Can Yoga Give You A Sports Advantage?

 

It is a well-known fact that Yoga can improve our health and add years to our natural lives. For ages, Yogis have worked towards finding new ways and new combinations in Yoga asanas to help us get the best results. This work to extract the most possible out of Yoga has led to the discovery and creation of many forms of Yoga.

When it comes to sports and enhancing physical performance, Yoga has helped many top athletes achieve peak seasonal performance over the years. Be it boxing, swimming, football, horse riding or chess, athletes all over the world have admitted to administering Yoga into their workout routines to increase performance metrics.

But how exactly does it work and where does it help us advance?

Yoga can benefit athletes in a number of ways. Let’s take a look at some of them.

1.     Refined Proprioception – Practising Yoga on a daily increases one’s awareness of self. Knowing where your limbs stand and how they move may sound silly but in a competitive environment such as in sports, it can spell the difference between a win and a loss. Being aware of self gives you an advantage and ultimately helps with swift and accurate movements.

2.     Speedy Recovery – Incurring injuries in sports is very common. Yoga has an innate ability to cleanse and repair the system by stretching parts of the body that usually go untouched and unnoticed until one suffers an injury. Yoga works excellently to stimulate the lymphatic system - responsible for cleaning the blood of toxins and harmful substances and as a result helps the body to heal itself quicker.

3.     Increased Strength – Combinations like pilates yoga fusion and weight training allow athletes to go beyond their set limits. Yoga forces the body to set itself in the right posture and aligns it beautifully. This calibration allows athletes to fully draw their strengths and push themselves to the limits of their abilities. Doing so also increases their endurance which allows them to train longer and harder and that is something every coach will appreciate.

All of may not be athletes but with Yoga you too can improve your overall self and strive to build a better you. All it takes is consistency and determination.