How Yoga Could Make You Better In Bed

As if I needed further confirmation that exercise is the most boring thing ever. So, this week, I reached out to a bunch of deathly hip exercise classes, many of which I've tried and loved, to get their take on how their classes could improve their practitioners' sex lives. And I was universally blown off. Exercise, it seems, is too squeaky-clean to be associated with sex. This makes no sense to me: isn't half the point of exercise to make you feel healthy and hot and like jumping someone else's equally sweaty bones?

So, boo to that. Luckily, my friends and I have bought some Livingsocials in our day, and even though we're not, you know, tres-chic barre instructors or whatever, we do attend these classes and see results and get laid and whatever. So, without further ado, here's what your favorite exercise classes can do for you in the boudoir.

1. Hatha yoga

Hatha yoga is full of major takeaways, for sex and for life in general. Breathing is incredibly important — it helps you stay centered and connected with your body, and it allows you to push your body past its current state into something stronger and more flexible. I've had yoga instructors talk about "breathing into" certain parts of the body, to facilitate easing into tricky positions. An application of these principals in bed? Taking deep breaths to train yourself to relax your muscles when you near orgasm. I promise, breathing and physically sinking into an orgasm is sooo much better than sinking into downward I-hate-you-why-are-you-so-painful dog.

So, come on, breathe in for me:

2. Vinyasa yoga

Oftentimes, the hottest sex is about breaking routines, but what about the sex moves you've got down to a damned science? Those deserve due credit, no? Talk to your partner about their favorite positions — of the yoga, sex, and yoga-sex variety — and then figure out a way to move smoothly between them, the way you would with a yoga sequence. I call it "Sun Salutation 'eyyyyyy!" (No, I don't.) Challenge yourself to complete the set at least two or three times.

3. Barre

You know how in barre, the instructor loves to torture you/make you into a real human by use of micro-reps (tiny "pulses" of muscle movement — little leg lifts, for example)? OK, now imagine that principle with flexibility in bed. Your partner can help you on this one — small pulses of, say, your leg overhead, or your bridge-elevated pelvis will help you tone up and, like, come at the same time. Also, probably you will be able to do this any day now:

4. Indoor Cycling

Oh, what's that? You need me to squat over you for, like, four hours, because it takes you a really long time to come when I'm on top? Not a problem, babe, because my glutes are now made out of ACTUAL STEEL.

5. Trampoline Class

No idea what to call this, really — I'm trying to avoid brand names here, if you hadn't noticed. It is as it sounds; you bounce on a personal trampoline for awhile, sometimes to goofy club music. Aside from seriously upping your stamina, these classes also make you really, weirdly cognizant of your positioning within, you know, the circle of your trampoline. Being able to mentally divide the area around your partner like this — a circle with boundaries that must be respected — can actually make you more graceful, or at least purposeful-seeming, when you change positions during sex. Spinning around from cowgirl to reverse cowgirl has never been easier.

6. Zumba

I have yet to accomplish this personally, but if you're at all spatially aware, you might learn how to roll your body kind of sexy-like. This brings you one step closer to being able to do that really sexy striptease Piper does for Alex in Orange Is The New Black, which I unfortunately can't find a GIF of, but here, this is close.

Think about all that the next time you consider blowing off hot yoga for happy hour, eh?