I think a lot of people have misconceptions about people who practice yoga. It is not just for people who have bad knees. It is not just for women. It is not just for people who want to meditate. Yoga is for everyone, including athletes. It is for a football player. It is for a runner. It is for a basketball player. Bottom line, power yoga is for everyone.
There are plenty of professional athletes and sports teams that incorporate yoga into their workouts. In this article, I am going to specifically talk about why yoga is good for runners.
Related: 3 Misconceptions of Power Yoga – By a Power Yoga Studio Owner in Conshohocken, PA
Power Yoga Opens Up the Hips
I have said it before, you don’t need to be flexible to do yoga. Yoga helps improve one’s flexibility. You may be thinking – runners don’t need to improve their flexibility; they just run. This is partially true. They don’t need to get into poses that require flexibility, but a lot of runners have tightness in their hips which may hinder their performance. Yoga helps open up the hips and creates stability in the hips and core for the runners while running.
Power Yoga Helps Regulate Breath
The practice of yoga is centered on breath. In class, I tell the yogis to connect with their breath and be conscious of their breath. We move with our breath when we get into different power yoga poses. It is conscious breathing. It is controlled. I will discuss why conscious breathing is so important in our yoga practice in another post.
For runners, they can apply conscious breathing techniques while they are running. It helps them learn how to control and regulate their breath while running and not feel like they are out of breath.
Power Yoga is Restorative
Running is a repetitive exercise that can create excessive tightness in the leg muscles, which makes your body unstable. Therefore stretching is very important.
Practicing power yoga creates opposing movements to running, elongates and loosens the muscles. It restores the muscles and decreases the risk of runners getting hurt.
There are endless benefits of yoga that complement running. Make power yoga part of your workout routine.
Namaste!
