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Explore Your Hamstrings

February 13, 2012

Tight hamstrings is a common complaint among athletes, and trying to stretch and release this area of primary focus in yoga. Instead of thinking of the area as one unit (or one big knot!), it’s useful to remember that the hamstrings group comprises three distinct muscles—the semitendinosus, biceps femoris, and semimembranosus—that run along the back of the thigh. While the muscles cross each other, you can still stretch the fibers of the central, inner, and outer hamstrings through select yoga poses (check out the video below) to keep you balanced and performing at your best.

Central Hamstrings

Forward folds with the feet roughly sitting bone-distance apart will stretch the central portion of the hamstrings. These include Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend), Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend), and Halasana (Plow Pose).

Inner Hamstrings

Taking the legs wide will bring the stretch into the inner edges of the hamstrings. Along the way, the adductors (inner thigh muscles) will get involved, too. That’s fine, but see if you can feel the difference between the two groups. Poses that stretch inner hamstrings include Upavista Konasana (Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend) and Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend).

Outer Hamstrings

You can stretch the outer hamstrings by taking your legs closer to the midline or turning your toes in in standing forward folds. You can also feel them release in Parsvottanasana (Intense Side Stretch) and Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle Pose). If you have a very tight iliotibial (IT) band, you may feel sensation there, too.

Strap Series

Using a strap, as shown in the video, will help you find and release each of the areas in the hamstrings group. Lie on your back with the strap around the ball of your left foot, right leg bent at the knee or straight along the floor. As you stretch your left foot up toward the ceiling, you’ll feel the central hamstrings stretch. Use the strap to pull the foot in until you feel a pleasant intensity. After 10 breaths or so, move your left foot over to the right to find the outer hamstrings stretch, holding for another 10 breaths. Finish by moving your left foot slightly out to the left for 10 breaths for in an inner hamstrings stretch. Stop with the left foot hovering over the left edge of the mat so this doesn’t become primarily a stretch for the adductors deep in the inner thigh.  If you need to deepen the pose to find the stretch, move your left foot up and into the space over your left shoulder.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Stress and Rest

January 30, 2012

rock climbingPhoto of woman rock climbing from Shutterstock.

 

In my very first post to this blog, I intimated that depending on which portion of your training cycle you’re in, yoga might serve to confer strength, flexibility, focus, or all of these. The trick is to choose practices that support the work you’re doing in training, and not to pile on more stress to a body that’s already overloaded. It sounds great in theory, but in practice it takes a lot of trial and error.

Ayca, for example, wrote me from Turkey to ask about the best ways to mesh her rock climbing and yoga asana practice, which together are contributing to elbow problems. While I can’t speak to individual injuries (my doctorate is in English literature, not medicine!), as a coach I know a lot about the balance between work and rest. Overuse injuries like tendonitis are a sign that there’s too much stress on the tissues. We need stress to create change in the body—this is exercise physiology’s principle of overload. The key is to apply the right intensity, duration, and frequency of this stress and to give the body time to recover and adapt to the stress with super-compensation. (My book The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery explores the application of recovery tools, including yoga, in detail.) And it applies to yoga asana just as it does to sport training. Do too much, for too long, too often, without enough rest, and you’ll wind up with an injury.

Another cause of injury is imbalance between strength and flexibility in the body. When one group of muscles is stronger or more flexible than another, it can add stress to the weaker or tighter areas and cause injury. To prevent such injuries, a well-rounded yoga asana practice is useful; to cure them, you’ll need to work with your health care providers to analyze and address the cause of the issue.

Happily, Ayca took some time to rest those elbows and is now back on the mat. She’s taking care to avoid adding too much stress to the arms at one time, which might mean skipping some Chaturangas as she learns where the line is. Home practice is especially useful for discerning the right amount of stress to apply, free from the constraints and temptations of a group practice. She can also be careful to schedule one or two full rest days each week and keep an eye on the amount of stress she is putting on her upper body through climbing and time on the mat.

