the importance of cross-training with yoga By Julia Partain
Now that your calendar is filled with virtual and rescheduled races, it’s time to start thinking about training. Whether you're new to competing or tackling new distances, everyone can benefit from cross-training with yoga. As you tick up your mileage, it’s important to supplement your preferred activity or sport with yoga to boost flexibility, core strength, and stability. It also helps to improve your range of motion and joint mobility. Mentally, yoga helps create a heightened level of focus and awareness during training and racing. This mental training teaches athletes to perform more effectively during a race staying focused on form, learning how to deal with negative thoughts, and working through unexpected distractions. Here are some yoga tips and stretches for runners, cyclists, and swimmers to incorporate into your workout routine for the most successful (and injury-free) race season yet. Yoga for Runners From dodging rocks and roots on the trail to repetitive pounding on concrete or asphalt, running of all varieties can create tightness in the same areas of the body: calves, quads, hamstrings, IT bands, and hips. A simple yoga routine loosens tight spots, strengthens weak spots, and makes you a better, less injury-prone runner. Standing poses improve balance, coordination, and encourage the development of even strength throughout the leg. The more you can strengthen all the muscles around your joints, the less vulnerable those areas are to injury. Additionally, the core strength 8«
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you gain from yoga gives you strong abdominal and back muscles, keeping your torso upright and your pelvis in healthy alignment, allowing you to move more efficiently. Yoga for Cyclists Cycling is a powerful sport, executed in a fixed position—often for hours at a time. After a long ride, most riders experience stiff legs. Inflexible leg muscles can be the cause of many adverse conditions, including IT band, lower back and knee pain, along with overall decreased range of motion. Through the practice of yoga, cyclists can decrease muscular imbalances, which improves riding abilities and reduces injury. Yoga builds strength in the leg and glutes while cultivating flexibility in the hip flexors. This translates to a more fluid stroke and stride plus reduced stress on your back. Yoga for Swimmers Mix up your dryland training and improve balance, alignment, and breathing with yoga. Yoga offers flexibility, improves range of motion, and helps swimmers build muscle strength. The breath awareness from yoga translates well into swimming, since movements are synchronized with your breath in both yoga and swimming. Yoga poses use the force of gravity on body weight to increase muscle and bone strength. While swimming takes the pull of gravity away, yoga helps put it back in to keep the body balanced and strong. The focus of yoga for swimmers is on the shoulders, hip flexors, hamstrings, feet, and ankles. ¦¦¦
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