As a full-time Yoga teacher, I’ve noticed Yoga becoming less of a hard sell to athletes from casual runners to elite triathletes. There could be several reasons for this: the increased number of Yoga studios in major cities, more high-quality (often free) Yoga classes online during the pandemic or our access to behind-the-scenes training footage of top athletes in the mainstream media.
Where previously our view of athletes only consisted of the golden moments at Olympic finals or large televised events, nowadays we have a backstage pass via Instagram, Netflix and year-round journalism to their training regimes. Many athletes are sharing a more holistic approach to professional training, incorporating more “alternative” protocols such as cold-water immersion, breathwork, visualisation and cryotherapy. The faster, harder, stronger image is becoming an outdated one. In competitive environments where 1% better can be the difference it’s unsurprising athletes are looking more widely at how their life supports their sport.
What is Yoga?
Yoga is an ancient eastern practice originating from India and Egypt with origins that can be traced back 5,000 years. However, it’s exportation to the West in the early 2000s somehow brought with it the assumption that Yoga is for wealthy, bendy, white women. I believe (and hope) that this yummy mummy stereotype is changing. Yoga is a lifestyle practice that includes asana (postures), pranayama (breathwork), dhyana (meditation & focus) and Yoga philosophy. Its application alongside a tough training regime helps athletes stay injury free, enhance their mental focus and increase lung capacity to name but a few benefits.
Novak Djokovic
TENNIS PLAYER, 36
One of the most famous proponents of Yoga for athletic performance is the extraordinary, perhaps a little controversial, Novak Djokovic. The Serb is the currently ranked world No. 1 tennis player and has been ranked No. 1 for a record total of 406 weeks in a record 13 different years.
What springs to mind for me when looking at Djokovic as an athlete is his longevity. In 2008, he won his first grand slam at the Australian Open aged 20. In 2023, aged 36 he won the French Open to take the outright record for the most men’s singles majors won in history. Another interesting statistic of longevity is that when he announced he was to miss the US open in 2017 due to an elbow injury that would end his streak of participating in 51 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments, the seventh-longest run in history.
A holistic approach
Djokovic’s long time doctor is Igor Četojević who is a specialist in Traditional Chinese Medicine and a holistic approach to high performance sport. Igor speaks a lot about being “aware”, using the ability to know oneself intimately that can be then used to listen closely to injury cues, how the body responds to training stimulus and close relationships with family/training team. The broad view of performance is one very aligned with the practice of Yoga. Yoga cannot be filtered down to 60 minutes spent on a mat in a gym. Yoga is your whole life. In terms of sports performance this means athletes must look at their relationships, sleep, nutrition, recovery, equipment, fitness, conditioning, technique etc.
Igor’s focus on emotional health
Četojević speaks of the necessity for athletes to have mutual love and respect for their family and coaching team to create a nurturing environment. It’s interesting that this seems like quite an “out there” concept when really isn’t that the basis of how we thrive as humans? In my experience of high-level sport in the UK when I was a junior international, concepts of emotional health were certainly not mentioned, though looking back, I can see how helpful they would have been. Igor explains that he sees many athletes who train perfectly but when it comes to the high-pressure moments they crumble because of their lack of emotional strength.
It is worth noting that there are several controversies surrounding Novak’s career and choices particularly surrounding the Covid vaccination (or lack thereof) and the grand slam seasons 2020 onwards. What is undeniable, however, is his athleticism and mental strength:
“The definition of the word ‘strong’ maybe nowadays is not what my definition is…some people say you are born with that, but I believe the biggest part of your mental strength is in training. Leading your life — whether you’re surrounded and filled by positive or negative thoughts, positive environment or not — it all affects your performance as an athlete.” (Djokovic, ESPN)
Novak is a big Yoga enthusiast you even often see him practicing asana right before he goes on the court. His flexibility, and strength within that range, is highlighted by the extreme positions he manages to go in and out of on the court whilst remaining injury free.
Not only does he embrace the physical side of Yoga but the spiritual one too. He regularly meditates to help him stay at “an optimal state of mind and have peace and calm in life.”
Iga Swiatek
Tennis player, 22
Iga Swiatek is a 22-year-old Polish tennis player who’s won four major singles titles and is current ranked world No 1.
