During the course of an average mile run, your foot will strike the ground 1,000 times. The force of impact on each foot is about three to four times your weight. It’s not surprising, then, to hear runners complain of bad backs and knees, tight hamstrings, and sore feet.
The pain most runners feel is not from the running in and of itself, but from imbalances that running causes and exacerbates. If you bring your body into balance through the practice of yoga, you can run long and hard for years to come. Although yoga and running lie on opposite ends of the exercise spectrum, the two need not be mutually exclusive. In fact, running and yoga make a good marriage of strength and flexibility.
Benefits of yoga for runners
Balance
Yoga poses can correct muscle imbalances resulting from high impact training, aligning the joints, improving bone density, stretching and strengthening the muscles to prevent pain and injury, particularly in injury-prone zones: hips, hamstrings, knees, Achilles tendon and iliotibial band.
Standing yoga postures correctly align the knee, strengthen the arches to provide better shock absorbers and maintain healthy connective tissue in the foot and shin.
A more balanced body can handle more stress and run without stressing the body. Many runners suffer from chronic pain or injury as a result of imbalance the running introduces.
Relaxation
Yoga poses and Pranayama breathing fine tunes your nervous systems and provides your body with much needed relaxation after a run. Pranayama practice slows the heartbeat and reduces blood pressure, producing calm and a sense of stability. End your yoga practice with ten to fifteen minutes of deep relaxation in shava asana (coupled with deep breathing) to relax muscle tension and recover your poise and energy.
Self Awareness
While running, you can aim for perfect co-ordination of body, mind and breathing. Make your mind quiet and focus on your body. This self awareness and breath control is possible through yoga. You can concentrate on a rhythm between your running, your body and your breath rather than worrying about the outcome of the race. This will be especially useful for marathon runners.
In addition to physically counteracting the strains of running, yoga teaches the cultivation of body wisdom and confidence. As you develop a greater understanding of the body and how it works, you become able to listen and respond to messages the body sends you. This is especially important in running, where the body produces a lot of endorphins. These “feel good” chemicals also double as nature’s painkillers, which can mask pain and the onset of injury or illness. Without developed body intuition, it’s easier to ignore the body’s signals.
Flexibility
You can start yoga even if your body is not flexible. Regular yoga practice will make your body more flexible over a period of time. While running you primarily work certain muscles, mainly in the legs and core. Yoga, which utilizes all of the body’s muscles, including the often neglected stabilizers, makes you stronger and better functioning as a whole.
Reduce Injury
A regular yoga practice can reduce your chances of injury by improving your mental health, flexibility and relaxation of muscles. Yoga increases flexibility and it helps to prevent injury. In case you are suffering form injuries due to your running, a yoga practice can help you to recover faster.
Increase Your Oxygen Capacity
Most of us are shallow breathers, not utilising the full capacity of our lungs, thereby less oxygen is absorbed by our lungs in a single breath. A regular yoga practice with its focus on breathing can increase your lung capacity resulting in more oxygen supply to your blood. This oxygen rich blood can boost performance and endurance for runners.
A yoga practice will make your breath deeper and rhythmic. Focusing on your breath while running will help you to have a convenient breathing pattern to support your running.
Conserve Your Energy
Proper relaxation, concentration and quieting the mind of undue fluctuation results in conserving your energy. Yoga also enables you a level of awareness whereby you can let go of things not important and thus conserve your energy. As your endurance builds and your lung capacity increases, the body becomes more efficient.
Adding Yoga to your running routine
Yoga is best done after your run as it removes stiffness of muscles, tones the body and stimulates circulation. Deep breathing along with yoga are essential components of yoga for runners. These two help you to maintain strength and flexibility.
You have to decide on a style of yoga that is right for you.
- Slow, gentle, more passive yoga such as Kripalu or Yin yoga cultivates awareness of any resistance, promotes release of tension to avoid injury and improves circulation in connective tissue to help you recover and rejuvenate after running.
- Fast, vigorous, more dynamic yoga such as Ashtanga or flow yoga improves cardiovascular capacity, combining stamina, upper body and core strength with lower body flexibility.
If you have not done any yoga previously, seek the guidance of a yoga teacher to learn yoga poses and breath work. As a runner you already have a good fitness level and can easily add a yoga practice to your running routine.
You can schedule your yoga practice either before your run or after your run. For maximum benefit, you should practice yoga daily.
