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Yoga For Athletes
February 10, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 6 Comments
Golf. Running. Swimming. Basketball. Football. Cycling. It’s hard to find a sport for which yoga hasn’t been suggested as a performance or injury-prevention aid. While there’s not yet a whole lot of scientific research to quantify or qualify the benefits of yoga for athletes, it’s easy to find sport-specific yoga DVDs, books, and testimonials from star athletes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Sasha Cohen. (More common is research examining how yoga can help the elderly or people with diseases or disabilities.) So absent a pile of studies to thumb through, I thought it might be instructive to talk to a handful of experts about how yoga might spill over into the rest of your workout life. They said yoga:
1. Will most likely make you more flexible. That’s probably a good thing; there’s debate on whether and how competitive athletes should stretch, but most agree that if you don’t push it, the stretching in yoga isn’t likely to harmthe average exerciser. “In my heart, I believe in stretching,” says Nicholas DiNubile, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and the author of FrameWork: Your 7-Step Program for Healthy Muscles, Bones and Joints.
That’s especially true for people who perform repetitive motions, whether hunched over a computer or on the pitching mound. “We get into these habitual patterns of doing the same things with our bodies every day,” says Lillie Rosenthal, a New York-based osteopath who is board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Runners may have tight muscles in the back of their body, like their hamstrings. Tennis players and pitchers have overdeveloped dominant arms and shoulders. The stretching and strengthening in yoga may help manage those imbalances, as well as improve general flexibility, doctors say.
2. Improves your balance and body awareness. Many yoga poses can improve your stability and agility and your awareness of where your body is in space, says Sage Rountree, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based yoga teacher and cycling/triathlon coach and author of The Athlete ‘ s Guide to Yoga . Those skills are enormously helpful in sports—just think of a golfer, whose swing depends on being able to sense where various body parts are and how they move in relation to one another.
3. Can strengthen your core. “Core strength” is a buzz-phrase in pretty much every sport; the idea is that strengthening the muscles in your back, midsection, and butt will give you the stability to improve the power of your movements and reduce injuries. Yoga can do that, says Brian Halpern, a nonsurgical sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. (Core strength is part of a program designed to reduce injuries in female soccer players.)
Read the complete article here
Here are more articles on yoga for sports and athletes
Fitting yoga into your fitness routine | College Jolt – Whether you’re a varsity athlete, elliptical junkie, or couch potato improve your physical fitness or sports performance by enhancing strength and flexibility with yoga.
Can Yoga Heal Sports Injuries? | Fitness Guidelines – Can Yoga Heal Sports Injuries? February 17, 2009 by FitnessGuru. Filed under Fitness. For an athlete, a sports injury is entirely devastating. Most sports injuries prevent athletes from participating in the sport that they love. …
Yoga Can Improve Your Game – Whatever It May Be | Fitness Guidelines – Filed under Fitness. Do you consider yourself an athlete? Are you passionate about one particular sport or game? Do you want to push yourself to that next level? Believe it or not, yoga can help to improve your game…no matter what …
Athletes Embracing Yoga – Fitness – Families.com – You don’t have to be a Hollywood actress, a college-coed or flexible fitness fanatic to excel at yoga, just ask the dozens of athletes (professional and amateur) who have discovered the benefits of this ancient exercise option. NFL football players, pro golfers and stars of the NBA are … According to the pros, yoga is one of the best ways to cross-train for a variety of sports, including running, surfing, swimming and skiing, where the body has to react quickly. …
Yoga for Grappling – For the grappler, the increased awareness and efficiency of breathing is one of the most unexpected benefits of a yoga program. Many martial athletes use only a fraction of their lung capacity when breathing. … After a good yoga session I often feel like I have received a whole-body sports massage, which promotes faster healing from workouts. Finding Instruction. In conclusion I would encourage you to take the time required to find the right yoga school or instructor …
Yoga stretches athletes’ potential – Pavano and title among little are among a growing number of athletes who have turned to the ancient India meditative technique’s twists, stretches and poses. Yoga it self shuns competitiveness, but athletes say the activity improves …
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreThe 10 Best Yoga Poses For Runners
January 24, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 4 Comments
These 10 poses from Montreal-based personal trainer and yoga and ChiRunning instructor Hyongok Cho Kent target specific muscles like the hamstrings and calves. The result? Your muscles, ligaments and tendons rebound faster so there’s less chance of injury, less soreness, and speedier recovery. The poses also simultaneously strengthen muscles in the core, back, and arms to improve posture, helping you to run more efficiently. Talk about a run for your money. Spend 15 to 20 minutes on these poses after a run when muscles are warm, or practice them on your off days. Even better: Take at least one weekly yoga class for a deep, total-body stretch.
