Training for sports requires discipline and dedication. Exercises are performed and routines followed that, while enhancing your sports performance may cause unbalance within your body. Strength may take precedence over mobility; nervous stimulation may take precedence over relaxation and calmness. According to yogic teachings, these imbalances can lead to illness, injury and stress. Where sports training can take a lot out of your body, yoga can put it back in and redress your body's natural balance.
Meditation
An important element in yoga, meditation describes the practice of training your mind to achieve greater self-awareness, creativity and focus. This is highly beneficial for sports people. During meditation, an athlete can perform a mental run through of an upcoming event, such as a race, and rehearse it in finite detail so that, on the day of the actual event, they feel well-practiced and far more at ease. Sports psychologists call this practice autogenic training. AT was developed by the German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in 1932, who was strongly influenced by yogic meditation practices.
Flexibility
Practicing yoga poses will help develop flexibility in all areas of the body. Muscles that are often left untouched by traditional approaches to stretching will receive plenty of attention during a yoga practice. Yoga ensures that all muscles around a joint are equally stretched which helps to develop balance. Balanced, flexible joints function better and are less prone to injury. Increased flexibility often translates to an increased range of movement, such as a longer stride length when running or greater reach when punching, and will benefit your sports performance.
Relaxation
Yoga teaches relaxation which is an important factor in most sports. As soon as you tighten up during a game, race or training, you start to work against yourself by creating unnecessary resistance to movement and therefore wasting energy. In yoga practice you have to soften your body from within which means that, despite your efforts in maintaining a pose, you must relax into the pose and focus on calm, deep breathing even though you want to clench your jaw, make fists with your hands and gasp for breath. This ability to relax will transfer to the playing field and allow you to function at your best despite the demands being placed on your body and mind.
Strength
Many of the postures in yoga require strength. Strength can be developed through lifting weights and performing calisthenic exercises, but yoga develops a different type of strength. Yoga poses develop strength in extreme positions so, in conjunction with regular strength training, will make your body more resilient and better prepared for the unpredictable demands of sports. Squats, for example, develop leg strength but only in one plane of movement. Yoga poses, especially those involving spinal twists, can develop strength in multiple planes of movement.
Cautions
After a lifetime of sports, your body will be strong and fit but you may lack the flexibility to perform some of the poses of yoga. Your spine, hips and knees may lack sufficient mobility to adopt some of the positions safely and, as a result you risk injury if not instructed properly. Many of the poses can be adapted to suit your individual ability by using blocks and yoga straps so that you can perform the poses safely and still gain benefit from your practice. To minimize your risk of injury, get expert instructions from a yoga teacher who is used to working with sports people and who knows how to adapt yoga poses to suit an individual's needs.
References
- "Yoga for Regular Guys"; Diamond Dallas Page, Craig Aaron; 2005
- "Yoga Anatomy"; Leslie Kaminoff, Sharon Ellis, Amy Matthews; 2007
- "The Yoga Bible"; Christina Brown; 2003
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