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Runners are available in all shapes, sizes, speeds, and experience levels. Yet there are general truths related to being a runner, and one in every of them is having to cope with muscles that feel tight or tense.

Lower-body muscle tension can provide joint stability every time your shoes hit the pavement or trail, aid you bounce back after impact, and propel you forward in much the identical way that a decent elastic band snaps back more powerfully than a loose one.

The identical tension that is helpful to your running is the very thing that you simply might find difficult when practicing yoga. But yoga’s profit to runners is directly proportional to its challenge. And a part of that profit is just not needing to vary what makes you a robust runner. You just need to vary your approach to yoga.

How Yoga and Running Complement One One other

Practicing other varieties of movement outside of running can aid you turn out to be much more resilient. This we all know.

On the physical side, integrating yoga into your run training may help ease muscle tension and improve your range of motion. It also draws your awareness to areas of tightness and helps you discover muscular imbalances.

Also, the mindful movement needed to maneuver from one yoga pose to a different improves your balance, body control, and proprioception, which translates to more confident and efficient movement on varied terrain, whether you’re hopping up on sidewalks or navigating trails.

Yoga’s ongoing attention to your internal state may aid you tune into early warning signs of irritation that always predate injury but are inclined to be neglected within the loudness of life.

Finally, by cultivating an inward focus, yoga helps you tap into your current energetic state, to get a feel for when you possibly can push, when you need to maintain, and when you have to dial things back.

Yoga offers you an array of movement, respiration, and awareness practices that you would be able to use to regular yourself on the beginning line of a race and support your recovery the moment you cross the finish line.

6 Yoga and Running Challenges—And Methods to Fix Them

Yes, there are major advantages yoga can provide to runners. But there are also challenges runners are inclined to face when initiating a yoga practice. Here’s how those common challenges will be changed into advantages, and the way yoga can enhance your run training.

(Photo: Andrew Clark)

1. If You Have Tight Hamstrings…

It doesn’t take long for a runner to turn out to be intimately aware of just how much hamstring stretching happens in a mean yoga class. It could appear as if other students fold forward over their legs with ease or reach their heels to the mat in Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana) without thought.

Runners are inclined to have a really different experience. Not to fret. The answer is just not aggressively forcing your body to assume the form of the person next to you.

The answer: Tension in your hamstrings can create a sense of failure at any time when a pose demands flexibility. But consider your muscle tension as stored energy, much like the elastic recoil which accurately propels you forward every time your foot hits the bottom. Reconsidered on this fashion, your tightness becomes something to understand relatively than eradicate. With that understanding, you would possibly take into consideration releasing relatively than pulling taut and easing relatively than pushing through.

This becomes most blatant in any pose that asks you to bend forward. Reasonably than forcing your chest to come back near your leg, concentrate on feeling a delicate stretch in the center—the belly—of your hamstrings.

In practical terms, that sometimes means keeping the knee(s) of your stretching leg(s) barely bent. It could also mean using blocks beneath your hands so the bottom lifts to satisfy you. Remember: release and ease.

The poses:
Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana)
Pyramid Pose (Parsvottanasana)
Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana)
Head-to-Knee Pose (Janu Sirsasana)

(Photo: Andrew Clark. Clothing: Calia )

2. If You Have Tight Calves…

Everyone around you is in Downward Dog and their heels seem to simply touch the mat while yours tower above it, your calves screaming. Otherwise you’re in Warrior 1 and your back heel simply won’t connect with the mat.

The answer: You don’t must bring your heels involved with the mat in some poses, including Downward Dog, to get a helpful calf stretch. Let your heels reach toward the mat but don’t worry in the event that they don’t touch. As an alternative, use the load of your heels to create a subtle sense of stretching or lengthening within the calf muscles.

In certain standing poses, it’s essential in your overall body engagement to ground your back heel, corresponding to in Pyramid or Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I). If you happen to simply cannot ground your heel to your mat, consider shortening your stance barely. You can even experiment with sliding a rolled blanket beneath your back heel or rolling the back of your mat a pair times to offer your heel something higher than the ground to press against.

The poses:
Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
Squat (Malasana)
Pyramid (Parsvottanasa)
Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana 1)
Side Lunge or Flying Monkey

“Easy” Pose with rolled blankets supporting the thighs (Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)

3. If You Have Tight Hips…

The classic image related to yoga is a student sitting comfortably cross-legged, knees resting comfortably on the ground and an expression of bliss on their face. Hip openers just like the classic cross-legged seat are said to bring up stored emotions in yoga students. The dominant emotion that will arise for runners is probably going frustration—especially when that pose is accompanied by an invite to fold your torso forward over your legs.

The answer: Perspective: Tension in your glutes, much like tightness in your hamstrings and calves, helps propel you forward in your running stride, and tension in your back muscles helps hold your torso upright as you run, allows you to breathe, and absorbs the impact of every footstrike. These are worthwhile adaptations your body has made to run training. As an alternative of viewing them as impediments to deep hip openers, know that you simply still receive the advantages of stretches but with less range of motion than other students.

Reasonably than caring about how your cross-legged sitting poses and forward bends look, concentrate on finding a version of the pose that enables your hard-working muscles to feel a way of release or leisure. While you experience a delicate stretch, whether in your glute(s), outer hip(s), inner thigh(s), or down your back, you might be in the best version of the pose for you. There’s no must go deeper.