When you find yourself frazzled or in pain, reflect on the amount of stress you’ve been asking your body to absorb. A gentle or restorative practice may serve you better than sweating through a challenging vinyasa class. Conversely, don’t expect to see progress without adding judicious amounts of stress to your routine. By making wise choices, you can include yoga in support of your training, not just as another thing from which to recover.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Set Up for Success

January 16, 2012

yoga classIn the first few years I practiced yoga, I used to lay my mat in a different spot in the room for each class. Then I realized that was every bit as compulsive as always being in the same spot! Now I set up in a corner, usually a back corner. When I go to class, some of the students identify me as the studio owner, as a teacher, or as the author of books on yoga for athletes, and I don’t want the pressure of expectations. These expectations go both ways: if students (mistakenly!) think I’ll be an asana superstar, I don’t want to feel like I have to perform; if I am feeling tired from my workouts, as I often am, I don’t want to push in my asana practice as the result of my misguided sense of peer pressure. Of course the practice is about each individual, and of course we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others—but why not stack the deck in our favor by choosing the right spot in the room? It will make focusing easier.

You probably make similar choices about mat placement, possibly without realizing it. Your position in the room can directly affect the level of competition you sense and indulge. As we’ve already seen, yoga is not a competition. But for athletes who are used to demonstrating their physical ability and comparing their skills with others’, choosing the right place in a group class can be critical to the success or failure of the practice.

Know your personality so you can choose a location in the room that supports your needs instead of playing into your insecurities. If you get swept up in the action of the crowd and are tempted to notice what others are doing, you can fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. In this case, you may want to put yourself in the front corner, facing the wall, so there’s less visual distraction to detract from your focus.

Conversely, if you feel self-conscious in front of the room and would like to feel fewer eyes on you, try a spot in the back. You’ll have more visual input from the class, but the gaze will be primarily a one-way experience, so you may feel less pressure to perform.

Wherever you wind up, remember that each student brings an idiosyncratic set of abilities and life experiences to the practice. The very things that make you less flexible—stiff hips that help with efficient energy transfer for running, strong chest muscles to help you block linebackers—may be plusses in your sport. In my classes, I’ve seen professional athletes gawk at the abilities of advanced asana practitioners, and I’ve seen weekend warriors go wide in the eyes while looking at the figures of collegiate-champion athletes. While we can appreciate the range of abilities in class, ultimately each of us must work with the body we have, in the shape and energy level that show up on the mat today.

 

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Train Your Focus, Part III: Mantra

January 5, 2012

Woman on stationary bike. In my previous posts on focus, we looked at using pratyahara, or inward focus, and at drishti, a fixed gaze, to hold your attention in the moment. Another tool yoga gives us is the use of mantra.

You’ve probably spontaneously used mantra in your sport for years. If you sing a song to yourself, if you count your steps or strokes, if you inwardly repeat phrases like “Go, go, go” or “Strong and smooth” or “Long and loose,” you’ve been using a mantra. Coming from the Sanskrit for “instrument of thought,” the word mantra refers to a tool for harnessing your thoughts—for focusing your attention in the moment.

The yoga tradition brings us many sacred mantras, from phrases like “Shanti, shanti, shanti” to the Gayatri mantra. Repeating a phrase rich with meaning can lend a sense of ceremony and devotion to your actions, whether you are sitting in meditation or moving through a workout mindfully. But beyond the significance of the words, the real power of mantra lies in its repetition. By repeating the same syllables over and over, you’ll quiet mental chatter and yoke your mind to what is happening right now.

Here are some ways to include mantra in your sports training.

  • Set the tone for your workout by choosing one to three mantras for your session. These can be a few words or many lines long. Let at least one be directly applicable to the workout at hand. For example, choose “Strong and smooth” for a tempo run, “Here and now” for a free-throw practice session.
  • Synch your mantra to your breath. If you are running, cycling, swimming, or rowing, line up the rhythm of your breath and your stroke with your mantra. If you are practicing skills or lifting weights, coordinate your actions with your mantra.
  • Come back to your mantra regularly. Set a countdown on your sports watch, so that you return to your mantra every 5, 10, or 15 minutes. When you realign with your mantra, you’re practicing mental association. Your thoughts may drift away, but they’ll return to the mantra the next time the timer goes off.
  • Add what works to your mental mantra library. When a mantra proves especially useful, make a note of it and add it to your repertoire. It’s good to have many go-to mantras, while also being open to the phrases that come to you in the moment.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Balancing the Lower Legs

December 19, 2011

The lower legs can take a beating as we adapt to a new sport. Have you begun a running program and found yourself with shin splints? Or have you been intrigued by the barefoot and minimalist running trend and paid the price with sore calves? A combination of strengthening and stretching can help balance the lower legs.