For a complete home yoga training for runners I recommend runners yoga, take a look.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreHow To Get Your Kids To Love Yoga
January 14, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
All yogi parents would love to see their children reap the benefits of yoga, but the surest way to get kids to run the other way is to force it on them, says Judith Hanson Lasater, an East-West psychologist and a yoga teacher. Realizing that children will rebel when forced into situations, Lasater let her three little ones come to yoga on their own. "If I had made them do yoga, I would have been missing the whole point," she says. "It’s when they choose it, with their own intention, that it really has value."
Lasater recommends making your practice part of everyday life—and a public part—so that kids can join in if they choose but don’t feel that they have to. "Do your practice or meditate in the living room," she says. "Eventually, they’ll ask to do it with you." When Lasater’s children asked to be part of her practice, she took the empowerment one step further and asked them to help lead the session. "If they wanted to do Handstands, we did Handstands," she says with a laugh. The strategy seems to have worked. All three of her grown children practice yoga, and Lasater’s daughter taught yoga while in college.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
Yoga Isn’t Stretching
December 3, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · 8 Comments
If we look at the purpose of yoga and understand it in its spiritual context, we could distill it as ‘opening the body, at the physical and subtle levels’. In this process of opening what is held within these different levels, the holding and in fact what creates the holding itself, is released. This process of the release through opening is in yogic terms purification. There is no way shape or form by which this process can be equated with stretching.
Stretching does not transform. As the word implies implicitly it is simply a forced lengthening. If we look at asana practice in this way the consequence of stretching will of course result in greater flexibility. This type of flexibility however requires perpetual stretching to be maintained. Because there is a force in stretching the natural response of the body is to retract again once that forces is removed, with the same amount of force as was applied. This is a basic law of physics.
It is possible that through stretching, the body can be reshaped, the muscles and tendons lengthened. But if we compare this affect to the purpose of yoga, then the purpose is not achieved. Doing yoga by stretching will also have benefits, but they will be limited and short term. Yoga classes where you are exhorted to pushed to the limit, and then some, might leave you in a state of sweaty exhilaration, but like any high you come down. If this was what yoga was really about, then gymnasts and ballerinas, would be yogis and yoginis.
My yoga teacher in Rishikesh continually warned a naturally flexible student that her flexibility was a barrier to her practice. He also used to say that there were two ways to we could do asana practice. One way was the way of force, in which I am including stretching. He described the way of force as using a sledgehammer. The second way he described as using a chisel, and a hammer. He said the chisel was awareness the hammer was intelligence. Awareness takes consciousness into the body and intelligence follows it and directs it. As I have written elsewhere what the body holds is the contents of our subconscious. Obviously this means that we do not have conscious awareness of what is held. Yoga as a process of opening and releasing is then the discovery and making conscious what our subconscious holds in our body.
We live in a fast paced got to have it now culture. Sledgehammer yoga might elicit fast results, but the possibility of injury can be attested to by many. If conscious awareness was there could injury occur? I think not.
What then is opening and how do we do it? Well first of all, as what is held in the body is not conscious, it must become conscious, which essentially means we have to discover it. This discovery requires us paying a lot of attention while doing asana, the first ‘union’ is between awareness and body, then awareness body and breath.
Holding is by definition a contracting. Opening then is a letting go of the holding/contracting that is unconsciously occurring. It is the creation of spaciousness in the body. On a practical level it looks like this. We must in any asana find and not pass the boundary of our bodies capacity. Then we slightly withdraw from that boundary – just a little. Then we breath into the area where we find our boundary. Inhalation is definition expansion, so we breath space into the boundary of holding. Then as we exhale we direct awareness into the space we have just breathed open, and we keep doing this over and over again.
This is asana as a meditation practice. This is yoga as an ongoing relationship of discovery with yourself. To practice this way takes patience, perseverance and courage. Courage because sooner or later you will start to meet parts of yourself you probably didn’t even remember or know where there. Parts in pain, in darkness. In practicing this way, it is slower in terms of ‘results’ from the external view, but the results will last forever and you are fulfilling the age old adage to all spiritual practitioners "know yourself".
