Reduce Risk of Injury.
If you love sports you know that injuries come with the territory, caused by repetitive motion, imbalances in your biomechanics or in many cases both. Everyone has a story about an injury and whether minor or more serious, it’s all relative and for those who are into fitness, sports, the gym, CrossFit etc. it can be soul destroying when if and when it happens.
I know all about injuries believe me and the time and effort it takes to get back to peak physical condition! The photo above is from Aug 2020 when I broke my tibia plateau playing tag rugby. The second photo shows the 360 bone fracture that went into my knee. Long story short, I now have plates and 7 pins in my left leg. It took months of rehab to get back to walking and then some more to build back up the strength in my leg. However within 18 months I am pretty much back to normal which I attribute a part of this to having a regular yoga practice alongside a great physio (@cullyphysio) and a truckload of determination to get back to the gym! Although I broke a bone rather than a muscular related injury, there was still muscle atrophy (muscle wastage) so I had to build this back up. I definitely felt that my body recovered quicker than it would have without yoga.
So yoga offers a combination of active and passive stretching that is especially helpful for keeping you injury free. Training to get stronger or faster can lead to tight muscles with a smaller range of motion, limited power, and a tendency to get injured more easily. Active stretching (where the body is moving and stretching dynamically e.g. Sun Salutations) creates warmth and suppleness in the tissues. Passive stretching, (where you hold a poses for longer), allows muscles to lengthen even more. The result is more elastic, pliable tissues that help you bounce back more easily from the stressors in your sport.
A yoga practice encourages you to take inventory of your body as you practice. The more awareness you have of how your body feels from day to day or from pose to pose, the more likely you are to notice tight or injury-prone areas of the body that need attention before full-blown injuries can occur.
I know a lot of people and dare I say it, a larger percentage of men than women, who tend to forgo stretching, warm ups, cool-downs and mobility work to focus on cardio and heavy lifting as they feel that it doesn’t do anything for them. Without giving our muscles time to stretch and lengthen before we train we are straight away leading our bodies down the route to injury. Think of a rubber band and how it’s tight when brand new but once you stretch it a few times, it begins to loosen up and its more manageable. That’s sort of how our muscles work, if we don’t take the time to stretch, the muscles stay tight and like the elastic band, can snap!
No one wants to be injured so whether you incorporate yoga, pilates, standard stretching or mobility work into your training regime, your body will be all the better for it and improve your overall performance.
