Episode Transcript
[00:00:19] A while back, I did an episode on why athletes and strength trainers need yoga and I promised a follow up.
[00:00:27] So this is why yogis can really benefit from strength training or cross training. This episode helps deepen, inform and expand your yoga practice into something that allows you to practice yoga for life. When I first started practicing yoga regularly, I gained strength pretty quickly. Before then I was a dancer, but I had a several year gap where I didn't really have a primary athletic activity or movement practice. So I lost strength and mobility in that time. But it was so much fun getting stronger, learning things like arm balances and gaining the mobility as well. For many years I was a daily asana practitioner.
[00:01:15] I still practice a lot now. But what I found several years ago was I was becoming more and more prone to injury. I would try to strengthen around my joints in my yoga practice, but I didn't exactly know how. There's so much more information and emphasis now on strength during yoga than there used to be. It used to be very mobility focused, at least from my experience. And because of that, and because of the level of mobility I had in my body, I started feeling a lot of pain in my body, achiness and sometimes more acute injuries. What I realized was I needed to gain more strength, not more mobility in my practice at that point. But I had never strength trained before. I didn't know how to lift weights, I didn't know the first thing to do when going into a gym. So in 2018 I hired a personal trainer who taught me how to resistance train for properly. And I noticed huge gains in strength without much loss in mobility, a lot less pain in my body and a lot more stamina, power and endurance in my asana practice. So there were so many wonderful benefits to strength training and it really unlocked this new level in my movement journey. And now it's something that is a really important part of my life. I love feeling strong, I love lifting heavy things and putting them back down. And I loved calisthenics, seeing what I can do with body weight. And it has only informed and strengthened my yoga practice along the way. And like I said, I gained a lot of strength from my yoga practice as well. But strength training definitely took it to the next level and created more safety and longevity in my yoga practice. I always tell everyone I want to do yoga till I'm 108 and now I want to strength train until I'm 108 as well. Maybe longer if I live past that. But I do find the practice sitting intertwine and connect and are so rewarding together. So yogis can benefit so much from strength training through joint stability. So a lot of yogis have at least a little bit. I have hypermobility. That's why we're drawn to the practice, I think, in some ways, because some things feel easy, at least at first. And flexibility, so we're going to support that with the muscular control. So being able to strengthen around our joints while we are exploring our flexibility and mobility. Strength training is great for injury prevention, so balanced strength supports longevity in the practice. It's wonderful for bone density, especially for women and for aging practitioners, it's amazing for muscle balance, so counteracting overuse in typical yoga movements. For instance, there are a lot of push movements in yoga, so pressing against the ground, pushing against the ground and little to no pull movement. As yoga practitioners and maybe teachers, there are ways we can incorporate pulling a little bit more into the practice. But since we're on the mat with not a ton of propping or tools, and primarily using our body weight, it does leave out certain movement movements that are extremely beneficial. It also can improve asana performance, so it can help poses like arm balances and transitions. It can strengthen your core so you can move more gracefully and more easily.
[00:04:49] Again, so many wonderful benefits of strength training. I also recommend cross training. So that's not just doing yoga, but doing other movement practices in life one, because it's so much fun. Your yoga can inform all of these other practices and they can help improve your yoga in turn. So examples would be weightlifting or strength training, like I'm talking about today, Pilates, which has a lot of crossover with yogic movement, running, swimming, calisthenics, which also has a ton of crossover with yoga movement. There is so much fun to be had and you can bring your yoga focus into it. Cross training improves your endurance, your cardio, cardiovascular health and movement variety, which is so healthy for us. There are also so many mental benefits, like facing new challenges with grit and grace, breaking through plateaus and supporting our resilience. And there are some beautiful yogic philosophical tie ins as well. Cross training can bring in a sense of tapas, which is one of the niyamas, and it's all about discipline and devotion. So that really hard run or that long swim or that challenging Pilates workout can help us tap into that fiery discipline within, as well as another niyama of swadhyaya or self study. So in trying these new modalities and becoming a beginner at something, we can learn a heck of a lot about ourselves. So for Some of us, we don't have the time or space to hit the gym. One hour of yoga a day is a lot of time. As a yoga teacher, I try to create a really balanced practice so that you're getting a whole heck of a lot out of that hour. So how can we incorporate more strength training on the mat? So there are different ways that you can do your yoga with more resistance. One is through isometric holds.