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Religious Fear Of Yoga
November 28, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
The yoga ban for muslims in Malaysia story continues after Malaysia’s highest Islamic body, the National Fatwa Council, on Saturday banned yoga for Muslims, saying it could erode their faith. The decision triggered uproar from moderate Muslims, and from royal state rulers Malaysia’s sultans, or hereditary rulers,who are considered the guardians of Islam in the country. They are demanding that they consider the issue before it is banned.
Malaysia’s prime minister said Wednesday Muslims should still take up yoga, reversing an outright ban that has drawn widespread protests amid concerns over growing Islamic fundamentalism in the multiracial nation.Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Muslims who performed yoga without chanting any mantra can carry on with their activity as it was good for their health. He also said that the "fatwa" or religious edit banning yoga would only be implemented if it received consent from a council of state rulers.
One sane voice came from the eldest son of the ruler of the central Negeri Sembilan state took the government to task over the yoga ruling.
"Islam is a progressive religion and the ulama (scholars) should be confident of the followers’ faith rather than micro-managing their way of life," …"If I go to a church or a Buddhist temple, is there any fear of me converting? … Where do we draw the line?"
Where indeed. I read elsewhere that the Catholic church is also worried about it’s members practising yoga which indicates to me how fear based these religions are throughout their heirachies. The great Indian saint Amma once said " so many people are ready to die for their religion, but so few to live by it’s teachings" . It is clear too how little understanding the different religions have of each other. Isn’t it a no brainer that there are many ways to God regardless of the name given to the Divine. I know there are many in each religion who do see this, but the ‘power’ in theocracy remains distinctly separated from anything but it’s own needs. Sad.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreThe 3 Gunas
November 24, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
In the philosophy of Yoga, all that is manifest in the universe arises from the fundamental unmanifest called Prakriti. Prakriti literally means the original power of action. It does not refer to substance in the physical sense but to the potential from which all forms of matter, energy and mind can arise. Prakriti is the original state of pure potential out of which all things become possible. Prakriti itself is said to be a composite of three prime qualities the 3 gunas sattva, rajas and tamas.
From this ethereal Prakriti the entire manifest universe comes forth. Within all that is manifest are all the three gunas (qualities) creating the essential aspects of all nature—energy, matter and consciousness. The three gunas are: Sattva – the power of harmony, balance, light and intelligence – the higher or spiritual potential; Rajas is the power of energy, action, change and movement – the intermediate or life potential; Tamas is the power of darkness, inertia form and materiality – the lower or material potential.
All three gunas are always present in all beings and objects surrounding us but vary in their relative amounts. The one which predominates will be the predominant tendency of that thing. We humans have the unique ability to consciously alter the levels of the gunas in our bodies and minds. The gunas cannot be separated or removed in oneself, but can be consciously acted upon to encourage their increase or decrease. A guna can be increased or decreased through the interaction and influence of external objects, lifestyle practices and thoughts and this forms the foundation of Yoga philosohpy and science for life.
It is important that we do not attribute value judgement to the gunas and their presence in our life or spiritual practice. Instead through understanding we can come to see where and how they are applicable. All are necessary and of value at different times and applications. If there was perfect equilibrium between the three gunas, there would be no manifestation of the universe. It is only when there are fluctuations or modifications (vikaras or vikritis) among them that there begins to be manifestation. For example if I really need to sleep and want to go to sleep, then my mind is, tamasic, and that is good. But if it is morning time, and the time that I would do sadhana, (spiritual practice) and my predominant state is tamasic, it is likely I will not do my practice, or if I do, get little benefit. In this last instance I need some rajasic energy to overcome the tamasic tendency. If I can get this balance right by the end of my sadhana my state should be sattvic.
The principle of the three gunas operate at all levels. In diet for example, all yogic strictures regarding diet are based on fortifying the sattvic quality. This is to optimize conditions for meditation and a useful spiritual life. The ideal of yogic life is for sattva to become predominant. In a sattvic state we tend to be clear and balanced in thought and deed. The sattvic state though should not be seen as the ultimate objective. It is from this state that we can most effectively undertake spiritual practice, the process of which leads to diminishing influence of any of the gunas, until we are free of all influence from the subconscious and rest once more in Purusha (true nature)
To increase sattva reduce both rajas and tamas, eat sattvic foods and enjoy activities and environments that produce joy and positive states. All of the yogic practices were developed to create sattva in the mind and body. Thus, practicing yoga and leading a yogic lifestyle strongly cultivates sattva. To reduce rajas avoid rajasic foods, over exercising, over work, loud music, excessive thinking and consuming excessive material goods. To reduce tamas avoid tamasic foods, over sleeping, over eating, inactivity, passivity and fearful situations.
