Somehow on its journey west, yoga shifted from a mostly male endeavor to a mostly female one. For as much as I hear about entire professional male athletic teams doing yoga to improve balance and strength, in ten years I’ve never been to a class in which women didn’t outnumber men by at least two to one.

In today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , reporter Jack Kelly writes about what men are missing when they skip both yoga and pilates. “Men in general are less flexible than women. They’re just put together differently,” Dr. Betsy Blazek-O’Neill, Medical Director of the Integrated Medicine program at Allegheny General hospital told Kelly. She added that many of the exercises men do––like weightlifting––tighten up their backs, making them ripe for some deep stretching.