Coach Dave Lett
MA, MS, CPT, TASAC-F, SAQ
What are your thoughts on incorporating yoga into training? Yoga is an ancient practice which is designed to bring balance in health physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual (Ross & Thomas, 2010). Yoga has been around for around 5,000 years (Sharma, 2015) which is more than all sports combined. In the athletic world each sport requires different muscles to be developed more than others and in some sports depending on the position you play as well. Over time the over development of certain muscles can lead to imbalance in muscles and joints which may lead to overuse injuries (Sharma, 2015). Growing research evidence have found that yoga techniques can improve physical and mental health through down-regulation of the hypothalamic – pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) (Ross & Thomas, 2010). The HPA axis and SNS are triggered during physical or psychologic demand (stressor), leading to a cascade of physiologic, behavioral, and psychologic effects, primarily as a result of the release of cortisol and catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine) (Ross & Thomas, 2010). The repeated firing of the HPA axis and SNS can lead to dysregulation of the system and ultimately diseases such as obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, depression, substance abuse, and cardiovascular disease (Ross & Thomas, 2010). Yoga is can be preventive and therapeutic at the same time, it can offer physical and mental benefits for the body and mind. In most recent years NFL and college football team have been implementing yoga in their programs. Some NFL teams have been implementing yoga into mini/training camps.
How would you incorporate yoga into training for your athletes? There are a few different ways that I would implement yoga in my training for athletes. The first way would be to incorporate yoga on active recovery and recovery days. Active recovery days typically involve a low effort 20-30 minutes resistance training session or 20-30 minute medium to cardio. At the conclusion of the active recovery session the athletes would do compete a 15-20 minute yoga session. The next would be to incorporate yoga on rest recover days. Rest recovery days typically consist of treatment needed for recovery (message, message gun, stem/tens, cold therapy, foam roller, heat therapy…etc.). The idea would be to incorporate yoga after treatments for at least 20-30 minutes. We would provide athletes a space, yoga mats, and access to online yoga instructors. Players would also be able to access instructors anywhere at any time as well.
References
Ross, A., & Thomas, S. (2010). The Health Benefits of Yoga and Exercise: A Review of Comparison Studies. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 16(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2009.0044
Sharma, L. (2015). Benefits of yoga in sports–A study. Int J Phys Educ Sports Health, 1(3), 3032.
