Yoga Clothing Newsletter

8/6/2019 Yoga Clothing Newsletter

1/6


2/6

Each issue of Biiot will take a look at the latest appli-

ance of science to health and tness. This issue, we are

winging our way off to the land of the Rising Sun, where

Sumo wrestlers and Ninja warriors rub shoulders, and

our modern day Samurai Fitness hero is Professor Izumi

Tabata, of the National Institute of Sports Fitness in

Tokyo, Japan.

Professor Tabata made the amazing discovery that you

can make huge gains in tness and lose large amounts of

body fat by exercising only 4 minutes a day! Sounds too

good to be true? Well its actually scientically tested and

the results are proven and thousands of athletes are adopt-

ing his training method around the world, so you may ask

what the catch is? How do I get started? What do I need

to do? If it works so well, why isnt Professor Tabata

ripped like Brad Pitt in fght club?

Whats the catch?

Well it is actually very difcult, it will probably feel like

the longest four minutes of your life!

How do I get started?

If you are going to try it, we would recommend going

without weights or going light with the weights until you

nd your range, theres an overwhelming probability you

will severely underestimate this workout and be begging

people around you to help you off the oor.

Tabata intervals follow this structure:

Work hard for 20 seconds

Rest for 10 seconds.

Repeat this eight times.

You can use this structure with almost any exercise.

The secret to making this effective is in your rst 20 sec-

ond interval. You have to go all out, so do as many reps

as you can in the 20 seconds, put the weight down for 10,

then pick it up again and go hell for leather for another 20

seconds.

I would suggest getting some sort of tabata timer like a

sports watch with a repeating alarm, where you can see

exactly at what point you are at in the workout, you dont

want to have to think too much, all of your concentration

will be on the exercise.

What do I need to do?

Some example tabata intervals are:-

Skipping Rope

Pushups

Squats

Medicine ball slams

Where applicable, try without weights rst of all, and

then gradually add weights or a weighted vest if you need

more intensity.

If it works so well, why isnt Professor Tabata ripped like

Brad Pitt in Fight club?

Dont be so judgemental, he might be hiding his Bruce

Lee physique underneath that grey suit, his academic

colleagues might not respect him, if he exes his pecs all

the time!

Tabata Interval training Study

Tabata performed a detailed study, comparing the effects of moderate intensity endurance (aerobics) and high endurance intermittent

training (tabata training intervals) on VO2 max (see below) and anaerobic capacity.

To cut to the results of the study: the moderate intensity group training program produced a signicant increase in VO2 max of about10%, but had no effect on anaerobic capacity. The high intensity group improved their VO2 max by about 14% while anaerobic capac-

ity improved by 28%. The study was done over a six week period. Both groups working out 5 days per week

VO2max is the maximum amount of oxygen in millilitres, one can use in one minute per kilogram of body weight. Those who are t

have higher VO2max values and can exercise more intensely than those who are not as well conditioned. Numerous studies show

that you can increase your VO2max by working out at an intensity that raises your heart rate to between 65 and 85% of its maximum.

Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and

VO2max.

Tabata I, Nishimura K, Kouzaki M, Hirai Y, Ogita F, Miyachi M, Yamamoto K.

Department of Physiology and Biomechanics, National Institute of Fitness and Sports, Kagoshima Prefec-ture, Japan. anaerobic apacity and VO2max.

Tabata I, Nishimura K, Kouzaki M, Hirai Y, Ogita F, Miyachi M, Yamamoto K.

Mad Professor

Issue 1 Summer 2011 BIIOFIT 1


3/6

Stand upright and with your feet separated a bit wider than shoulder width. Exhale, bend forward, and then

press your hands to the oor outside your feet. Then with your knees slightly bent, slip your right arm to the

inside and then behind your right leg, and nally press the hand on the oor just outside your right foot. Gently

move your right arm across the back of the right knee, until the knee is hitched high up on the back of your right shoul-

der.

Brace your shoulder against the knee and now gradually slip your left foot to the right, try not to use jerky

movements. Now comes the tricky part.try to cross your left ankle in front of the right and hook round the

ankles. Experiment with leaning slightly to your left, this takes some of the weight off your left arm, then begin

to lift raise your feet a few inches off the oor.

With the right leg supported on the shoulder, exhale and bend your elbows. Lean your torso forward and lower

it toward parallel to the oor; at the same time, straighten your knees and extend your legs out to the right,

parallel to the oor (and at ninety degrees to your torso). Now position your upper right arm by squeezing it

between your thighs. Use the squeezing pressure to help twist your torso to the left, this may take a couple

of tries. Keep your elbows in close to the torso. Focus your gaze with open eyes on the oor in front of you, about the

distance of your eye to navel in front of you is the right position to focus your gaze, dont look straight forward as you

may hurt your neck.