Swiatek has recently made the news for an unconventional training technique, she trains in the gym and on the court with tape over her mouth.
Nasal breathing is fundamental to the Yoga practice. An essential part of Yoga is learning to breathe steadily and deeply no matter what physical posture you are in. This helps to create a stabilising, calming sensation to the movement and teaches the student to return to centre even when a posture is physically challenging. There are specific pranayama (breathwork) techniques that include open mouth exhales but predominantly it’s taught that it’s more efficient and advantageous to breathe through your nose.
Why is nasal breathing better?
Nasal breathing reducing the speed and volume of air reaching the lungs. This gives your body more time to exchange the gases it needs from your inhalation; therefore, more oxygen reaches your muscles. Nose breathing is 22% more efficient than mouth breathing and results in 10 to 20% better oxygenation. (Oxygen Advantage) When there is a proper balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood, the nervous system is calmed.
Breathing through your nose encourages the proper use of the diaphragm as you breathe. The diaphragm connects to the vagus nerve, a body-mind signal that communicates your safety to the nervous system thus stimulating the parasympathetic response (rest & digest). The inside of your nose is an adapted filtration system. The tiny hairs, called cilia, help to block particles of foreign matter and you produce nitric acid in your sinuses that are essential in protecting against airborne viruses.
Nasal breathing is beneficial for all of us but from an aspect of respiratory endurance, increased oxygen to the muscles and protection against illness it seems like a no brainer for athletes.
Read more about the nervous system in my blogpost: are you always rushing?
Svadyaya or Self Study
Similarly to Djokovic, an awareness of self, or Svadyaya (self-study) as we would call it in the Yoga tradition, is at the forefront of Swiatek’s mental training. Her sports psychologist Daria Abramowicz says, “my goal is that she gets to know herself in a way that she recognises when it is time to rest. Basically, I want her to know herself better as an athlete, her mind, and her body”. (Tennis Majors)
The All Blacks
New Zealand’s rugby team
With a win rate of nearly 80%, New Zealand’s All Blacks are one of the most successful teams in sporting history.
They have become symbols for dominance, professionalism, and intensity.
Yoga for cross-training
In an interview with The Telegraph, Nic Gill, the All Blacks Performance Coach explains that he creates these all-round athletic beasts from fundamental pillars of training or “Big Rocks” as he calls them. These “big rocks” include, compound lifts, core strength, watt bikes, bear crawls, single-limb work, bodyweight circuits, and Yoga.
“We do small touches of that [Yoga] daily, before or after training, or in the gym. Sometimes twice a day they will be doing soft tissue work, myofascial release, mobility, band stretching and partner-assisted stretching.”
One of their most notorious players Ma’a Nonu who is 1.82m and 106kg, credits Yoga in helping him recover physically. Often, the key to performance is not how much you can do but it’s how quickly and efficiently you can recover to be able to do it again. In tournament-based sports like rugby this is essential.
Yoga is being used widely as a holistic performance tool to build self-awareness, prevent injury, and maximise respiratory efficiency. This article outlines just a few of the modern athletes and team that are including this ancient practice into their highly specialised regimes.
To read more about Yoga and athletic performance, read my most recent blogpost What Yin-Yang Theory can Teach Athletes.
References:
1. Effect of Pranayama and Suryanamaskar on Pulmonary Functions in Medical Students, 2014, Journal of Clinical & Diagnostic Research.
2. Dr Igor: Enhance Sports Performance – Session 1: Lifestyle Changes, 2021, Zena Le Roux.
3. Revealed: the All Blacks’ fitness secrets – and what you can learn from them, 2021, The Telegraph.
4. Nose breathing vs. mouth breathing. Oxygen Advantage.
5. Can Yoga Breathing / Pranayama Concepts be Reasonably Extended to Conventional Endurance Training?, 2020, World Journal of Yoga, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation.
NEW Yoga for Sport Online Program
Train hard, recover faster.
This online Yoga programme is for you if you’re looking to use Yoga to enhance athletic performance. Whether you are a casual park runner or a professional team sport athlete Yoga for Sport 2.0 can benefit you.
The programme is split into three categories; Recovery, Cross-Training, and Mind-Body.