Strengthen

Yoga asanas help strengthen the low legs, especially the single-legged standing balance poses. To increase the challenge for your lower leg, move from standing on a smooth, level surface such as a studio floor to standing on your mat. In time, you might double-, triple-, or quadruple-fold your mat to increase the challenge.

Balancing on your toes will also help you build strength. Try lifting to the balls of your feet in Tadasana (Mountain Pose), Utkatasana (Chair Pose), and Utkata Konasana (Goddess Pose).

Stretch

Squatting will help you stretch the back of the lower leg: calves and Achilles. Try both a tight stance, knees between your arms, and a wide stance (Malasana or Garland Pose), and see what feels good. If your calves are very tight, you may need to take a blanket under your heels for balance, slowly unfolding it over time so your heels move toward the floor. (Skeletal variation might prevent your heels from ever reaching the ground.)

Kneeling will stretch the shins and ankles. Blankets can come in useful here. If you feel pain in the front of the ankles, lay your shins on a blanket with your feet hanging off. In time, you may need less folds of the blanket. If kneeling causes pain inside your knees, use blankets between your hamstrings and calves to reduce the compression in the knees.

Double-task by combining kneeling with squatting. You’ll get the benefits for the front of the shin and ankle while being able to pay attention to what’s happening in your squatting leg. And yoga is about paying attention! Start in kneeling, then take your right foot forward, lining up your right toes with the left knee. If this is intense, slide your right foot farther forward; for more, pull your right heel back. You can carefully lay your chest on your right thigh to increase the sensation in the right leg, or push into your hands and lift your left knee to open the front of the ankle.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Can Athletic Traits Hinder Yoga Practice?

December 5, 2011

When I teach yoga for athletes intenstives for other yoga teachers, we discuss the mentality athletes bring to class. Some themes routinely emerge, and while naturally there are many exceptions to these examples, for the most part, athletes bring these strengths:

  • Knowledge of their bodies
  • Sport-specific strength
  • Desire to improve
  • Receptivity to feedback
  • Readiness to work
  • Focus

Does this sound like you? Good, they’re all great qualities! But when it comes to yoga, some of these pluses in sports can become obstacles in yoga. Let me explain.

While athletes may know their bodies, their awareness may be completely tied to their sport. Yoga helps them learn more about their bodies’ overall capabilities. Yet they’re often surprised (and frustrated) to find tightness, weakness, or imbalances that make some yoga poses challenging for them.

Athletes also typically have sport-specific strength, created by working in a certain plane of motion—for example, moving forward, for runners—but that neglects development in another plane and often overworks the muscles used for that one activity. In other words, strength in one area of the body can hide weakness in other areas. Often, the strength in the extremities (arms and legs) compensates for weakness in the core (abs and back).

An athlete’s desire to improve makes him interested in gaining advantage anywhere possible. This can shrink down the value of yoga into the simply physical, and into merely a tool for performance. Remember, there’s much more to yoga than stretching.

Team-sports athletes are usually quite receptive to feedback. They’re used to plenty of instruction on technique, and they respond to corrections well. Others, including endurance athletes, can be less open to alignment instructions, viewing it as evaluation. Remember that your yoga teachers just want you to find ease in your asana practice.

The readiness to work most athletes show is a wonderful boon. But in yoga, often less is more. The more work an athlete is doing in training, the less work should happen in the studio. Many athletes also are used to suffering, reasoning that since discomfort in training often yields improvement, discomfort in yoga should bring gains. In yoga, we strive  to practice ahimsa, nonharming, and play the safe side of the edge.

Athletes’ focus can be greatly enhanced through a yoga practice, as we’ve been examining. The downside here is that athletes can take practice too seriously, working to make it perfect. Keep room for imperfection and humility in your yoga practice. A sense of humor and perspective can go a long way to experiencing greater benefits and longevity in your practice.

 

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga and The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Train Your Focus, Part II: Drishti

November 21, 2011

tennis_guy_211_.jpgWe’ve looked at pratyahara, the withdrawal of the senses to focus on the internal experience (read the post
here). The next step for developing focus is learning to concentrate with single-pointed attention (dharana). One way to develop this skill is with drishti, the direction of your gaze. By targeting your gaze toward an object, you anchor your mind, preventing the drifting back and forth that characterizes much mental activity over the day. With your gaze and mind completely focused on one object, you sharpen your mental skills.