[00:06:43] You might find these more in Hatha yoga practice. So in an isometric hold, you're getting the muscular contraction out of holding the posture rather than the movement itself. So you're coming into chair pose, for instance, and then you're strengthening your glutes, you're strengthening your adductors, you're strengthening your core muscles, all while just holding the posture. You might even play with propping in chair pose, for instance, placing a block between the thighs and squeezing it, maybe placing a block between the hands and squeezing it as well to engage the serratus anterior. You might play with the way you use your feet on the mat. And a really great instructor who is aware of strengthening around your joints on the mat will help offer some of these cues. But you might think in poses like Warrior one, of pressing your feet down into the mat and toward each other, which helps support the hips. You might think of in Plank and in Downward Facing Dog, isometrically drawing your upper arms toward each other and pressing the floor away. You might find a pulling motion in Isometric holds in Cobra pose, by instead of pushing yourself up from the mat with your hands, imagining that you're pulling yourself forward, which is going to engage your upper back muscles. And you might find in movements like Cactus Pose that you're not just opening up the arms into cactus, you're actually doing it like a lat pull down, where you're engaging through your lats to draw your elbows down, and then perhaps holding that posture, so it's really awakening, alivening and contracting the muscles within a posture. Another way to gain strength on your mat is with eccentric control. So typically an concentric contraction is when you're shortening a muscle, and an eccentric contraction is when you're lengthening a muscle. So slowing down these lengthening movements can help build strength. So think of things like slowly lowering down to chaturanga, slowly pressing up to upward facing dog, slowly drawing back to downward facing dog within a vinyasa sequence, for instance, I find that slowing the breath and then matching the movement with the breath, the transitions with the breath automatically helps create that eccentric control. I also will Cue to students to imagine that they're moving through like mud or honey instead of air or even water so that they are resisting against the air to create these transitions, which helps create body control and strength. Also, I mentioned adding blocks earlier to chair pose, but adding props can be extremely helpful. Things like blocks, sliders, resistance, distance bands can be great. One of my favorite things is using sliders or a blanket under the feet for sun salutations. So I'll have a mat under my hands, I'll step off of my mat, and instead of stepping my feet back to plank, I'm sliding my feet back to plank. And instead of stepping or floating forward at the end into my forward fold, I'm sliding my feet into my forward fold. And that's going to really challenge the core and the shoulder stabilizers and really create a whole new experience in the sun salutation for you. I also encourage the use of bandas in your practice and I won't go too deep into those in this episode, but they are energetic and physical locks in the body. So it's being able to lift your pelvic floor, to draw your navel in and up, to draw your chin back and then lift the crown of the head up. It's squeezing your fingertips into the mat, pressing into the foot and lifting the arch of the foot. There are these very particular weight ways to use your body so that you are creating more integrity and strength and moving from your core very intentionally so. So many ways to build strength in your yoga practice if that is your primary movement time. I'll add a couple integration tips and philosophical anchors. So think of tapas, that fiery discipline showing up consistently with effort of apari graha or letting go of the idea that yoga alone is enough if your body is needing more. I personally needed let go of that idea and kind of set my ego aside and try something new so that I could be back in my yoga practice without the pain that I was feeling. And speaking of avoiding pain, we can think of ahimsa. So we're strengthening the body to prevent pain or burnout. And ahimsa is all about non harm. So how do we treat our bodies with loving care and reduce the amount of harm that we're causing? Which unfortunately in asana practice can cause harm, especially with hypermobility where with non optimal alignment over time we can practice yoga as a form of self love, self respect and empowerment. And we can inform our bodies with strength training to help create that environment inner and outer. So a couple closing thoughts. I think that strength enhances and does not detract in any way from yoga. And I really encourage you to add even a small bit of strength training practices to your week. There are so many wonderful resources for that out out there now, small YouTube videos etc on the basics of strength training. Things like squats, deadlifts, lunges pulling, exercises like pull ups or lap pulls, rows can all be so so helpful and bring this beautiful integrity and strength into your practice. I'd love to know if you already do some kind of cross training or strength building what you do. Definitely comment if you're listening to this on Spotify. I'd love to see in the comments there or on my instagram let me know what you're doing to build strength on your ma that and I invite you to join me Sundays at 10:30 at True Love Yoga Online and in person. All of my classes focus on both strength and mobility and so much of what I learn off the mat I bring into my yoga teaching. So I'd love for you to join me to get stronger, to feel healthier and to add this beautiful longevity to your practice. I want you practicing yoga till you're 108 with me and then we can die happily in Shavasana. Sorry to get dark here at the end. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Let me know if you'd like more content or more specific ideas on strength training and I'd love to share. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Om Shanti Om Peace. Until next time.
