How many men do yoga? About 10.3% of US men practised yoga in 2022, against 23.3% of women. That's the CDC's National Health Interview Survey, and it makes men roughly three in ten practitioners. In heated, fixed-sequence classes like 26 and 2, the research samples suggest a similar or slightly lower share.
Table of Contents
That's the short answer. The longer one is more useful, because the national figure and the men on the mats beside you are two different numbers. This guide explains both and shows where each figure comes from. Then it looks at the 26 and 2 method itself, posture by posture, to explain why men who try it often stay.
How Many Men Do Yoga? The National Numbers in Full
The most reliable source is the CDC data brief on yoga among adults in 2022. It asked a large national sample whether they had practised yoga in the past 12 months. The answer splits sharply by sex.
- All adults: 16.9% practised yoga in 2022, or about one adult in six.
- Men: 10.3%, so about one man in ten.
- Women: 23.3%, so a little under one woman in four.
Those percentages answer one version of the question: what percentage of men do yoga. But people who ask how many men do yoga usually mean something else. They want to know what share of a class is male.
To get there, you compare the two rates. Men and women are roughly equal halves of the adult population. So 10.3 against 23.3 works out to men being roughly 30% of practitioners. That's our estimate, not a published figure, so treat it as a rough guide.
The 2017 to 2022 trend for men
The trend matters too. The earlier CDC brief on yoga use in 2017 put men at 8.6% and women at 19.8%. So both groups grew. However, women grew faster in absolute terms, which means the gap did not close.
| Group (US adults) | Practised yoga, 2017 | Practised yoga, 2022 | Change in points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Men | 8.6% | 10.3% | +1.7 |
| Women | 19.8% | 23.3% | +3.5 |
| All adults | 14.3% | 16.9% | +2.6 |
| Age 18 to 44 | 17.9% | 21.3% | +3.4 |
| Age 65 and over | 6.7% | 8.0% | +1.3 |
One more detail is worth noticing. Ten years earlier, overall yoga use was just 9.5%, as the NCCIH summary of the national surveys reports. In other words, yoga participation among adults has close to doubled in a decade. So more men practise than ever, even though they're still the minority in the room. These are the core men in yoga statistics most articles quote.
How Many Men Do Yoga in 26 and 2 Classes?
Here's the honest part. No national survey separates heated yoga from other yoga. No census of 26 and 2 studios exists either. So nobody can tell you exactly how many men do yoga in a hot room. What we can do is look at the closest evidence, and it comes from an unexpected place: the science itself.
What hot yoga research samples show
Researchers recruit volunteers from the people who show up. As a result, study samples are a rough mirror of who practises. In 2025, Willmott and colleagues published a systematic review of hot yoga in Sports Medicine - Open. It pooled 43 studies and 942 participants. Of those, 76% were women. Bikram-style practice, the 26 and 2 sequence, was the most common method studied, at 74% of the research.
| Study | What was tested | Participants | Men | Share of men |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Willmott et al., 2025 (review) | 43 hot yoga studies pooled | 942 | 224 | 24% |
| Hart and Tracy, 2013 | 8 weeks of Bikram yoga and fitness | 10 | 4 | 40% |
| Hui et al., 2022 | 6 weeks of hot yoga and well-being | 137 | 30 | 22% |
| Nyer et al., 2023 (Massachusetts General Hospital) | 8 weeks of heated yoga and depression | 65 | 12 | 18.5% |
Read the table as a range, not a verdict. Across the studies, men made up between one in five and two in five volunteers. The pooled figure is about one in four. That's a little below the 30% estimate for yoga in general. It also matches what the review authors note: yoga is more commonly practised by women.
Inside a 26 and 2 teacher training
There's one more data point, and it comes from inside our own academy. The YogaFX enrolment report on men in the hot room tracks the male share of teacher training applicants year by year. It also covers who those men are and why they apply. It's the closest thing to a 26 and 2 dataset we know of, so read it alongside the research samples above.
10.3%
US men who practised yoga
Up from 8.6% in 2017 (CDC, 2022).
23.3%
US women who practised yoga
More than twice the rate for men (CDC, 2022).
