With yoga becoming as popular as grabbing a morning latte, more and more people are discovering the all-encompassing benefits of the practice. For athletes, yoga is an ideal cross-training technique.
Many of my students are jocks or elite athletes and started practicing yoga with the goals of stretching and increasing flexibility. Yet whether your sport is hockey, soccer, running, tennis, cycling, or weightlifting, many athletes struggle with the practice because years of high impact sports and strength training have created bulky muscle, caused chronic injury and just added extra mileage and stress to their bodies. But more than the physical limitations, often the biggest battle is waged in the mind because athletes tend to approach yoga with the same competitive instincts that motivate their other sports activities. Pushing hard, aiming to beat other participants, winning the race, holding your breath and playing the mental game won’t net you results in the yoga studio.
Yoga requires a complete shift in mindset. By moving through the various asanas, yoga teaches you how to lengthen your muscles while contracting your ego. Imposing “rules” on yoga takes it into the realm of gamesmanship, but I’d love to share a few ideas to help you get the most from your yoga class.
1. Lengthening to strengthen
Using static and dynamic stretches, muscles are lengthened. Instead of working toward building bulk, holding poses takes you deeper into the muscle tissue and fascia
2. Zero recovery
Because yoga builds your strength through a gentle lengthening process, you don’t require the recovery time associated with higher impact, higher intensity training. That means you can practice every day
3. Inside versus outside
With many sports, it’s important to anticipate the moves of our opponents. With yoga, there’s no competition so your attention can focus inward. By observing the changes and sensations in your body, you’ll be attuned to your body’s intelligence, learn to accept where it can go to prevent injury.
4. No competition required
Comparing your postures and progress to others will drive you absolutely mad. Everyone’s practice is different, because everyone has a different history. By focusing on your own progress week to week, you’ll be amazed by the changes. I have students who were unable to touch their toes when they started and with time and patience they’ve made vast improvements to their overall flexibility
5. Your way is the right way
Yoga isn’t about pushing your body to fit the postures. It’s about adapting the postures to fit your body. With patience and perseverance your body will open and you’ll get there eventually, without strain or injury.
6. Less is more
In the yoga studio, the harder you try the less you receive. It’s probably the only physical activity that encourages you to quiet your mind, breath more and expect less to gain the greatest results.
7. Just breathe
Breath isn’t just the cherry on top. It’s the foundation of the practice. Often during sports activities, we hold our breath to focus on a big exertion thinking it will net us extra power and strength. With yoga it’s the opposite. More breathe gives us greater power and control.
But perhaps one of the most important principles of yoga is that it’s about the journey and not the destination. Yoga is about taking your time to create space. With patience and acceptance, you’ll open up space in the body and the mind. You’ll also be strengthening your body and your resolve. I acknowledge and respect that some yoga purists don’t believe in strength training, however IMHO I love to do both because they’re both important and complement each other. A regular practice will absolutely yield great results, but the other thing that will accelerate results is a shift in mindset to understand how yoga works.
Thinking you can’t do yoga because you’re not flexible is a bit like saying you can’t take a Driver’s Ed course because you don’t know how to drive. Every journey begins with the decision to go somewhere. And yoga can take you anywhere and everywhere.
From: The Corporate Yogi