Now try to hold for 30-60 seconds, work up gradually to where you can hold without straining to 60 seconds.

Then straighten your arms slowly, lift your torso back to upright, bend your knees, unhook your ankles, and

return your feet to the oor. Stand back and rest for a few breaths. Now repeat the pose for the same length of

time to the left side (as in the photo).

1

2

3

4

Yoga ABCEvery issue we will be working our way through the yoga Alphabet, with a variety of Yoga principles and poses, this

issue we start with the letter A.

BIIOFIT READER COMPETITION

We are offering TWO free BIIOFIT organic ENDURA shirts worth 50 to the best readers photo for this Yoga pose,

please send your photos by email to [email protected], image sizes must be less than 2MB, the winner will be an-

nounced on the 30th September 2011 (subject to a minimum of 50 entries).


A is for Astavakrasana

(ahsh-tah-vah-krahs-anna), commonly called the eight angle curve pose.

asta = eight

vakra = bent, curved

Step By Step


4/6

Hi Im Lee Carnaby, co-founder of Biiot organic activewear, each issue in

this Trekker Book column Ill be sharing some of my personal experi-

ences on health and tness or life in general , focussing on some of the

places Ive been. Last year I spent an inspiring week raising money for the

Starlight Childrens Foundation charity by climbing Africas highest, and

the worlds highest free standing mountain - Kilimanjaro.

The slopes of Kilimanjaro had been beckoning me for six months, from

February to July Id talked about nothing else, wed been preparing,

training, purchasing equipment, asking what if questions and consid-

ering every eventuality. Before we left we were ready. We were t and

had all possibilities covered. I was with fteen friends and we had all

trained together to conquer this challenge.

Then came the day and we left with excitement in our hearts and just a

little trepidation in our minds. What would we nd when we get there?

Well it was nothing like our expectations. We had enjoyed the train-

ing but the hike was nothing short of stunning. We started in thick

tropical rainforest, and over the following 4 days wound our way

through fern forests, stark rocky valleys and nally frozen desolate

glaciers. Each day we pushed ourselves harder than we ever thought

possible, reaching and surpassing personal boundaries. We experi-

enced wild extremes of weather conditions from hot sun through

rain, biting cold, sleet and at the summit, deep snow.

I was lucky not to get altitude sickness, and the inability to get

enough oxygen into my lungs was quite disabling. But, after 13 hours

of gruelling hiking we all managed to summit at Uhuru Peak (a fan-

tastic achievement at 5896m). I wore my reliable Biiot Endura shirts

through the rainforest and then as a base layer under my thermal

and windproof outer wear as we hit the glaciers near the top, and it

worked perfectly.

Climbing Kilimanjaro wasnt the hardest thing Ive ever done in my

life but it was one of the most rewarding. People told me that it would

change my life and theyve been proved right. All I want to do now

is have adventures, climb mountains and make new friends. Ill miss

the sense of adventure, the breath-taking natural scenery, Ill miss

the inspiring comradeship. I dont want Kilimanjaro to be a once

in a lifetime experience, I want it to be the start of many more life-

changing experiences to come.

You can see more of my exploits on http://vimeo.com/channels/biiot

3 Issue 1 Summer 2011 BIIOFIT 3


5/6

4

Every issue we will be taking a look at some of the issues we are

ghting for in the environment or looking at an aspect of what we

do. Biiot was the rst retail company to exclusively produce or-

ganic only sportswear, the rst to manufacture a recyclable

organic shirt under 25 and the rst organic sportswear company

to get unsponsored athlete endorsements, in other words we

didnt pay them to back our products. But these achievements

havent been without somesacrice, we ask Biiots

founders about their journey

so far and the road ahead.

What was the most

difcult issue Biiot

had to tackle?

Establishing an organic only grown bres business was a really

big deal. Once we found out that many fabrics were some of

the most damaging environmentally products known to man,except for cars and coal red power stations (by weight polyester

produces more than 33 times its weight in carbon emissions!) We

knew we had to make a change, we wanted our clothing to be an

ethical product that minimised the harm to the environment, we

gave ourselves 12 months to go out there and discover if there

was any way of making high performance clothing whilst minimis-

ing the usage of synthetics.

But you cant just call the fabric manufacturer and say, Give me

a thousand yards of organic clothing! We had to revolutionize

the industry. We had to provide a dependable income stream for

farmers because if they went organic they dont nd it easy to get

a loan from the bank, because the banks dont like the risks, if the

farmer stops using pesticides then a swarm of locusts eats the

crop the bank loan doesnt get repaid, so the banks are effectively

tied in with the chemical companies. We had to convince proces-

sors to completely clean their chemical vats and then process our

stuff when we needed it. We had to nd the right mills, we did not

want any unethical labour practices or anyone taking any short-

cuts, it was the same with tailoring. It was a really big process

and it took over 18 months. We nally started trading in 2010. But

weve never made a single product using polyester or polyamide

(nylon) and its working out amazingly well. It put us on a whole

different level from our competitors.

