 Join us for a 60 minute intensive stretch and strength 8 week yoga program targeted at bringing balance and ease to a runner's body. Bring awareness to the structural and muscular imbalances caused by repetitive strain on specific muscles and joints from running. Each class will incorporate poses to target those key areas for runners: hips, hamstrings, feet, core strength, and breathing. Improve your recovery and run times, increase your distance and minimize the impact of running on your body. Where: Ultimate Fit Centre When: Tuesdays 7:45-8:45pm Cost: Pre-register for 8 weeks for $95+gst or drop-ins are available for $15 (cash or cheque) once minimum numbers are registered..
Dates: June 29th - August 17th , August 24th - October 12th . Health and Wellness In Mind, Body and Spirit: A Yoga Practice
When the term yoga is heard, what comes to mind for most people are thoughts of 'stretching' the body. While this is definitely one aspect of a yoga practice, the term yoga can be defined as a healing system of theories and practices combining physical postures, breathing exercises and meditation that has been around for over 5000 years. For the purpose of this article, we will be looking at the physical yoga postures or asanas and how they can enhance your running training. As we examine the benefits of the physical practice of yoga, we will identify how incorporating a regular yoga practice into your training program not only brings your body and mind in to balance, but helps ensure success and enjoyment right through to the finish line on race day!
Many people would consider running and yoga to fall on opposite sides of the exercise spectrum, however they need not be mutually exclusive of each other. Yoga provides a great deal of balance to a runner's body and can enhance athletic performance on a number of levels. Common complaints from runners are of bad backs, knees, tight hamstrings and sore feet. The pain most runners feel is not from running itself, but from imbalances that running causes and exacerbates. A typical runner experiences too much pounding, tightening, and shortening of the muscles and not enough restorative, elongating and loosening work. Through the practice of yoga postures the muscles are both strengthened and lengthened at the same time not only helping reduce joint aches and pains, but also putting you at reduced risk for injury, and improving your recovery time. The muscle rigidity that occurs in runners is due to training in a 'sport specific' manner, performing specific actions over and over again with a focus on external technique. This repetitive sports training can lead to an excessively tight body and structural imbalances. Yoga will not only bring openness to the body and release tension, correcting these imbalances but its internal focus will center your attention on your own body's movements rather than on an external outcome. Runners can therefore use yoga to balance strength, increase range of motion, train the body and mind and deepen the mind-body connection.
One of the most important and subtle keys to doing yoga is learning how to breathe properly. Many of us go through our day rarely ever thinking about our breathing or taking time to tune in to our natural rhythm. When engaged in sport and the fast pace of our daily lives, we tend to take very shallow and rapid breaths. But breathing in yoga means bringing your conscious awareness to your breath by slowing it down considerably and keeping it steady and rhythmic, even while you are exerting yourself in a challenging pose. Training yourself to breathe like this ultimately makes the breath more efficient. This is critical for runners because you want to be able to pump large amounts of oxygen-rich blood to the working muscles. Maximum oxygen intake is a crucial variable that can determine your performance and endurance.
Running also requires a great deal of mental focus, which is another benefit of practicing yoga. How does yoga lead to greater mental focus? In effect, yoga is a form of meditation - a moving meditation, actually. The goal in yoga is to be in the present, thinking about your breath throughout the entire class, and letting all other thoughts be on hold. Naturally, this is quite challenging and takes a lot of practice. But in time, if you stick with it, you will find it easier to do. Being able to put a stop to the incessant mind chatter brings mental and emotional tranquility, relaxing the mind and body. In a wider sense, it allows us to become a little bit more detached from our thoughts, and allows a deeper internal connection. Having mental clarity and focus is essential for runners as you strive to achieve your goals.
