poses counteract the bent-over posture that comes from hours of sitting at a desk, slouching on a couch, or hunching over a stationary bike. Do one rep on each side.

Intermediate:
Lean and Limber: (Duration 2:00 minutes) Too-tight muscles slow you down and put you at risk for injury. To keep your joints well oiled and your muscles flexible, perform this routine before a workout. Because these moves focus on your upper body, it's an ideal warm up for swimming, strength training, or tennis.
Lower Body Shape Up: (Duration 3:00 minutes) Running and other high impact workouts shorten and tighten the muscles in your legs, hips, and lower back. To make them feel looser and look leaner, perform these moves daily. Each one strengthens your entire body while giving key areas of your lower half a much-needed stretch. Do one rep on each side.
Om Alone: (Duration 11:15 minutes) It's hard to shut your brain off and achieve any kind of nirvana when your yoga class is crammed in between appointments and meetings. This do-anywhere routine allows you to zen out whenever the mood strikes.
Strong and Slim Silhouette: (Duration 30:00 minutes) For a stronger yoga body, just add some iron. The hatha poses in this routine incorporate dumbells to strengthen your body and fry fat. For best results, repeat the flow for 30 minutes two or three times a week.
The Great Sex Workout: (Duration 6:00 minutes) Limbering up with yoga will help you build a strong, supple body - and that leads to a lot more action in the bedroom. Do the following exercises in this order, twice a week, after a light, 10 minute cardio warmup, like jogging, biking, or jumping jacks.
Torch Calories Quick: (Duration 15:00 minutes) Along with keeping you flexible and relaxed, yoga has amazing weight-loss powers. In fact, an active sequence of yoga - a form called vinyasa - burns more than 450 calories an hour. These two flows (yoga-speak for "circuit") provide a total-body burn.
Upper Body Blast: (Duration 4:00 minutes) Lugging heavy purses, jam-packed gym bags, and heavy sacks of groceries take a serious toll on your upper body. These yoga poses strengthen the muscles and tissues that get crushed under all this weight.

Advanced:
Head to Toe Hot: (Duration 27:30 minutes) The words string bikini may make you want to crawl into a child's pose, but you can firm up your soft spots with these five poses. They'll help you strengthen and define the underlying muscles in your arms, back, glutes, abs, and thighs. Hold each pose for at least 30 seconds. Repeat the flow for 30 minutes two or three times a week.

These are all the poses listed in the "Poses" tab of this app:

A
Abdominal Sequence

B
Backbend
Bear
Bow
Butterfly

C
Camel
Chair
Cobra
Corpse
Crane
Crescent Lunge with Overhead Lateral Raise

D
Downward-Facing Dog

E
Eagle Arms
Eagle Pose
Extended Side Angle

F
Fierce
Fish
Forearms Plank with Leg Raise
Forward Bend
Forward Bend Hang
Forward Hero
Frog

H
Half Frog

K
Knee to Chest
Kneeling Locust

L
Locust
Lying Down Leg Raises

M
Modified Eagle Stretch

O
One-Leg Crossover
One-Legged King Pigeon

P
Plow

R
Raised Chair
Reverse Chaturanga
Rotated Side Angle

S
Seated Open Angle
Side Lunge with Concentration Curl
Spider
Spinal Twist

T
Triangle
Triangle Forward Bend

W
Warrior I
Warrior II
Warrior II with Lateral Raise and Biceps Curl
Warrior Pose

Y
Yoga Plank
Yoga Squat

This is a very important as well as helpful part of the application. Whatever workouts you decide to do (make sure you click "Begin" when starting a new workout), it'll record it.

Sessions This Month -> Simply counts how many yoga sessions you decide to do during this month.
Number of Sessions -> Counts the number of sessions you've done thus far.
Total Poses -> Every little pose counts during your workout. This is the total you've done so far.
otal Workout Time -> Since all workouts are timed, the total lifetime workout time is recorded here.

Under this info, you have two options. To either email your log or to clear your log.

Previous Sessions -> This also logs the date and name of workout you've done. If you click on each individual workout, you'll find your own ratings of the workout you've finished. You can rank your Stability, Strength, Stamina, and Overll with 1 (worst) to 5 (best) stars. Make sure to be honest in this section, it is for your own good. You can also add your own notes, if you feel like your stability was not good on a certain pose, make sure to jot it down so you can work on it more.

I have been using Hot Body Yoga since February 6th, 2012. It is definitely my favorite yoga app, it has many options (even logs!) and it works. Whenever I start any of the workouts, I quickly start feeling the burn. On the other note, when I do normal exercise it takes a while before I start feeling it. This only proves that yoga works like magic. I enjoy the music too, you can either set your own iPod music, or the ones from their list.

I will write further notes on my experience with Hot Body Yoga, but for now, it is definitely a keeper on my iPhone. If you love yoga, and have a chance, download it and you won't be sorry. It works! :)