NBA athletes, The New Zealand All Blacks, footballers, swimmers and boxers are all at it…but why? Surely they wouldn’t waste training time on something which is still in the very early stages of scientific research? The truth is that there aren’t all that many properly reliable and conclusive studies about yoga to draw on, and yet more and more athletes are practising.

Yoga is slowly but surely being proved as one of the aspects of training that keeps great athletes at the top of their game for longer. These are some of the current thoughts on why.

#1 Muscle Control

By moving in a controlled way in and out of each posture, yoga teaches full muscular control of both the dominant and smaller supporting muscles. When you train this ability slowly it translates into faster, higher power movements too, giving you a better ability to perform all kinds of actions. Yoga is great for this because we practise engaging and stabilising muscles using breath and in a lot of detail.

#2 Counteracting

The simple actions we do in yoga – back bending is a good example - are often the direct opposite of what we do in life and in our chosen sports. Sports involve a lot of repetition which takes its toll on the body. Doing different movements rejuvenates muscles and joints; alleviating the stress of repetition. It helps unlock the tension from a certain posture we assume for long periods or a repetitive action we are programmed to perform over and again.

#3 Recovery

Every athlete gets injured at some point and all want to get back to training as soon as possible – often too soon. Although the science is still being investigated, there’s a lot of evidence that yoga speeds up recovery by low impact stress on bones and improved blood circulation for example. But maybe just as important is the fact that doing a good strong yoga class feels like and indeed is, a proper workout so injured athletes are less tempted to run back to training too early! They can maintain a surprising level of fitness by doing yoga regularly without risking more damage.

#4 Breathing and mind control

Competitive and endurance sports are top for this but we could apply it to anyone pushing themselves at any level. Yoga’s emphasis on learning how to control and use inhalation and exhalation helps any kind of athlete stay calm, present and in perfect control at those key moments of pushing through limits both mentally and physically.  We don’t necessarily have to do sitting meditation to accomplish this (although many athletes do) as yoga is a type of moving meditation if you pay close attention to your whole self – body and mind – and remain fully present, giving your full attention and intention to each movement.

Which point do you think you could most benefit from? If you haven’t tried yoga or don’t think it’s worthwhile, why? Leave a comment, I’m interested in what you have to say!