Many guys (and even gals) who are into strength training switch off when they hear the four letter word – YOGA
They tend to associate super skinny, hyper-mobile people, chanting and a bunch of tree-hugging vegans with it.
But little do they know
I might be a female (definitely not vegan and definitely not tree hugging :), but I am a strength training enthusiast just like you and in this blog I want to:
Going forward I will mostly be referring to Yoga in the sense of fluid Yoga practises like Power Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga etc and less in the sense of more spiritual based Yoga practises like Kundalini Yoga. I will touch on Yin Yoga in the section of mental perseverance and recovery.
I think you would probably agree straight away that Yoga helps your FLEXIBILITY, so enabling you to maximize range of motion at a given joint.
Just reading this definition of flexibility shows you that Yoga can help improve your squat position, overhead position, posterior chain length…
Of course the important part is to always access your flexibility in a controlled manner with sufficient strength to move through the movement safely rather than forcing yourself in a position or rather than becoming hyper flexible.
If you have ever practised or just watched someone do Yoga, you’d likely also agree, that it would help improve BALANCE, so the ability to control the placement of your body’s center of gravity in relation to its support base. Don’t you think that this could also have a positive effect on the balance that you need for any Olympic Lifts, particularly the Snatch? Or maybe for your handstand walk in your next CrossFit Competition, but also for a ‘simple’ Bench Press when you are balancing the Barbell?
Even if to a lesser degree, many Yoga poses certainly also have a positive effect on your Stamina, so your muscular endurance, as well as on your strength, so the ability to apply force. Proper yoga classes also incorporate lot’s of planks, core work, lots of lunge holds, head-/handstands, one legged stances…
Lastly, Yoga also improves coordination. “What arm am I putting with which foot? And how do I twist that leg over to this side??” It might not have a direct transfer to your sport, but you can probably imagine that generally improving your coordination forms certain patterns in your brain that help your overall coordination – in everyday life as well as your training.
Essentially that means no matter your sport – Gymnastics, CrossFit, BodyBuilding, Powerlifting, Olympic Lifting, StrongMan, Obstacle Racing, Running… Yoga is going to help you perform better in your sport in at least a couple of aspects.
You can probably imagine that having full range of motion (ROM) across your joints can help you grow old in a healthier more independent way (getting up when you fall down, reaching for something on a high shelf…), but you may not realize that going into full ROM also helps prevent injuries now. Training without placing any attention on mobility work leads to tight muscles, smaller range of motion and a compromised power output. We have all seen that person who is so buff, they can’t even scratch his/her own back or bend down to tie their shoes properly. In the long run this is likely to lead to muscular imbalances, and therefore often eventually some sort of structural issues due to overuse in one area and neglect in the other which leads to injuries like slipped discs, failed lifts because of incorrect posture due to limited ROM…
Naturally, if you have full range of motion across your joints you can train your muscles across such. That will not just inevitably lead to better form, but also increased strength. If your ROM is only increasing slowly, but you don’t want to back off from the heavy weights you normally use, I recommend designating one training session per week solely focusing on form and backing off on weight and one training session with a smaller, but controlled ROM like with Box Squats, Floor Press, partial Deadlifts etc.
Remember that it is mostly your ego holding you back from reducing the weights used. You won’t lose a ton of strength by focusing on form more for a little while, on the contrary.
Particularly since Yoga is not just focused on increasing ROM, but on doing so with control and simultaneously building up strength within the deep stabilizing musculature to make sure we do so safely, Yoga will also help your performance in that way. Many people want to deadlift 2-3 times their body weight, but can’t even hold a plank or hollow body for a couple of minutes, yet alone control their body enough to do one legged standing poses like Warrior 3.
We are often afraid to go back to basics when we have been training for a few years. But the truth is that nearly all of us can benefit from placing at least some of our focus on accessing our full range of motion and strengthening the deep musculature, especially in our core, along the spine, the rotator cuff and around our hip girdle.
We all know that if we recover faster we can train more or harder and therefore perform better.
We also know that we need to relax to recover. Not just physically, but also mentally. Our Central-Nervous-System (CNS) needs to be able to wind down, cortisol needs to come down, we need to get out of that activated fight or flight state that we are so often in in our modern lives (work stress, emotional stress, undereating or eating crappy food, not sleeping enough, high training volume…).
There are three distinct ways in which Yoga can help you get to a state of relaxation:
Yoga and breathwork are deeply connected. Almost all classes start with a few minutes of breath work. An example for this is Box Breathing (which is even used in the Military), “fire breathing” or Wim Hof breathing exercises. But even if there is no designated part focusing on breathing, Yoga teaches you to breathe into your belly, to lean into uncomfortable situations or positions through deep breathing and is also based on the principle to move WITH your breath!
Doing uncomfortable things fosters mental perseverance. Any kind of uncomfortable thing. Whether that is taking a cold shower every morning, doing your meal prep even if you don’t want to, having tough conversations that need to be had… or staying in an uncomfortable Yoga position. If you have ever partaken in a Yin Yoga class where stretches are held for up to 3 minutes, you know what I am talking about. But you really don’t need to take it this far. For most people holding a position for 30s, easing off and then going again for another 30s is absolutely enough. I highly recommend reading David Goggins’ book “Can’t hurt me”, which is not about Yoga at all, but rather about Navy Seals Training, Ultra Running, World Records for 1000 Pull-ups, Powerlifting… but basically about building “mental cullesses ”. The theory is to expose yourself to something you find uncomfortable daily/ regularly and thus building up your mental perseverance.
