More and more athletes, both pro and amateur, are practicing yoga to boost their performance: footballers, swimmers, skiers, dancers… and above all, runners… In fact, the theme of the 2nd Espacio de Corredoras Workshop, which we organized in Barcelona in 2015, was Running & Yoga, and the women runners loved this sporty combo, which at first glance may even seem contradictory but is actually highly complementary.
Yoga brings plenty of benefits to athletic performance, but the most interesting part is that these benefits show up across the board, in both body and mind.
- Running, like almost every sport, shortens and tightens your muscles. Yoga is based on active stretching, helping you stretch out and loosen up your whole body.
- The repetitive motion of running, and the resulting overuse of certain muscles, builds up muscle tension that you can relax and release with regular yoga practice.
- If you only run, you're working a very limited number of muscles. With yoga you'll work your body as a whole, in an integrated way, strengthening muscles that are weak from lack of use, opening up tight areas and improving your body awareness.
- Yoga improves the stability and flexibility of your muscles and joints, which helps prevent injuries and recover from them sooner.
- A key feature of yoga is that it boosts both mental and physical energy; in other words, it “recharges your batteries” for running.
- 6. One thing women runners really value about practicing yoga regularly is that it boosts lung capacity, getting more oxygen into the blood and helping with intensity and endurance.
- If you follow a training plan to improve your running performance or to hit a race goal, chances are running sometimes stresses you out or makes you anxious. With yoga you'll learn to control and reverse these negative moods.
- And last but not least, it sharpens your concentration, focus, willpower and self-confidence, helping you reach your goals and conquer your sporting challenges.
This season I'm signing up for yoga. How about you?
