Yoga can help the weekend golfer limber up his stroke or the serious marathoner decrease her chance of injury. This ancient art increases strength, flexibility and balance, and has an array of mental benefits as well. But if you're an athlete new to yoga, check your competitiveness at the door. Yoga class is a time to treat the body well, not give it a punishing workout.
Flexibility
Athletes tend to have problems specific to their sport. Runners suffer from tight hamstrings. Cyclists could benefit from stretching their quadriceps more. Tennis players and golfers might have unevenly developed sides of their bodies. Yoga poses gently stretch out these muscles and improve the range of motion. Trying out some of yoga's awkward-looking poses also develops your mental flexibility. According to yoga teacher and writer Sage Rountree, athletes are especially susceptible to rotator-cuff problems and strains where the hamstrings attach to the sitting bones. Go easy on poses that stretch these areas.
Balance
Yoga improves balance, which is crucial in most sports. Standing on one foot develops your body's proprioception, or awareness of where the body is in space. A yoga practice can also balance an athlete's workout, and her relationship with her body. Instead of being goal-oriented, yoga focuses on acceptance of how your body is in each changing moment. And instead of moving in a linear movement, as in many sports, you'll move between standing, seated and even upside-down poses.
Strength
Athletes are usually strong in the parts of their bodies needed for their chosen sports. But often their muscles are unevenly developed, weak or inflexible in other places. The strengthening poses of yoga can help even things out. Some are held statically, working on endurance. Others, such as sun salutations or vinyasa style yoga, involve constant movement from pose to pose, allowing the muscles to move through eccentric and concentric contractions. Movements are coordinated with focused breathing, so the breath becomes another source of strength.
Mental Benefits
Through breath awareness and focus on the ever-changing sensations of the body, you become more attuned to the present moment. This helps you focus and relax simultaneously. According to Rosabeth Dorfhuber, a California yoga teacher who specializes in working with athletes, yoga also helps athletes increase spatial awareness, reduce performance anxiety and get a better night's rest.
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