Where else are you tackling issues? I mean after

you had set the company up?

Well one of the intriguing things about a fabrics own carbon

footprint, was that about 30% of its invisible and its completely

missing from the gures usually quoted. When I say invisible, its

incurred outside outside the factory gate, the part that you dont

see is in the transport element, but we only found this out, once

we had made our rst production run! What happens in a typical

sportswear rm, is that the crop is harvested on a mass scale, for

instance in industrial cotton plantations, the raw cotton is often

shipped by trains for thousands of miles to be processed after har-

vesting in China, and the chemicals used to process it are often

sourced internationally at the cheapest price, in Asia the cotton

mills are often located in Thailand or the Philippines where the

expertise and cheap labour are located for bulk production and

tailoring, so that is even more transport. This whole transport

network has a huge environmental effect, but currently there

is no carbon penalty for using it, it is all about economies of

scale and saving costs. But Biiot wanted to work on a small isbeautiful way of doing business. We didnt want this massive

supply network for the transport, we knew we had to change it,

but it was too late, we had already started production without

realising wed missed a big part of the picture.

When we looked into transport we knew we would have to

shut down and start all over again, we were running out of

money and hadnt visited every farmer and every shipper, we

had contracted out some crucial work to Organic Certication

companies, this was heart-wrenching as we had started selling

and a lot of people were relying on us, including our new cus-tomers. As it turned out, purely by chance we got lucky, in fact

we were incredibly fortunate as we were able to minimise our

carbon intensity for transport without breaking the company.

For instance, when we chose our supplier for organic bamboo

in China we got lucky, we knew they grew all their bamboo

on one organic plantation and we already had gained organic

certication with Oekotex for the whole process of manufac-

ture. When we enquired on the transportation element, we

got a nice surprise, we found the farmer we had paid, was

only 3 miles from the factory with a small enclosed plantation-

Oekotex had done their job properly! so we only had to go and

visit the one farmer rather than nd a whole new supply chain,

it made things easier for us as we did not want to terminate

the small farmer who had relied upon us, and we had worked

so hard to get. After the rst shipment, we stopped using air

freight and made a few other changes. Biiot garments are all

now transported using low carbon shipping and added to that,

our Organic Bamboo actually sequestrates more carbon in

the soil than is produced in the manufacturing or shipping of

the garment so we are actually reducing carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere when we sell our organic bamboo range! The next

step is to get a reliable, fully auditable, start to end, low carbon

delivery supplier in the UK

and Europe, but we have not

cracked that one yet.

How do you see Biiot

as helping the planet,

creating a sustainable

future?

We can only do our bit, but

if we can make a small contribution, then that might set an

example for the bigger companies to follow.

In terms of sustainability, in 1900 in Western Europe over



6/6

95% of clothing was re-used, now over 95% of clothing is thrown way, it takes time for people to throw it away, but its a big issue for

sustainability, and with synthetic fabrics that is a huge greenhouse gas problem. And so thats why weve partnered up with some

companies to, essentially by the end of 2011, make all our clothing out of recyclable bres wherever we can. And were going to accept

responsibility of our products from end to end. So if you buy a hat from us, or a shirt, or a pair of yoga pants, when youre nished with

it, we encourage you to hand it in and well recycle it, well also give customers a discount on a new product when they recycle, to give

them a reason to do it.

Essentially we are trying to put a twist on the idea of consuming. Right now the globe runs on endless consumption and then discard-

ing it without accepting the consequences, and were saying that were taking responsibility for our products from end to end. Can

you imagine if a kitchen company said, When youre done with your kitchen, well buy it back from you and make more kitchens outof it. Instead, they sell you a kitchen, then you have to go and buy a new more expensive one, theyre not interested in using the old

kitchen, they take it down the tip or make you take it, and when theyve tted your new kitchen you cant even get them to give you any

service!

Its about giving some power back to the consumer, so they can get to decide and Biiot is taking care of the consequences, which is

what we think a company should do.

But Im very interested, by the idea of what Biiot will look like ten years from now?

We hope we continue to make great products that people will buy, that will naturally grow the business if people support us whenever

they can. We have a kind of Buddhist philosophy towards the business, if we focus on the now, then everything will turn out well in thefuture. We are not really ten-year plan people with lots of MBAs and big spreadsheets!

BIIOFIT ENDURA

MENS TEE

BIIOFIT ENDURA

WOMENS TEEBIIOFIT ASANA

YOGA PANTS

www biiot com

Del Mcqueen,

World Powerlifting Champion

Biiot ambassador

Documents

Yoga Clothing Newsletter