24%
Men in hot yoga research
224 of 942 volunteers across 43 studies (Willmott et al., 2025).
74%
Studies that used Bikram-style practice
The 26 and 2 sequence is the most studied hot yoga (Willmott et al., 2025).
Why the Gap Exists: What Men Say Before Their First Class
Search data tells you a lot about what men worry about. People who search how many men do yoga also ask can men do yoga, do guys go to yoga classes and what should men wear in yoga. None of these are about ability. They're about belonging.
That pattern shows up in the forum threads that rank for this topic too. Men ask whether they'll be the only one and whether they need to be flexible first. They also ask whether the class is hard enough to be worth the time. In short, the gap is mostly a perception gap. The practice does not exclude men. Instead, the marketing around it often does.
- "I'm not flexible enough." Flexibility is a result of practice, not an entry ticket.
- "I'll be the only man." The numbers above say roughly one in four to one in three, depending on the setting.
- "It won't be a real workout." The research on the 26 and 2 sequence measured strength and body composition changes, as the next section shows.
We answer the first worry in detail in can men do hot yoga. Whether a male-only room changes anything is covered in men only hot yoga.
What the Science Says Men Get From the 26 and 2 Sequence
Knowing how many men do yoga tells you who walks in. The research tells you what happens next. Because men are under-represented in the studies, the evidence is thinner for men alone. Still, the findings below come from mixed groups that included men, and they are consistent.
Strength and flexibility
In 2013, Hart and Tracy published a controlled trial in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Young adults did 24 Bikram sessions over 8 weeks. Compared with controls, the yoga group increased deadlift strength and gained lower back, hamstring and shoulder flexibility. Body fat also dropped modestly. However, aerobic fitness didn't change, which is an honest limit worth knowing.
Mood and well-being
The Massachusetts General Hospital trial led by Nyer in 2023 tested heated yoga for moderate to severe depression. After 8 weeks, 59% of yoga participants had symptoms drop by half or more. On the waitlist, it was 6.3%. Separately, Hui and colleagues reported in 2022 on a 6-week hot yoga programme. It improved life satisfaction, general health and peace of mind compared with a waitlist.
Notice the catch. Both mood trials were around four-fifths women. So do the results apply to men? They probably do, but more research with men is needed.
Yoga may help many people, but it's not a replacement for medical care. Do you have a heart condition, blood pressure concerns or a mental health diagnosis? Then consult a healthcare professional before starting heated practice.
The Method, Posture by Posture: Why Men Who Try It Often Stay
This site is about the method, so here's the part most participation articles skip. The 26 and 2 sequence is 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises, always in the same order. It runs for 90 minutes in a room at about 40°C and 40% humidity.
Several features of that design remove the exact barriers men describe. In the long run, that design may matter more to how many men do yoga than any marketing campaign.
The opening: breathing before anything else
Class starts with Pranayama, Standing Deep Breathing. There's nothing to get wrong, so there's nothing to perform. For a newcomer, that first few minutes is a quiet way to settle into the heat before the work begins.
The standing series: strength men recognise
Awkward Pose, Eagle Pose and Standing Head to Knee are held still. Often you're at the edge of what the legs can support. That kind of isometric load feels familiar to anyone who lifts, runs or plays a field sport. As a result, many men find the standing series harder than they expected, in a good way.
- Awkward Pose: a long, held squat pattern that works the thighs and calves.
- Standing Bow Pulling Pose: balance plus a back extension on one leg.
- Triangle Pose: a wide stance that asks a lot of the hips and legs.
The floor series: where tight men see change
The spine strengthening series runs from Cobra to Floor Bow. It and the forward folds that follow work the posterior chain and hamstrings. These are exactly the areas where desk work and gym training leave men tight. That is also where the Hart and Tracy trial saw its largest flexibility gains. For a posture-by-posture plan built around tight hips and shoulders, see hot yoga poses for men.
No inversions, no arm balances, no choreography
There is no headstand, no handstand and no flowing sequence to keep up with. For example, everyone holds the same posture for the same count, guided by a spoken dialogue rather than a demonstration. So a man who has never practised cannot fall behind the room. The full order, and the reason for it, is laid out in the 26 and 2 yoga sequence.
