YOGA FOR ATHLETES
In other words, specialized yoga. Your sessions will be customized based on your sport type, performance, and bodily needs. Specialized yoga uses static stretching and slow intentional movements and positions than other styles of yoga. This approach will help you accomplish your fitness recovery goals. Utilizing your breath will help soften areas of tension and open up your body gradually increasing flexibility, mobility, and strength. Specialized yoga optimizes your body for peak performance.
Specialized yoga will also focus on incorporating passive and active stretching of the muscles you utilize the most. The aim is to reduce muscle and joint stiffness from training, overtraining, and/or injuries, increase range of motion, circulation, and speed up the recovery phase.
WHY DO YOGA?
Fighters, other athletes, and performers —especially professional athletes and performers —have trainers and coaches who prepare weight training regimens, cardio sessions, stretching exercises, and other modalities encompassing their unique needs. Fighters, other athletes, and performers have coaches who watch, guide, and tweak their performance and physicians who observe and treat them for injuries. So the question remains; do they really need one more way to train? The answer is yes! Fighters, other athletes, and performers should do yoga because it provides an extra edge by improving balance, core strength, flexibility, mindfulness and focus, and facilitates active recovery.
​
The desire to improve is a key component of competitive sports. All athletes and performers have some room for improvement in their sport and performance training. Athletic and competitive careers are defined by:
-
A chase for a better time
-
Stronger body
-
Better split-second decisions
-
Quicker reaction time
-
The ability to take a harder hit
-
Be more present
-
Be in flow and in sync with their audience
Every small or even subtle improvement gives professional athletes and performers an edge in achieving their goals of ultimate performance and career longevity.
​
Training for your specific sport or performance type includes strengthening and conditioning your muscles. Each sport (such as a football player or a boxer) and performance type (such as dancers or singers) emphasizes some muscle groups over others. Yoga can help bring balance to all muscle groups of the body, strengthen weak muscles, develop heightened awareness, presence, and sharpen your focus. Yoga can also help you with rest and post-workout recovery. It’s also a great way to gently work sore muscles — especially with restorative positions and stretching exercises.
​