Yoga is not always associated with athletes. However, over the years, Yoga for athletes has been proven to be very effective for athletes who are keen on carving a name for themselves across different areas of sports.
Yoga For Athletes: Positive Feedback From Professional Athletes
In fact, you may be surprised to know that NBA players Blake Griffin and Baron Davis have enjoyed the physiological and psychological benefits of Yoga for athletes and have included it in their workout routine.
In addition, Joan Nesbit Mabe, a long-distance runner has also openly discussed Yoga for athletes. In her interview, she shares,
“Yoga helped me set a world age-group record in the indoor mile and an outdoor American record in the 1500m at age 45. Yoga should have been-and will be from here on out-added to the mix of ingredients for success for any serious endurance athlete. Try to incorporate the practice of yoga into your weekly training regimen, and it will make a difference in your life as an endurance athlete.”
To better understand how you can benefit from Yoga for athletes, allow me to enumerate in detail the different advantages.
Yoga For Athletes: Enhanced Flexibility
Whatever type of sport you may be engaged in, an athlete with very little flexibility is not a certified athlete at all. Recreational, beginner and professional athletes in various fields of sports require flexibility training in order to maintain a highly flexible and active body. The Yoga poses are all designed to promote optimum flexibility.
A lot of the Yoga poses already include routine stretching exercises for athletes. Through regular Yoga practice, athletes can significantly lower the risks of injuries by making the body structure more flexible. With Yoga, athletes can work on stretching certain parts of the body that are otherwise difficult to stretch following normal exercises. Some of the great Yoga for athletes poses includes “bow and cobra” that work on the core and torso.
Yoga For Athletes: Maintain Balance
Yoga is also designed to help practitioners gain balance and alignment of the body and soul. Athletes in various sports require balance in different body parts to execute certain physical actions. While workouts and drills are integral components of athlete’s training, it can gradually lead to muscular strength imbalances. These imbalances can be improved and corrected through regular Yoga practice, thereby promoting greater stability within the body.
Yoga For Athletes: Healthy Breathing
It is true that everybody knows how to breathe, including athletes. However, we are not trained to breathe properly in various positions of stress as well as situations that require critical timing. This is crucial among athletes who require optimum breathing for enhanced accuracy and performance.
Yoga for athletes includes Pranayama, or the proper breathing techniques, which can prove beneficial when they are placed under stressful postures and situations. By training the body for deep and calming breathing, fear, anxiety and nervousness can be significantly reduced.
Yoga For Athletes: Promote Relaxation Through Meditation
Athletes require rest and relaxation in order to allow the body time to recuperate from the intensive physical stress. Yoga includes meditation exercises that facilitate relaxation of both the mind and body. This helps clear up the mind to promote better focus as well as direct the energy to aid in concentration. In particular, the “child and corpse” Yoga pose is especially effective in enhancing concentration.
Yoga For Athletes: Builds Inner Strength
While all those workout machines can help you achieve that buff body, it cannot help you in enhancing inner strength. As many athletes intimately know, inner strength is the foundation of all strength, which can be effectively developed and enhanced through Yoga.
Yoga For Athletes: Enhanced Stamina
Yoga helps athletes go beyond their physical limits, especially when it comes to perform in certain pressure oriented situations. Yoga practice can help build up strength that will help you achieve and deliver performance beyond the ordinary limitations. This is because, Yoga teaches its practitioners to gather all energy from the body to be used in attaining goals.
Yoga For Athletes: Other Invaluable Benefits
Aside from the aforementioned benefits, Yoga can also benefit athletes in speeding up recovery, promoting muscular symmetry, alleviating back pain, improving body control, raising energy levels, increasing vision, sharpening the mind and even improving sleep.
Given all these benefits, it only makes total sense that Yoga should be incorporated in the routine exercises of athletes. Whether you are keen on breaking records or simply enhancing your performance, consider enrolling in a Yoga class today.