What Students Say About a Mixed Room
Numbers only go so far. Behind the question of how many men do yoga there's often another one: will I fit in? Here's how three YogaFX trainees described the room they trained in.
"He quickly creates a very supportive and loving environment with everyone of different abilities totally engaged."
Karen, Google review, 2025
"...structured each day of the course in a way that allows all students to evolve emotionally & physically both individually & together in a safe, supportive environment."
Shelley, Google review, 2026
"Thank you for everybody who support like a family."
Luh, YouTube review, 2023
Luh said this at the RYT 200 graduation in Bali, partly in Indonesian and partly in English. You can watch the moment below.
How to Read Yoga Statistics Without Being Misled
Figures about how many men do yoga get quoted loosely online. The percentage of men who do yoga depends on how the question was asked. Before you repeat a number, check three things.
- Which question was asked. "What percentage of men practise" (about 10%) is not the same as "what percentage of practitioners are men" (about 30%).
- Which time window. The CDC counts anyone who practised in the past 12 months, even once. Regular weekly practitioners are a smaller group.
- Which country and which style. National surveys cover all yoga. None of them isolate heated or fixed-sequence classes.
Age matters as well. In 2022, 21.3% of adults aged 18 to 44 practised, against 8.0% of those aged 65 and over. So a studio near a university will look very different from one in a retirement town. That's true for men and women alike. So the next time you read a claim about how many men do yoga, ask who was counted.
Learning the Method With YogaFX
Maybe the numbers have convinced you that you wouldn't be out of place. Then the next step is learning the method properly. Mr. Ian Terry, E-RYT 500, leads the YogaFX training.
- Experience: more than 12,000 teaching hours.
- Graduates: over 1,500, from 80+ countries.
- Lineage: five years, from 2014 to 2019, training with the founder of the method, Bikram Choudhury.
- Title: Master Trainer, Republic of Indonesia Yogasana Sports Federation.
Mr. Ian teaches the dialogue the same way to every trainee. A man of 50 hears the same instructions as anyone else in the room.
The Bikram Hot 26&2 Yoga Teacher Training MasterClass is a 6-day hybrid. You study online first, then join an intensive in Seminyak, Bali. The next intake runs from Sunday 24 January to Friday 29 January 2027 at Soham Wellness Center.
Graduates earn a Yoga Alliance RYT 200-Hour and a Bikram Hot 26&2 200-Hour International Yoga Certification. The Early Bird price is US$1,899, against a normal US$1,999. Monthly instalments start from US$250, with no interest.
Full course details and dates are on the 26 and 2 yoga teacher training page.
FAQ
Who does more yoga, men or women?
Women do. In the 2022 CDC survey, 23.3% of US women practised yoga in the past year, against 10.3% of men. That puts women at more than twice the rate. Both groups have grown since 2017, but women grew slightly faster, so the gap between them has not closed.
Do guys go to yoga classes?
Yes. If you're asking how many men do yoga, about one US man in ten practised in 2022. Men make up roughly three in ten practitioners overall. In hot yoga research samples, men were about one volunteer in four. So in a typical class you are unlikely to be the only man, even if women are the majority.
Is yoga good for men?
Research suggests it can be. In a 2013 controlled trial, 8 weeks of the 26 and 2 sequence increased deadlift strength. It also improved hamstring and shoulder flexibility and modestly reduced body fat. Most studies include more women than men, so men-only evidence is limited. Check with a doctor first if you have a health condition.
How many people do hot yoga?
No national survey counts hot yoga separately, so there is no reliable total. What we know is that 16.9% of US adults practised some form of yoga in 2022. In hot yoga research, the Bikram-style 26 and 2 sequence was the most studied method. It appeared in 74% of 43 studies.
Are men welcome in yoga classes?
Yes. Every 26 and 2 class is open to everyone, and the sequence and dialogue are identical for every student. There are no inversions or arm balances, and no flexibility is needed to start. Men who worry about standing out usually find that everyone is busy with their own posture.
Still have questions? Whether you're wondering how many men do yoga in our Bali classes, or whether the training suits your body, just ask. Message Mr. Ian and the YogaFX team on WhatsApp and we'll answer you personally, usually within a day.