Can Yoga Improve Your Running?

I have always loved to run. It’s the only type of exercise I look forward to doing. My runs keep me sane and I miss them when life gets in the way.

When I was younger, I only ran. I knew runners were supposed to cross-train, but I didn’t want to cross-train. And when you’re in your 20s you can push yourself without much repercussion.

Then my 30s happened and I was involved in a car wreck that caused a back injury that sometimes still flares up, ten years later. And that is when I discovered yoga. It turns out, yoga has many benefits including pain management, flexibility, muscle strength, reduced anxiety, and increased mind-body awareness. The effects of all of this can help you to become a better runner.

It can be difficult for runners to take time away from running for any other form of exercise. But cross-training can provide benefits in many ways.

It provides a rest for the muscles you use for running, it gives your body balance as it works on muscles you don’t use for running, and it helps keep you resistant to overuse injuries. And yoga is a great form of cross-training for increasing your overall strength and flexibility.

Yoga helps balance your body

Running is a high-impact sport mainly working your quadriceps, hamstrings, hip flexors, calves, and glutes. Yoga can help stretch out those muscles and strengthen other parts of your body helping you maintain overall balance in your body.

Yoga poses are excellent at stretching out runners' tight hip flexors and hamstrings. I’ve had a yoga instructor tell me she can always spot the runners in her class because we can barely bend forward during pigeon pose.

Align your yoga with your training

Don’t try to do everything at once. There are vigorous yoga classes and there are more relaxing classes. When you’re at peak training, choose the more relaxing classes for a balance. Feel free to up the intensity of your yoga when your running has eased up.

However, don’t combine high-intensity running with high-intensity yoga. You can risk injury by doing difficult yoga poses during a period of challenging training. Give your muscles a chance to rest and get stronger.

Don’t be so competitive

Yes, you are a runner and we are naturally competitive. I walked into my first yoga class thinking, I am in good shape, I can handle this. It turned out to be much harder than I expected to get my body to move into those poses.

People practice yoga for years before being able to call themselves an expert. That person on the mat next to you contorting their body into a perfect backbend probably didn’t start doing yoga last week. Don’t focus on anyone else around you. You’re only competing with yourself here. Work on your own improvements, don’t worry about what the rest of the class is doing.

Mindfulness of yoga may help your running focus

Yoga can help you become more attune with your body. By mindful breathing and focusing during yoga, you are training your mind to concentrate on the present. The mental challenge it takes to be able to hold a difficult pose is the same mental challenge you need to continue running when it gets hard.

Runners know that running is more than just physical, it’s a mental game as well. And taking the time to be mindful during yoga will help you on the trail when the running gets tough.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that yoga has been a huge benefit for me. I had never experienced back pain until that car injury. The one that caused me to drop out of marathon training and left me in physical therapy for months. And just when I think it’s gone for good, the pain comes back.

When I am doing yoga at least once or twice a week, I seem to be able to keep the pain away. But when life gets hectic and I’m not stretching or doing any yoga poses, my back begins to hurt again.

I want to keep running as long as I can. I used to think it would be easy, just go out and run. But as I’ve aged I’ve begun to realize it’s going to take some effort to keep running while staying injury and pain-free. And that’s where yoga comes in.

I use yoga to help me be able to do what I really want to be doing, running.

Note: this story was originally published on Medium.