Over the past month, I’ve added yoga back into my weekly schedule. I purchased a passes to a local studio and joined an 8-week handstand workshop, which is taught from a yoga perspective. I encourage all my running and triathlon athletes (and even my personal training athletes) to include yoga in their training schedule, when possible! Yoga and Running is a particularly powerful combination to balance and stretch complementary muscles.
I forgot how much I enjoy having yoga in my life and how much in enhances my training. This is an experience I wanted to share with you, but it’s outside my area of expertise. So I asked one of the people who inspires me to share her yoga knowledge with us this week. I hope this helps you to better understand how yoga may benefit your own training and inspires you to give it a try!
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Hi friends! I’m so excited to be here today. My name’s Christine and I’m a freelance writer, runner and wannabe surfer and blog over at Love, Life, Surf. I’m also a yoga teacher so I was excited to hear from Heather that she’s been hitting the mat regularly.
While these days you’ll likely find me talking about the benefits of yoga to anyone willing to listen, it wasn’t always this way. I hated the first yoga class I attended (I figured it was a good way to “stretch” my tight runner’s hamstrings) and it took me a good five plus years before I learned to love and appreciate the practice.
And you’ve likely heard that you too should love yoga and incorporate the practice into your training routine. But you’re probably wondering — what in the world does yoga offer you as an endurance athlete? What can it give you that stretching or self-myofascial release can’t?
Here are 5 ways that yoga can help endurance athletes.
Work a different plane
Most endurance sports involve movement along a single plane of motion — front and back. Yet, here’s the thing — our bodies exist in three-dimensions and when we confine our movements to one plane (primarily), it can lead to muscle imbalances and decreased mobility.
In yoga, you work your body in all three planes of motion. You fold forward, you backbend, you twist, you move laterally, you abduct, and you adduct. As a result, you’ll improve your range of motion and stability and decrease your risk of injury.
Balance yourself
While yoga does help you balance your body (by moving you through different planes of motion), it literally helps you balance better. Standing and balancing poses are a staple in yoga classes. Think poses like tree, half moon, Warrior 3 and standing split. These poses help to strengthen and stabilize your feet and ankles — major shock absorbers for your body and key parts of the kinetic chain. Yet, these are often areas of the body that we neglect.
Learn to breathe
While you breathe all day every day, how often to you actually pay attention to your breath? If you’re like most of us, you don’t. Breathwork is a key part of the yoga practice and it’s taught me how to breathe more efficiently and a general awareness of how breath moves in and out of my body. In that way, I’m more aware of how to control my breath rather than have my breath control me.
For example, I have exercise-induced asthma and it’s scary when I feel like I can’t get enough air into my lungs. But since practicing yoga, when I feel like I’m short of breath — whether from my asthma or my nerves — I’m better able to remain calm and to bring my breath back under control. It’s definitely something that I call to mind when I’m doing a hard workout or on race day.
Lengthen purposefully
While on the surface, yoga may look just like stretching but it’s anything but. In yoga, you’re not just passively hanging over your legs or forcing your hands to your feet. You actively engage specific parts of the body and muscle groups, often opposing muscles, which helps to stabilize your joints. Also, when your muscles are tight, they don’t generate as much power or absorb shock well. Yoga helps your muscles to regain their elasticity.
Restore your mind
As endurance athletes, we like to work up a sweat and train hard. We like to push our bodies — that’s part of the challenge of endurance sports but also what we love most about it. While this {ahem} Type-A personality trait serves us well when we’re pushing through a training cycle or in the later stages of a race, our bodies also need a chance to unwind, relax and restore.
Yoga offers dedicated time for you to slow down and let the mind and body to rest. In particular, when you’re deep in a training cycle, restorative yoga is a great option. By using props like bolsters and blankets to support your body in supported yoga poses, you tap into your parasympathetic nervous system, allowing your body to truly relax. As a result your body can reap the benefits of all the hard work you put in on the road, pool and gym.
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Do you practice yoga?
Christine is a freelance writer and blogs at Love, Life, Surf. You can also find her on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.
