How to Enhance Athletic Performance With Yoga

Yoga comes with all kinds of benefits to body and mind, but we often consider yogis as people committed only to their chosen practice. To think like this is to serve yoga’s physical benefits a disservice.

The truth is that yoga can be used as a tool to complement practically every active pursuit you can think of, improving performance by providing a counter to the physical toll of other sporting disciplines.

“One of the greatest gifts that yoga offers for other active pursuits is injury reduction and prevention,” agrees internationally recognised yoga instructor Kirsty Gallagher. “Shortened, tight muscles restrict range-of-motion, reduce the functionality of joints and contribute to the loss of joint alignment. In turn, this creates immense wear and tear, accounting for a lot of the stiffness, tightness and pain felt by hobbyists and athletes alike.”

In yoga, we are given the opportunity to balance out this shortening of the muscles, encourage stabilisation of the joints and greatly improve our range of motion – enhancing our abilities elsewhere.

“Yoga practise will very quickly help you identify which parts of your body are out of balance, overworked, too tight or too weak,” advises Gallagher. “Correct posture is another important factor, and yoga helps not only to become aware of this but also greatly improve posture over time. In turn, it will help you stick to correct techniques in other active pursuits, reducing the risk of injury.”

“The cherry on the cake is that yoga will help you build muscle by aiding recovery time and repairing muscles,” she continues. “Muscles will stretch and relax, allowing for increased blood flow to the muscles, bringing in more oxygen for them to heal and grow stronger.”

Below, we’ve enstated Gallagher’s expertise to identify some of the key points at which yoga can benefits several different active pursuits, from running to heavy lifting. Read on to learn which poses will help to target and correct specific muscles at work, as well as which schools of practice might be most effective as a training aid.

Weight lifting 🏋️‍♂️

People who weight train regularly tend to restrict their range of motion, particularly in the shoulders, lower back and hips.

Hip openers such as the reclined pigeon (1) or seated square pose (2), or a reclined/seated twist(3) for the lower back will all help to open the thoracic. Child pose (4) or threading the needle (5), meanwhile, will open up the shoulders.

Yin yoga is a good option for weightlifters, where poses are held for a longer time to help lengthen muscles and improve joint mobility while releasing the fascia and connective tissues in the body.

Running 🏃‍♀️

By nature, running is a repetitive sport. Over time, continued practice will lead to musculoskeletal imbalances and muscle dominance, which affect your gait and can result in knees and lower back pain.

Focus on poses such as the low lunge (6) to open up the hip flexors and a reclined hamstring stretch (7) for the outer hips. For the groin and inner thighs, Baddha Konasana (8) is best, while tree pose (9) and other standing balances are wonderful for runners helping to strengthen and stabilise the whole of the leg rather the just the ones used in the sagittal plane of running.

Vinyasa flow yoga can be particularly beneficial for runners, as this practice encourages synchronising breath to movement, assisting with breath technique when running.

Swimming 🏊‍♂️

Swimming tends to overdevelop the front of the body; particularly the pectorals. Yoga helps to realign the body and can also provide a source of resistance training which you don’t get in the water, helping improve bone density.

Focus on chest and shoulder openers such as the cobra (10) and cow face arms (11), and use a strap to open up these muscles as much as possible. Vajrasana (12) will also help to open up the ankles for better extension in the joints.

Restorative yoga will help to passively open the front of the body. Ashtanga or vinyasa yoga, meanwhile, will help to synchronise breath with movement, improving breath technique when swimming.

Cycling 🚴‍♀️

Hours spent arching forwards over handlebars can be the cause of achy lower backs and shoulder pain coupled with tight hip flexors, calves and hamstrings.

Focus on seated or reclined twisting (3) and child pose (4) to open up the lower back, low lunges (6) and reclined pigeon (1) for the hips, and hamstring stretches (7) with a strap, pulling down on the toes for the last part of the stretch to engage the hamstrings and calves. To open the shoulders, your best options are bridge pose (13) or cat/cows (14).

Kirsty Gallagher is a London based, internationally-recognised Vinyasa Flow and Yin yoga teacher. She holds regular classes, workshops and private/corporate sessions in the UK, and has taught over 80 worldwide retreats.

Alongside a full teaching schedule, Kirsty consults for and runs a number of corporate wellness programmes, talks and workshops bringing yoga, stress management, meditation and mindfulness to the corporate world in a clear and easy to understand way.

She is a Lululemon legacy ambassador and a regular contributor for the yoga and wellness press, with her retreats featured in The Times, National Geographic and The Metro. Find her at kirstygallagher.com