Into your Zone, Yoga for the Athlete
by Susi Hately Aldous

Athletes have long searched for a means to assist in enhancing performance. I remember as a rugrat athlete in the seventies and as a competitive teenaged athlete in the eighties, we focused on the physical workout. This consisted of more and more sets, reps, interval trainings and time trials. Our knowledge of mental focus was its association with gut determination. Stretching was something we did while our heart rates returned to normal.

Athletics have changed since the eighties, as have the concepts of training. We understand that with the benefits of developing mental focus we can more effectively access the zone of peak performance. Stretching has developed far past sitting in a runner’s stretch and bouncing head to knee. We know what to do for full fitness and have experienced the benefits. But we are caught in a time crunch with workouts, family, friends, and jobs. How do we get out of it?

It appears that more and more athletes are leveraging their limited time by rounding out their training programs with yoga. Yoga offers efficient and nicely packaged sessions for balancing mind and body, improving mental focus, flexibility and breath regulation. And the switch seems to be helping. Frank Zane, three-time Mr. Olympia, follows a practice of yoga. The Florida Marlins have incorporated yoga into their training programs, as have the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Mets, and the Miami Dolphins. And it is not just for the pros. Amateur athletes such as martial artists, cyclists, mountain bikers, snowboarders, swimmers and runners are all gracing local yoga venues to loosen tight muscles, centre themselves and reduce stress.

It is a good bang for your buck, but how does it work? One of the fundamental physiological effects of yoga is the balancing and modification of the two branches of the involuntary nervous system – the sympathetic branch and the para-sympathetic branch. While the former is well known to dominate in the face of a challenge (e.g. fight or flight) and necessary for training and competition, the latter undoes tension. According to Dr. Herbert Benson, undoing tension enables the body tissues to renew and regenerate, creating an ideal environment for improving strength or healing from an injury. Dr. Benson has also noted that our sympathetic systems are generally overactive anyway and a consistent practice of yoga helps to recalibrate the situation.

So if your workouts are lagging; you want to improve your focus and flexibility; or simply ease race day tension, you may want to try yoga. I will leave the last words to legendary basketball player, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who once said, “You have to be able to center yourself; don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as with your body.”

Copyright 2006 Susi Hately Aldous

Functional Synergy inc. provides yoga therapy classes, retreats and workshops that concentrate on re-establishing the equilibrium in your body, both mentally and physically, enabling you to experience the feeling of relaxation, of wellbeing and to connect to what is important to you. http://www.functionalsynergy.com