Benefits of Yoga for Runners - Why It Works
With the Edinburgh marathon coming up in May and warmer weather creeping in - it is officially runners season. But are you taking time to stretch? And stretch in the right way. Yoga can be massively beneficial for runners, both pre and post run to protect your muscles and joints from injury. Yoga can also help you focus on breathing control, increasing lung capacity through your pranayama practice (breathing exercises).
Here are some of MOVE Yoga’s top benefits of yoga for runners…
1.Strengthen Your Muscles
Yoga can help target the areas you are used to activating while running. But it can also help target and strengthen the muscles and movements you might not think of. Working with opposing movements can help give your body much needed variety to protect and stabilise where you need it most. In turn, this can decrease the risk of injury and help improve stability while on runs.
2. Improve Your Flexibility (& Range of Motion)
Through your yoga practice, you can work with deep myofacsial release to help improve your range of motion while running. Stretching post-run can provide excellent release to oxygenate and protect muscles from tightness. Working into the hips, quads and calves can lead to increased performance with longer stride and stability.
3. Using Your Breath
A large part of yoga is the breath (pranayama). You will learn how to use the breath to aid your movement. These breathing techniques will teach you how to control and utilise the breath, increasing lung capacity to help power you through longer runs.
4. Take Time To Rest
After a long run it is so important to take the time to allow your body to rest and recover. At the end of every yoga class at MOVE, we make time for a relaxing savasana to finish our practice. This involves lying out on the floor, completely still. It is one of the best ways to allow your breath, body and nervous system to reset.
5. Practice Mindfulness
Taking time to really listen to your body can be so beneficial for your training to help avoid injury. By paying close attention to what your body is trying to tell you and moving intuitively with the breath in a safe and mindful way. Yoga has many proven benefits of improving stress levels as it helps calm the nervous system and quieten the mind. Finding this meditative mindset can be one of the most powerful tools when running, to help keep you going when you feel like stopping. Come back to the breath, welcome in some energy, find your calm and let go of the rest.
For the next two months our Yoga for Sports class in the MOVE yoga studio (North Berwick) will be focused on the runners. Classes will be designed carefully to help improve performance, strengthen, stretch and reduce injury. No Yoga experience necessary. We also have a selection of online and on demand classes you can join from anywhere in the world here. Share with your running friends and join! Happy running and hope to see you on the mat soon.