Why Yoga?

Combining a customized yoga routine with your training exponentially increases opportunities for growth in sports and optimal pain free living. The addition of yoga will create better breathing techniques while improving balance, flexibility, core strength, range of motion and endurance. Your custom routine may address certain muscle groups such as hips, shoulders or legs or it may enhance specific skills like balancing or twisting. A consistent yoga practice also helps to integrate the mind-body connection, fine tuning concentration, focus, intuition and response time.

Cross training is essential for athletes who enjoy the same sport year-round and yoga is a low-impact, calorie burning, tension relieving way to do so. Adding new movements and ways to stretch not only adds variety to your regular training program but also helps prevent injury.

In addition to improved athletic performance, studies reported by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health have linked yoga practice with decreased low back pain, less reported chronic pain from arthritis, headaches, and carpal tunnel syndrome, as well as lower blood pressure, heart, breathing rates, and reduced insomnia.

Benefits of Yoga for Athletes and Fitness Enthusiasts

1. Develop Deep, Relaxed Breathing
If you participate competitively in sport or simply join the occasional fun run on a whim you are aware of the impact breathing can have on performance. Deep, relaxed breathing is the foundation of reducing performance anxiety and improving concentration. Yoga will help you develop a habit of breathing correctly while strengthening your diaphragm. Yoga practice integrations the mind-body connection and athletes can benefit from this combination of skills training.

2. Increase Core Strength
Yoga poses are all about building core strength. The fluid, focused movements require a strong mid-section and the isometric contractions of many exercises will add a new form of resistance training to your typical machine-based workouts.

3. Increase Flexibility and Range of Motion
Yoga routines incorporate slow, steady flexibility exercises ideal for athletes. Frequent yoga training increases flexibility and range of motion while relieving muscle tension. Whether you are a runner or a golfer, improved range of motion can help improve performance.

4. Improve Balance
Yoga is a perfect way to incorporate balance exercises into your training routine. Balance exercises are often overlooked by athletes, but are one of the most effective ways to correct muscle imbalance or body mechanic problems. With most sports and weight training routines you tend to perform repetitive motions that develop some muscle groups while others are ignored. Yoga can fix these imbalances.

5. Cross Training
Yoga is a great low-impact way to cross train. Cross training is necessary for athletes who do the same sport or exercise routine year-round. Adding new exercises can help reduce injury, relieve training boredom, add variety and help recover from hard aerobic or strength workouts. Yoga can be done at a high or low intensity and there are hundreds of postures that can provide a workout for any athletic need.

6. Something for Everyone
There are many styles of yoga that range from very dynamic, active, movements that go from one posture to another (and result in a thorough aerobic workout) to more slow-paced practices that hold postures for several minutes and form an intense strength training and balance workout.