In addition to that, any kind of introspection, willingness to work on weaknesses or getting to know yourself better during meditation takes will power and self-discipline, which also build mental perseverance. You might regard these sorts of practices as ‘boring, useless and like a waste of time’. And it did to me too, at first.
But meditation is not something that makes you feel awesome straight away. You won’t feel enlightened immediately afterwards. It is a gradual build up that will eventually help you find calmness in the middle of your day. Having inner stillness is not about needing to escape to a super quiet space every time chaos comes up. It means being able to calm the mind in the midst of chaos. But you won’t learn how to do that, how not to freak out if something happens or overreact to a situation, if you don’t practise.
Almost every Yoga class finishes with at least 3-5 minutes of “Savasana”, the corpse pose, so essentially just laying there. The purpose of this is to learn to JUST BE, a colossal challenge for most people. I have been asked so many times “but how do >I think of nothing<?”. But the purpose of meditation is not necessarily to think of ‘nothing’. As mentioned, it is to calm your mind. If thoughts pop up (like ‘what am I going to have for dinner?’ or ‘I need to get out of here to pick up my kids’) acknowledge them and let them drift away, like a cloud in the sky. Focus on your breath if it helps you, take a mental journey through your body and explore how you feel. Use PMR techniques to help you stay focused…
The most common ‘excuses’ why people don’t do Yoga or any other kind of stretching are:
I don’t have time/ It takes too long
It’s not fun/ boring/ not my style
It’s too expensive but I don’t know where to start
If you are really completely new to mobility work, but you don’t have the time/don’t want to do your own research on where to start, I would definitely recommend following a structured program whether that is in an App, a class or with a personal trainer. Otherwise you will likely not stay consistent with it. Remember, with any new habit it really pays off not just having the information, but also having some form of accountability (could be through a friend, a coach or a community). You also want to avoid starting in a place that is just way too hard for you and then getting discouraged. So make sure you pick something that suits your level. For example check out THIS 10 minute Yoga sequence for beginners.
My flexibility sucks/ I’d rather lift
You may be thinking “but I have heard stretching before my training is not good for performance and can actually lead to injuries”…
What’s the deal with that?
That brings me to my next point…
Not all kinds of Yoga are beneficial BEFORE your training and not all kinds of Yoga are beneficial AFTER your training. You are completely right, STATIC stretches are NOT ideal BEFORE your training. There is a muscular component to that and a neurological one. So for one, we don’t want to lose tension in your muscles before we even start training.
The whole point of a warmup is to activate them and to increase range of motion before your training. That is why you should focus on Poses/ Stretches that keep your muscles engaged if you practise Yoga BEFORE your training, so things like lunge variations, Downward/ Upward Facing Dog, Chair Pose to Forward Fold, Side Plank Variations… Also focus on moving with your breath, so something like “exhale – downward dog, inhale – upward dog” and then cycling through that 3-5 times. This would be a great spinal warm up, that also activates your shoulders, increases ROM in hamstrings and calves and your wrists. More activating Yoga styles like Hatha Yoga, Power Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga follow this kind of scheme.
The neurological component is why STATIC stretches are not recommended BEFORE your workout, but can be a great way to help you relax AFTER you workout or on a rest day. When we relax into a static stretch and hold this for a number of minutes our CNS winds down too. Of course you don’t want to switch off your CNS before you train, on the contrary you want to activate it, but the quicker you can activate the parasympathetic nervous system AFTER your workout the faster you will start recovering. That means poses like a Cross Body Stretch, Pigeon Pose, Happy Baby Pose, Seated forward folds… all great ways for you to start relaxing AND simultaneously you may also help take some of that tension out of your muscle. Yin Yoga is the style of Yoga that mostly focuses on longer holds but many other classes incorporate static stretches more towards the end of the practise.
You can definitely incorporate these stretches on a rest day as well, just make sure you really listen to your body in regards to how deep you should go into the stretch.
Whether a more active yoga practise is advisable for your rest day or not depends on how fatigued you are from your training sessions.
A point worth mentioning is BIKRAM/ HOT YOGA. Even though stretches are held for 90s in Bikram Yoga, it is NOT considered a recovery protocol, because the heat itself has a very stressful effect on the body. BIKRAM Yoga counts more as a training session on its own. You may want to consider switching to a style that emphasizes the parathympatic nervous system more to help you recover better and learn to “wind down”.
Below are two 5 minute yoga sequences to incorporate in your daily training regime.
A: 5 Minute Yoga Sequence to do BEFORE your training (activating)
Start your workout or go about your day 🙂
B: 5 Minute Yoga Sequence to do AFTER your training (relaxing)
Hope this was a good way to finish your workout. Go home, enjoy a post-workout meal and go about your day!
I hope after reading about the benefits that Yoga might have on your training and everyday life, you are keen to give it a go!
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