You may have used drishti in balance poses on your mat, riveting your gaze to an unmoving object to gain steadiness.
If you have practiced Ashtanga Yoga, you’ll be familiar with the directions for focus in each of the poses. Drishti is an important tool in stilling the fluctuations of the mind. When the eyes cast about, it’s tough for the mind to be still. Resting the gaze on one point enables us to slow down our minds for presence on the mat.

You can also use drishti to develop focus in your active life.

Running Running over trails, you must set your gaze a few feet ahead of you, to keep foot placement stable. (The same anticipatory forward gaze applies in skiing.) On the track, where you don’t need to worry about foot placement, you might link your gaze to the runner in front of you, or to the finish line.

Cycling Focus your gaze tochoose a good line. Your bike will go where you look, don’t focus on obstacles like potholes but instead look forward and out of turns and traffic.

Swimming Pool swimmers know drishti well, staring at the line on the bottom of the lane for hours each week. Focus is also important in open-water swimming, where cloudy water can limit your gaze, and where your sighting breaths require the skill to take a quick glance at an object, then keep your mind’s eye focused on it to ensure you are swimming the most direct line.

Climbing Use drishti to choose a good route. Your gaze can serve to support your anchor to the wall. Newbies: don’t look down!

Ball sports In ball sports, you focus your gaze on the ball as you receive it–and where you want it to go as you release it. When setting up a free throw, for example, your gaze is focused on just where you want to place the ball, to the exclusion of everything else (no matter how the opposing fans act behind the basket!). In tennis, you watch the ball as it goes over the net and as it comes back.

On the mat, the trail, the field, or the court, when your gaze or attention wander, gently bring them back into focus. Sharpen your ability to focus exclusively where you need to, and you’ll have learned to control your mind in ways that can improve both your sport and your yoga experience.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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When Stretching Is Not the Answer

November 7, 2011

Before my weekly yoga for athletes classes, I like to check in with my students, especially those who are new, to see if anything hurts. The most common answer is, “Everything hurts!” After a chuckle, I drill down: what really hurts, and where? If the student’s complaint is in muscles, especially on both sides of the body, that’s usually typical postworkout soreness. But when pain appears closer to a joint, especially when it’s on only one side of the body, a red flag goes up. This can be a sign of an acute or overuse injury affecting the connective tissue–tendons, ligaments, bursae, joint capsules–and needs to be treated with care.

Two very common one-sided complaints I see involve the shoulder and the hamstrings’ attachment at the sitting bone. Don’t bring a shoulder injury to a vinyasa class and expect to “stretch it out”! Repetitive  Chaturangas might be the very cause of the problem. Rest your shoulder for a few days, avoiding any motion that
irritates it. If it doesn’t improve, visit a health care provider to get it assessed.

Similarly, don’t expect stretching to improve a strain to the hamstrings’ attachment to the sitting bone. This is a common site of injury in both yogis and runners. Overstretching this area or quickly changing pace can tear the tendon, and a misguided attempt to stretch it out is only aggravating the situation. Instead, avoid any poses that strain the area, and work to strengthen your hamstrings and glutes. Roger Cole has written a wonderful guide to rehabbing this injury.

Treat these one-sided niggles proactively, and you’ll avoid having them develop into big problems that derail your practice or your training cycle. Soldier through, and you risk both hurting the original site of injury and incurring
trouble in other parts of your body, as you alter your movement patterns to accommodate the original problem. At the first sign of injury, take a few days away from a rigorous asana practice. You can use the time to enjoy gentle
and restorative yoga, to practice pranayama, to meditate, and to connect with your loved ones.

You’ll be able to avoid problems down the road when you apply pre-class questioning to your own practice, both in class and at home. Check in with how you’re feeling, paying special attention to anything that hurts. If you have
suspicious pain, let your teacher know, and sit out any poses that irritate it. The first tenet of the first limb outlined in the Yoga Sutra exhorts us to avoid harm. Don’t suck it up and work through it; do rest. And remember:
stretching is just a tiny part of the big picture. If you
are paying attention to form and breath to calm your mind, you’re doing yoga.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Train Your Focus, Part I: Pratyahara

October 24, 2011

road_race_230.jpg

Mental focus makes the athlete. The ability to remain centered, focused, and in the moment, even under extreme pressure, separates the great athletes from the also-rans. Mental focus is what lets us tune out the crowds and make the shot, tune out the pressure and make the putt, tune out the screaming in legs and lungs and keep pushing to the finish line.

