Yoga for Functional Fitness

Yoga has experienced a tremendous surge in the last 40 years. According to Carolyn Gregoire, in a 2013 article for the Huffington Post, yoga has grown to be a $27 billion industry! Yes, that is – billion with a B. In just over a generation, yoga has grown from being an activity for hippie-new-age-weirdos, to being a completely mainstream activity suitable for soccer moms and athletes and well, everybody. Today there are yoga studios in every city and yoga classes at every gym. You can take hot yoga, naked yoga, kids’ yoga, slow, fast, and everything in between yoga! The options are endless and so are the benefits.

Yoga has helped me heal and improve my life in many ways. Several years ago, my body was broken and I could barely run or lift weights without tremendous pain. Another article, “How Functional Fitness Changed My Life,” details my long process of overcoming several injuries to get back to fitness bliss and thus, the restoration of my sanity. This post is a further discussion of the many ways yoga in particular healed and helped me come back stronger than ever.

The Functional Body Aspects of Yoga

Yoga is a form of bodyweight resistance training that helps shape a very stable and balanced body. In a single yoga session, especially a session planned by a talented, detail-oriented instructor, you will see postures that touch every single muscle of the body. Yoga promotes alignment, posture, and joint mobility – especially for the shoulders, hips, and spine. Yoga also promotes core stability and strength. Balance poses, like my goofy half moon above, help to decrease the one-sided asymmetries between left and right sides of the bod.

Overall, yoga helps your body become more functional because the better your alignment and posture, the more efficiently you will be able to move your bod, no matter the task! When the body is aligned well and the joints are stable, you will be able to better recruit and fire the correct muscles for any job you ask them to perform. Be it sports or simply living, yoga will help your body be more functional and less prone to injury.

After baby #2, I didn’t realize how weak my core and how tight my hip flexors and quads had become. Luckily during grad school, I found several great scientific studies on possible causes. My weakened core was allowing my pelvis to tilt forward, further tightening my hip flexors. Another consequence of a weak core was a pelvis that swayed side to side with each stride. According to researchers Thein-Niessenbaum et al in their 2012 study, the key to decreasing pain while running was to return the pelvis to a more neutral tilt while also controlling that side to side swaying. This can be done by properly training the intrinsic core stabilizers such as the transverse abdominis and internal obliques. Yoga worked this out for me by strengthening my core and hip abductors while opening up my tight hip flexors and thighs. This dynamic duo helped me stabilize my pelvis and find my path back to pain free running! This is just one example of a scientific cause and effect that could explain how yoga helped me. I’m sure there are countless others for me and for the millions of other folks who have found physical benefits from getting on the mat.

Your Brain on Yoga

Yoga also helped me learn to slow down my neurotic, non-stop, ruminating brain. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’ve achieved “inner peace” or anything. I’m still a crazy person who goes  100 miles and struggles to manage stress and find balance in life. The last 11 years of doing yoga though have helped me however, get better at slowing down, breathing, loving my body, and being more mindful in other aspects of my life.

Yoga has taught me more mental focus than any other sport or exercise program. While yoga helps you work every muscle in your body, it also works a certain muscle more effectively than any other exercise program I know – and that muscle is your great big brain. Just like a bicep gets stronger with more reps, the brain gets stronger too every time you go to your mat. The deep breathing and relax responses trained in yoga have helped me calm my nerves on the tennis court and find extra focus during a hard round of kettlebell training. The cross training benefits of yoga extend far beyond the physical!

Never Tried Yoga?

Because of its wide ranging benefits for the mind and body, I believe everybody should at least try yoga. I recommend it to everybody that will listen to me! Try it at least 3 times in fact, before you make up your mind. If you’ve never done it, it WILL feel weird the first time – mostly because we have funny names for poses and you won’t be able to catch the transitions between poses with the right breathing at first. Don’t let the first time turn you off. Very few people enjoy their first yoga session. Give it a few tries before you make up your mind! It’s only once you feel comfortable that you can truly start to enjoy the benefits!

Sources:

Gregoire, C. (2013). How Yoga Became a $27 Billion Dollar Industry…….http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/16/how-the-yoga-industry-los_n_4441767.html

Thien-Niessenbaum et al. (2012). Low back and hip pain in a postpartum runner: applying ultrasound imaging and running analysis. Journal of Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2012 Jul;42(7):615-24.