If you happen to’re sitting cross-legged, using props beneath your knees or thighs or leaning back in your hands relatively than bending forward could make the stretch more tolerable. You’ll be able to reach for blocks, a rolled towel, even a water bottle. In Pigeon Pose, propping yourself up with straight arms creates more room between your torso and your front leg and reduces the quantity of hip flexion required. Once more, it’s in regards to the pose meeting your needs relatively than attempting to force yourself to satisfy its shape.

The poses:

(So-Called) “Easy” Pose (Sukhasana)
Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana)
Sure Angle Pose (Baddha Konasana)
Lizard Pose (Utthan Pristhasana)

Warrior 1 Pose with the front leg straighter than is often cued. (Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)

4. If You Have Lower Body Fatigue…

Although yoga brings greater than just physical advantages, some students turn to the practice as their primary source of figuring out. For them, it is sensible to challenge their leg strength by bending their knees more deeply in certain poses, or hold standing poses so long as possible to maximise muscle engagement in each moment.

Runners might come to a yoga class straight from a run, or be practicing yoga the day after a very hard run. In either case, your legs may feel heavy and sluggish whenever you arrive in your mat. Or, should you plan to run any time after your yoga class but on the identical day, you might be wanting to order your expenditure of lower body strength for when it matters most to you.

The answer: Exert yourself lower than you might be able. Bend your knees less deeply in Warrior poses or Chair. Keep your stance somewhat shorter in Triangle and Pyramid. By organising your physical shape to challenge your lower body less intensely, you permit yourself to concentrate on mobility and suppleness relatively than brute strength. It would take somewhat acclimating not to offer every part on the mat—you’re an athlete, in spite of everything—but easing back will enable you to order your best efforts in your run training.

The poses:
Chair Pose (Utkatasana)
Goddess Pose (Utkata konasana)
Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana 1)
Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana 2)
Prolonged Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)
Triangle Pose (Trikonasana)
Pyramid Pose (Parsvottanasana)

Plank Pose builds upper body strength in addition to patience. (Photo: Andrew Clark)

5. If You Have Upper Body Strength Challenges…

Running prioritizes leg and hip muscles relatively than those in your upper body. In any case, you run in your feet, not your hands. But this comes on the expense of your wrist, arm, and shoulder muscles, which suggests the period of time spent in your hands in yoga class can create unwelcome sensations for a lot of runners.

Multiple high planks, low planks, side planks, and even the supposed “resting” option of Down Dog feels difficult enough for frequent yoga students. For individuals who don’t recurrently work to construct upper body strength, these poses can elicit an additional psychological sting.

The answer: Unlike poses that emphasize your lower body, these are the poses that you would be able to treat like training. Approach them with somewhat more drive and discipline, knowing that the weight-bearing strength you construct here can each make you more resilient, and truly help improve your running. Having a robust upper body allows a greater arm drive, improve your balance, and maintain good form. Find versions of those poses that you must linger in for an prolonged time frame, or repeat an beyond regular time or two. And challenge yourself to approach them without expectation of performance, but be willing to position equal value on the experience of trying something recent and constructing strength.

The poses:
Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
Plank Pose (Phalakasana)
Side Plank (Vasisthasana)
Chaturanga (Low Push Up))
Arm balances like Crow or Crane Pose (Bakasana)
Inversions corresponding to Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana)

(Photo: Andrew Clark)

6. If You Have a Competitive Mindset…

Confronting your expectations will be one in every of the most important challenges facing any student of yoga. For runners, the disciplined and competitive drive that is useful in your run training can actually get in the best way of deriving advantages out of your yoga practice.

If you happen to’re used to comparing your performance to that of those around you, it could actually be easy to forget that other students in a yoga class could have adapted to yoga the identical way that you simply’ve acclimated to your running. Disparaging yourself in your abilities in yoga can be like comparing a sprinter to an endurance runner and expecting their needs, goals, and outputs to be the identical.

Runners who’re inwardly driven by their very own metrics is likely to be hard on themselves if, from one week to a different, they feel they “perform” higher or worse in a yoga class. Take into accout that you might feel higher, give you the chance to carry poses for longer, or stretch deeper in yoga class during per week where you had light run training load than you do the week of a more demanding training block.

The answer: All of those are compelling reasons to run toward, not away from, a yoga class, even should you don’t feel just like the star student. It’s okay to not “win” and even “progress” at yoga, and that’s actually the purpose. You might be there to cross-train relatively than compete. You don’t ever must “master” yoga asana practice. It’s enough to revive tight or drained tissues, to construct balanced strength, and to cultivate somewhat sukha, or ease, to balance the sthira, or discipline, that you simply’ve already honed by running. Identical to hill repeats are different from speed drills that are different from easy recovery runs, yoga doesn’t must feel like your other training efforts.

As you do in your run training, concentrate on your purpose. While you understand yoga for what it’s—a practice of practices for body, mind, and even spirit—there’s potential so as to add tools and awareness that may complement your running in unexpected ways. Yoga encourages you to melt where you might be strong, and strengthen where you might be soft. It suggests that practice is as essential as performance, acceptance as powerful as achievement. And by providing you with opportunities to handle your weaknesses or imbalances, yoga reminds you of your existing strengths whilst it helps you create recent ones.

About Our Contributor

Rachel Land is a Yoga Medicine instructor offering group and one-on-one yoga sessions in Queenstown Latest Zealand, in addition to on-demand at practice.yogamedicine.com. Keen about the real-world application of her studies in anatomy and alignment, Rachel uses yoga to assist her students create strength, stability, and clarity of mind. Rachel also co-hosts the brand new Yoga Medicine Podcast.