We develop this practice in training, and we also work on it in yoga.
The first step is pratyahara, a turning inward of the senses that disengages you from all the distractions of the external world and sharpens your focus on your internal experience. Pratyahara is what keeps the sixteen-year-old soccer player’s eye on the ball, while the six-year-old soccer player wanders around the field chasing butterflies or asking Mom for a juice box.

For many years I taught a weekly yoga for athletes class at the University of North Carolina Wellness Center, where a wall of glass brick separated the studio space from
the indoor track. I purposefully set my mat against the glass brick, so that students could learn to handle the distraction of the runners and walkers on the other side. The unfocused image of people as they passed by made a beautiful visual metaphor for what happens as we begin to focus inward. We saw the runners, some moving fast, some slow, but we couldn’t quite make out their faces. Sometimes they passed by over and over and over;  sometimes they walked by once and were gone. Whatever excitement was happening on the other side of the wall–an impromptu race, an older gymgoer with a walker, a mother with a toddler following her–we stayed focused on the experience in our bodies, breath, and minds. This was the practice of pratyahara.

Run through this simple exercise at the beginning of your next yoga
practice, training session, or trip to the meditation cushion, to set the mood
for an internal experience that will develop your focus.

First, soften your gaze or close your eyes. Even then, you’ll be receiving visual information through your sense of sight. Notice it, then soften your awareness further. Next, notice the sounds that are present around you, both far and near; soften that awareness, too. Breathe in and out through your nose, noticing any odors, then soften your sense of smell. Toward the end of an exhalation, swallow, and notice the taste of your own mouth, softening that awareness, too. You’ll be left with the sense of touch. Feel the air and your clothing against your skin, notice the parts of your body in contact with the ground, then soften that awareness, too, so that you focus exclusively on how things feel from the inside.

From there, re-engage only the senses you’ll need for your next action. If you are sitting in meditation, keep your focus inward. If you are on the mat, try keeping your eyes closed for as much of the practice as you can. If you are heading out on a run, leave the iPod at home. See how this shifts the experience, laying the groundwork for better focus on what’s happening right now.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Twist and Squat

October 10, 2011

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We’ve looked at a dynamic warm-up routine that’s perfect for
practicing before your workout, when you need to activate the muscles, not
lengthen their fibers. After your training session, though, you can take
advantage of the warm and relatively loose state of your body to enjoy some
static stretching.

I favor a twist from squat as a quick, all-purpose stretch–and a
great opportunity to check in with the state of your body, mind, and breath
after your workout. It feels good whether you have just finished a long run or
a short pick-up game. As you squat, you release your calves, quadriceps,
hamstrings, hips, and back. Adding the twist works up your spine, and spreading
your arms wide opens your chest.

To take the pose, find a squat that works for you. Depending on your
body, you might like to take a wide stance (Malasana, or Garland Pose, as pictured here), with knees and toes angled out, or to pull your knees and
feet closer, in a tight squat. If your heels don’t reach the ground, that’s OK;
reach your hands to the ground to help balance. Stay for a few breaths, feeling
how the breath moves the belly toward the thighs and how it expands the upper
back.

To add the twist, take your right hand to the ground near your right
foot, and start with your left hand on your left knee. Lengthen your spine and,
exhaling, twist to look over your left shoulder. If this feels good and your
balance is steady, reach your left arm long and gaze toward your left hand.
Hold for 5 to 10 breaths, then unwind and repeat on the other side.

For a nice variation, find a fence post or a partner, and hold it or
them with your hands as you lean back into the squat. Then slide one arm to the
support as you twist in the opposite direction, and repeat to twist in the
other direction.

When you’re done, either sit or stand and see how you feel for a few
breaths. Yoga poses give us the opportunity to slow down and feel the body,
mind, and breath from the inside out. The more you’re in tune with what’s going
on with your system, the more ease you’ll find as an athlete and in your daily life.

Sage Rountree is a yoga teacher, endurance sports coach and athlete, and author of books including The Athlete's Guide to Yoga and The Athlete's Guide to Recovery. She teaches workshops on yoga for athletes nationwide and online at YogaVibes. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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