The Many Benefits of Yoga for Athletes
by Abbey Spiro
A quick Google search will list the many benefits of yoga for athletes: improved mobility and flexibility, stress reduction, and addressing muscle imbalances.
The list is long and the benefits are valuable!
Many professional athletes report that they’ve incorporated yoga into their training for one or several of these reasons. As a former collegiate gymnast myself, and a current yoga teacher, I’d like to introduce a unique and different perspective on the value of yoga for athletes.
As a gymnast, I dedicated nearly 15 years of my life to the sport of gymnastics. I deeply loved my sport. I also experienced constant inner turbulence, a self-bully mentality, and burnout. My body was something that I held to strict standards - weight, appearance, performance, etc. It was a relationship built on a hunger for someone else’s idea of perfection, and not surprisingly an unfriendly one.
Now, with this lived experience as a competitive gymnast and subsequent experience teaching yoga to athletes, both professional and amateur, I’d like to suggest one of the most important ways a yoga practice can enhance our athletic endeavors is the exploration and cultivation of a new and different way of being in our bodies. The practice of yoga naturally invites us to have an experience with our bodies that is friendlier, less aggressive, and non-judgemental.
Our yoga mat becomes a place we can enter into a relationship with our body based on 2-way communication. A place where, maybe for just a moment or two at a time, we can end the dictatorship our mind has over our body and begin to listen to what the body has to say.
This is a foreign and often uncomfortable endeavor for most athletes (and many humans, whether they label themselves as an athlete or not) but that makes it even more valuable. In general, there is an overarching belief that, “The more I suffer/push myself/gain control over my body, the better I will be.” It is a radical shift for us to learn how to say, “I refuse to suffer on my path to greatness.”
“I dedicated nearly 15 years of my life to the sport of gymnastics. My body was something that I held to strict standards - weight, appearance, and performance. The practice of yoga naturally invites us to have an experience with our bodies that is friendlier, less aggressive, and non-judgemental. ”
This does not mean we work less or with less intensity. It does not mean we do not experience the uncomfortable sensations that often accompany growth. What it does mean is that we begin to see our body as our closest teammate. Instead of self-punishment, we start to cheer our body on along our co-journey to success on the field/the court/the mat/the pool. What happens when we enter into a relationship where we are constantly supporting ourselves - in moments of relaxation as well as moments of intense physical effort? The practice of yoga naturally encourages the beginning of this conversation.
“It is a radical shift for us to learn how to say, “I refuse to suffer on my path to greatness.””
I spent several of my pre-teen years hampered by injuries. Instead of hearing these messages from my body and wondering how I could find ways to better support my body through what was being demanded of it, I turned against it, withholding nourishment and demanding even more physical effort. After experiencing as an adult firsthand the ability of yoga to shift my relationship with my body, I can’t help but wonder, what if my team had substituted our weekly hour-long ballet classes with an hour of yoga? What if I’d had the opportunity to begin to experience a new and different way of being in my body within the familiar context of physical effort?
A yoga practice that focuses on listening to the body and then saying “yes” to what you hear will be challenging at first. It is an incredibly foreign way for most of us to be in our bodies, allowing the body to be calling the shots without any striving towards a goal. This is precisely why it is so valuable. Practicing like this can bring an intentionality to our intensity in sport - both in practice and competition. Can you consider the possibility that the body will respond to those strong efforts with freshness because it has had a chance to be heard and cared for?
Abbey is a part of the team of Inner Bliss Yoga Teachers who teaches yoga to the Cleveland Guardians and their affiliates.
Intentional Yoga To Help Athletes
Saturday, April 1, 2023
2:00-3:30 pm, Inner Bliss Westlake studio + zoom option
$50
Join us for a 90-minute workshop geared toward athletes. We will explore the unique benefit of yoga as a chance for a new and different way of being in your body - one that allows you to tune in to what you need while on the yoga mat so that you can shine brighter in your sport.
During our time together Abbey will share tips on how to utilize the IBY schedule of classes to best support and benefit your athletic endeavors off the mat.
Students will leave with access to two 15-minute videos to use whenever they need - a short yoga sequence to jumpstart recovery as well as a recovery-guided visualization.