Increase strength and flexibility, prevent common injuries and pain, release the muscle tension caused by running and get better results from your training – practice yoga.
Whether you’re a runner, or someone who plays a running sport such as football, rugby or hockey, yoga can really work for you. Yoga relieves the muscular strains caused by athletics. And as a cardiovascular and aerobic exercise, yoga increases stamina, core strength and lower body flexibility, improving your running overall. It prevents the most common injuries and boosts the results of your training. Yoga is the perfect cross training for a runner.
Yoga for preventing injury
Protect the results of your training. If you are going to run frequently or for long times, make sure you look after yourself and don’t lose all the benefits.
In an average one-mile run, your foot will hit the ground 1000 times and your body will absorb over 600,000 lbs of impact. This impact reverberates up through your whole body, so it’s no wonder that over 70% of runners get injured and almost all runners complain of bad backs and knees, tight hamstrings and sore feet.
Pain and injury prevention
Most runners are not injured during collisions or falls. It is the imbalances in the body, caused by constantly working certain muscle groups and not others during running, that usually create pain and muscle injury. For example, the constant forward motion of running means hip flexor muscles are shortened and tightened, which causes lower back ache. Knee pain is also caused by badly-aligned hips.
If you’re a runner, you probably experience a lot of shortening of muscles, but hardly any elongating movements. This leaves your muscles tight, hard, inflexible and prone to tearing or being ‘pulled’. Yoga provides excellent stretching and elongating work. It also counterbalances the repetitive motions and limited muscle groups of running by focussing on stretches we wouldn’t normally reach. With balanced muscles that are balanced, lengthened and supple, you will greatly reduce your risk of injury.
Yoga also strengthens deep postural muscles in the core and back, giving you a better running and athletic form.
The problem of over-training
Most runners and athletes will have over-trained at some point. Because of the trainer’s mindset, which can often be competitive and eager to push the body further and further, many runners over-train without realising – a leading cause of injury. Runners may be disconnected from their bodies’ messages, as they push past its suffering and keep going. The runner’s body also releases ‘feel good’ chemicals called endorphins, which act as natural pain killers and mask the body’s warning signs.
If you practice yoga, you will cultivate great body awareness, so you will feel your body’s resistance and respond to its signals to prevent injury from over-training.
Looking after your joints
Athletic sports such as running exert great pressure on your joints. If certain muscles around a joint are trained hard and are strong, while other muscles around the joint remain weak, then the joint will not be aligned properly. Hips and knees are problem areas for runners because of bad alignment. In addition, inflexible muscles that are tightened by running will restrict the range of movement around the joint, causing it to rub or grind.
Yoga corrects muscle imbalances and realigns your body, especially around the legs and pelvis. Yoga works on joints to give them a better range of motion and protect them from high-impact training.
Yoga for improving performance
Yoga increases your strength, stamina and flexibility, so it is the perfect foundation to great running and proper results. If you injure yourself, you’ll waste the benefits of the run. If you don’t stretch well, you’ll pull muscles and could cause yourself back ache or knee injury.
Stretching
Stretching is the most important part of preparation you can do before running to avoid injuring yourself and wasting all the benefits. If you practice regular yoga alongside your running regime, you will prevent strains because your muscles will be flexible, supple and capable of easy movement. Yoga also gives you a wider range of motion around the legs and pelvis, which improves your performance when running.
By using slow, steady sequences of asanas, yoga stretches different muscles in the body, creating strength where you need it and releasing tension where it hinders you.
Stamina and strength
Yoga is an aerobic, cardiovascular exercise, so although often slow and steady, it does require stamina as it keeps the heart rate up. Yoga will improve endurance for long runs and could help you if you’re training for a marathon.
Yoga is also about building strength, in particular core strength. The focussed postures require a strong mid-section and many of the isometric positions can be used for resistance training.
Breathing
As mentioned above, tension is the athlete’s main downfall, causing injuries and aches and pains in daily life. The key to reducing tension is breath work. During yoga, the stretching and releasing of muscles is combined with steady, conscious breathing. This releases very deep seated tension in muscles.
Yoga’s breathing exercises (pranayama) also aid blood circulation and oxygen intake, increasing your VO2 Max and allowing you to run for longer. VO2 Max is your aerobic capacity, or ability to use oxygen for exercise. Special yoga positions open up your chest and expand your lung capacity. Then, conscious breathing oxygenates the lungs and regulates the nervous system. This allows your bodily cells to take in more oxygen and to circulate it around the body better. Pranayama will also help you as you run, because you’ll have a steady breathing pattern which will allow you to stay calm and focussed.
Your mentality
A big part of yoga is developing a certain mental attitude to your body, where you become aware of its great capabilities but also its limitations. This is important for runners and athletes because it allows them to feel their bodies’ warnings or tensions, and to respond to them to avoid injury and over-training. Equally, runners respect their bodies as things of great potential, and have increased confidence and stamina.
Yoga also centres your mind, leaving it calm, peaceful and focused – an important factor for long distance runners.
Yoga for increasing the effects of training
If you’re practicing yoga alongside athletic exercise such as running, the main focus should be strengthening and lengthening. Here are some pointers:
Pointer 1 - Yoga positions that work on the main pressure points in running will help – focus on the hamstrings, ankles, calves, thighs and pelvic muscles.
Pointer 2 - Focussing on strengthening muscles around the knees will also keep you safe from painful knee injuries as well as improve your endurance on longer runs.
Pointer 3 - Any postures that lengthen the backs of the legs are also helpful for runners to incorporate into their yoga routine.
Pointer 4 - The off-season is a good time for strength-building yoga; during periods of intense training, do more gentle sequences focussed on flexibility.
Ones to try!
Before you go, have a look at these simple examples of how yoga can specifically help you if you’re a runner:
Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) – A good one for opening the hips, hamstrings and chest – all of which suffer impact during running. If you keep the kneecap slightly lifted, using your thigh muscles just above the knee, you’ll keep your knee protected while strengthening the muscles around this key joint.
Virabhadrasanas (Warrior Poses) – the perfect shapes to boost lower body strength, stretch the quads and work on the heels. Make sure your heels are in line and your first leg is bent at a 90 degree angle, with the thigh parallel to the floor.
Pashimottanasana (Sitting Forward Bend) – great for alignment. This pose focuses on the back of legs and spine. Try to internally rotate the thighs, as this will engage the quads and keep the hips, knees and ankles in line.
If you’re interested in using yoga to enhance your running training and prevent injuries, have a look at my about me page and browse my courses, workshops, weekend and holiday retreats. I am a qualified yoga teacher, trained by The International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres, a yoga organisation recognised worldwide.
More benefits
Apart from helping you to beat the winter blues, yoga also offers you:
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- Improvement of many medical conditions
- Relief from allergy and asthma symptoms
- Help in quitting addictions
