Forty-eight hours after their win over England in the opening match of the Rugby League World Cup last month, the Kangaroos went for a warm-down at Manchester’s Yoga Lounge, a fitness studio dedicated to yoga and pilates.
Here, Bikram yoga, the “hot” kind that’s performed in a super-heated room to ensure an instant sweat and enable deeper stretches, is a speciality. And 40 per cent of those attending classes are male.
The Australian team are not alone in striking a sweaty yoga pose to speed their post-match recovery, improve general flexibility and guard against injury. Their English opponents have also supplemented their training with the ancient discipline at the insistence of Mark Bitcon, head of performance with the national team as well as at the Wigan Warriors rugby league club.
“It’s not about lying around on a mat,” says Bitcon. “It’s an intense physical workout which has numerous positive benefits. There’s a lot of work with weights in rugby league, plus intense, competitive action. In the past, we tended to neglect the flexibility aspect.”
The old-world, macho view that “yoga is for girls”, or at the very least only for blokes who are a “bit spiritual”, is history.
This season, Wasps, the London rugby union club, has introduced yoga sessions for its players.
Manchester United’s veteran winger, Ryan Giggs, who turns 40 this month, is such a talisman for its benefits he has released his own yoga-for-men DVD.
Andy Murray has credited Wimbledon-winning frame to Bikram.
But the elite sportsmen that yoga attracts aren’t interested in the path to enlightenment. “What they are interested in is prolonging their career,” says Nisha Srivastava, instructor at the Yoga Lounge.
“If they can tap into that 1 per cent that enhances their game, they become interested. When they see the benefits of yoga, that’s when they persevere with it.”
Wasps and England forward James Haskell, 28, who has been practising for three years, admits: “I’m not there to get my chakras aligned – I use yoga to give me an advantage in my game and to keep me on the field.”
Haskell is convinced of its benefits.
“When I was 18, I’d just go straight out and train hard. Now my first port of call is to get out the mat – otherwise I’m like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. I seize up.”
Dense muscle is notoriously inflexible, but the benefits from yoga-style stretching are measurable. “We test various physiological aspects, and one is range of flexibility,” says Bitcon. “We have seen as much as an extra couple of centimetres in areas like the hamstring. Any marginal improvement in an area like that can be very useful.”
It can also improve upper-body stabilisation, especially around the shoulders, where players grapple.
It’s not hard to sell men poses, or “asanas” – such as the Warrior or the Hero – but yoga has other advantages, explains Srivastava.
“The work we do appears to be purely physical, but the goal is the mind, and that’s where it can be most beneficial. If they can control their mind, learn to concentrate, then they will make more correct decisions on the pitch.”
Nick Chadd, the strength and conditioning coach who introduced Wasps players to yoga, says: “We have found it has a real impact on the way the guys perform, and that comes from aspects of relaxation and focus. It also improves mood and interaction among the group.”