Now it is time to apply the practice of yoga postures to your training program. For many runners the most common areas of the body that become tight are in the hips and legs. To help open these areas and bring release to your body, take a few minutes to explore the following yoga poses. All you need to begin is a mat and bare feet ;)
THE POSE: PIGEON
TARGETS: Lubricates leg and hip joints while softening surrounding muscles
BENEFITS: Hips, knees and low back are often a source of pain and frustration for runners. Aches may creep in but the source can be impossible to find. Even if you think it's your knee it might be a tight hip that's behind the tweaking. With this pose you lubricate the key joints that running taxes most, leaving you free and clear to run hard without fear of injury. HOW IT'S DONE: If you know downward facing dog, start there. If not start on your hands and knees. Bring the right knee between the hands and place the right ankle as close to the left wrist as possible. Extend the left leg backward, ensuring the leg is in line with the hip and the kneecap faces the floor. Come up onto your fingertips, inhale lifting the pelvis up and lengthening the front of the torso as well as flattening
out the curve of the low back, sending the tailbone down. Arching your upper chest,slightly fold forward over your front leg. Releasing all the tension in the back, neck and shoulders, rest your forehead on your knee, or on your forearms, depending on your flexibility. Balance the weight equally in the right and left hip, drawing the right
hip back as the front of the left thigh lengthens. Stay in this pose for 10 to 15 breaths. To come up, place both hands flat on the ground beneath the shoulder blades. Press up off the floor as you draw the right knee into your chest and float back to downward facing dog. Take four breaths feeling the differences between the right and left sides of the body. Repeat on the other side .
THE POSE: FAN WITH SHOULDER STRETCH
TARGETS: Unties legs and shoulder tension while building core and back strength
BENEFITS: Runners rely on their legs to function with ease and without fatigue Because this pose requires you draw the leg muscles toward the bone while stabilizing your core you inevitably build the muscles that run parallel to the spine.
HOW IT'S DONE: Separate your legs about four and a half feet apart. Be sure your weight is equally distributed onto both sides of your feet. Turn the toes slightly in to stretch the outer ankle. Feel the thighs rotate outward and the kneecaps drawing up into the quads. Interlace your hands behind your back, drawing your shoulders as far down your back as possible. Inhale and fold over until your spine is parallel to the floor, letting your head drop. As you exhale, feel your knuckles draw toward the sky Keeping your legs straight, stretching the back of your legs, hips and back and fold
-from the waist- as far forward as you can without rounding your back. Keep the sternum lifted as you fold forward. Your upper back will arch slightly. Stabilize yourself with the large muscles in your legs, allowing your back to release and the backs of your legs to lengthen. Hold for 10 breaths. To come up, engage your abdomen and draw the body up with a flat back. Repeat once.
THE POSE: LOW LUNGE VARIATION
TARGETS: Lengthens calves and hamstring, stabilizes knees
BENEFITS: Yoga improves the classic "runner's stretch" because it won't let you cheat - and it asks you to go far deeper. The yoga take on this pose keeps the knee over the ankle, which is safer, and the weight applied to your hips as you sink down toward the ground will release those tight hidden knots. Plus, for extra panache flex your front foot when you reach the final pose.
HOW IT'S DONE: If you know downward facing dog, start there, or you can start on all fours. Step your right foot between your hands. Place or leave the left knee down. Keeping your right knee over your ankle (scoot your left leg back if necessary), bring both hands to the inside of your right foot. Align your right shoulder with your left knee. You should begin to feel a deep release in the hips,inner thigh and back. Let your head just hang. Drop down onto your forearms and allow your body weight to drop deeper into the hips. For a more athletic version, lift the back knee and straighten the leg. Hold for one to three minutes, step back into downward facing dog for four breaths and repeat on the other side.
So why is yoga helpful for runners? In a nutshell, yoga builds strength and stamina, increases flexibility, teaches us how to breathe more efficiently, improves our mental focus, and ultimately teaches us how to remain calm and centered during physically and emotionally challenging situations (i.e.: like running!). It is also one of the few activities that works out the entire body from head to toe, inside out, while strengthening and lengthening the muscles. Enjoy and remember, yoga is a life-long practice, so there is no need to rush. Move Freely --- Breathe Deeply -- Live Fully Namaste, Kristen Kristen Stuart BA, RYT, PTS Gaia Studio Kristen@gaiaclinic.ca www.gaiaclinic.ca |