Sattvic Food
This is the purest diet, the most suitable one for any serious student of yoga. It nourishes the body and maintains it in a peaceful state. And it calms and purifies the mind, enabling it to function at its maximum potential. A sattvic diet thus leads to true health: a peaceful mind in control of a fit body, with a balanced flow of energy between them. Sattvic foods include cereals, wholemeal bread, fresh fruit and vegetables, pure fruit juices, milk, butter and cheese, legumes, nuts, seeds, sprouted seeds, honey, and herb teas. Sattvis food is also ideally self prepared.
Rajasic Food
Foods that are very hot, bitter, sour, dry, or salty are rajasic. They destroy the mind-body equilibrium, feeding the body at the expense of the mind. Too much rajasic food will overstimulate the body and excite the passions, making the mind restless and uncontrollable. Rajasic foods include hot substances, such as sharp spices or strong herbs, stimulants, like coffee and tea, fish, eggs, salt and chocolate. Eating in a hurry is also considered rajasic.
Tamasic Food
A tamasic diet benefits neither the mind nor the body. Prana, or energy, is withdrawn, powers of reasoning become clouded and a sense of inertia sets in. The body’s resistance to disease is destroyed and the mind filled with darker emotions, such as anger and greed. Tamasic items include meat, alcohol, tobacco, onions, garlic, fermented foods, such as vinegar, and stale or overripe substances or those chemically treated, processed or refined. Overeating is also regarded as tamasic.
You can find Krishnas teaching Arjuna on the three gunas at the end of Chapter XIV of the Bhagavad Gita
Entitled "unatrayavibhaga-Yoga," or "The Yoga of the Distinction of the Three Gunas".
Eight Limbs Of Yoga- 4 Pranayama
October 2, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · 3 Comments
Pranayama is a bridging point in the eight limbs. From here we move deeper into the subtle realms.
Most places will tell you pranayama means breath control, but prana is energy and ayama means creation, distribution and maintenace. Pranayama then is the subtle science of yogic creation, maintenance and distribution of vital energy. The source of vital energy in this case is the air we breath.
In asana practice as we have said we are opening the body to the flow of prana in the nadis (see limb three). How we breath when practising asanas will have direct effect on how much flows, while the asana directs where.
There are great masters in India who say that no one today fully understands the art
and science of pranayama. Let us bare this in mind as an indication of the great depth of yogic science and our own humility in the face of it.
We do know this much. There is direct relationship between the breath, flow of prana and consciousness. So on one dimension pranayama is a powerful participant in the purification process as the nadis are opened to the increasing flow of vital force. Simultaneously the subconscious is cleared of past conditionings of feeling, emotion and belief. As a result the light of pure consciousness shines brighter. Sounds good doesn’t it? As long as we confine ourselves here to the philosophy it even sounds straight forward.
Let us remind ourselves again then at this point of the third niyama, tapas (see limb two). The increasing flow of energy creates the fire of tapas and the purification process is a ‘burning’. Obviously this is not a literal burning. Though there can be times when it really feels like it, and there can be physical fevers. Burning is the process of transformation, the return of what is, to it’s most fundamental elements. It is often no easy thing to heal and release the past in this way, especially when it is pasts we didn’t even know we had, and still don’t remember even as the temperature rises.
Different techniques of pranayama have different purposes and effects. Some can be cooling and calming, bringing a soothing lightness and peace. Nothing however exists in isolation and just as the breath itself is a wave in motion in the body, the waves of transformation continually rise and fall, ebb and flow. Yoga we can say then, is the science of learning to surf in the spiritual ocean of life.
Controlling the breath – as a concept of pranayama, is like a wife or husband believing they must control their spouse. The very idea of control is the foundation of our ego centred structure. I prefer to think in terms of dancing and it is no fun to dance with someone who is trying to control you!
Eight Limbs of Yoga 5 Pratyhara
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
