Yoga has long been associated with relaxation, mindfulness, and flexibility. However, when it comes to athletes, yoga takes on a different role—one that focuses on enhancing performance, preventing injuries, and aiding recovery. While traditional yoga aims to balance the mind and body holistically, yoga for athletes is a more targeted practice. Here’s how the two differ and why yoga is an essential addition to any athlete’s training regimen.

1. Focus on Performance Enhancement

Regular yoga prioritises overall well-being, stress relief, and spiritual growth. Yoga for athletes, however, is tailored to optimise physical performance. It emphasises mobility, strength, and balance—helping athletes move efficiently and with better body control. By incorporating dynamic movements and sport-specific poses, yoga for athletes directly contributes to improved performance in their respective disciplines.

2. Injury Prevention and Recovery

While traditional yoga is designed to achiveve spritual fulfilment, yoga for athletes specifically targets injury prevention and recovery. By addressing muscular imbalances and improving joint health and stability, athletic yoga reduces the risk of common sports injuries. Additionally, targeted stretching and functional breathing facilitate faster recovery, allowing athletes to maintain peak performance levels.

3. Building Strength Through Range, Not Just Passive Flexibility

Regular yoga often emphasises passive flexibility, but yoga for athletes incorporates movements that build strength through the full range of motion. This approach ensures that athletes are not only flexible but also strong and stable in their extended positions, reducing the risk of overstretching injuries and enhancing functional movement patterns.

4. Sport-Specific Customisation

Regular yoga follows a structured sequence of poses that benefit general health. Yoga for athletes, on the other hand, is customised based on the demands of a specific sport. A runner might focus on hip openers and hamstring stretches, while a swimmer may emphasise shoulder mobility and core strength. This personalised approach ensures that athletes are strengthening the muscles they need most.

5. Greater Emphasis on Strength and Stability

While regular yoga often emphasises passive flexibility, yoga for athletes incorporates more strength-based movements. Stability-focused poses like lunge-based sequences and balance exercises help reinforce muscle engagement and improve neuromuscular coordination. This strength-building aspect is crucial for athletes who need to generate power and maintain control over their movements.

6. Breath Training for Both Aerobic and Anaerobic Performance

Breathing exercises are a core component of traditional yoga, but athletes use them differently. Yoga for athletes focuses on breath control to enhance both aerobic and anaerobic performance, improving oxygen efficiency and allowing for better energy management during training and competition. Functional breathing techniques help to regulate heart rate, down regulate the nervous system and maintain composure under pressure, giving athletes a mental edge in high-stakes situations.

7. Time-Efficient Sessions

Athletes have demanding training schedules, so yoga for them is often more time-efficient than traditional classes. Instead of lengthy sessions, athletes will incorporate short, focused yoga routines that complement their primary training. These may include pre-workout mobility flows, post-workout recovery sequences, or mindfulness and breathing-based relaxation techniques.

8. Evidence-Based Health Benefits vs. Traditional Scripture

While traditional yoga is often grounded in ancient scriptures and philosophical teachings, yoga for athletes is based on modern scientific research and evidence-based methods. The focus is on practical tools and techniques that have been proven to enhance athletic performance, recovery, and overall health rather than esoteric or spiritual concepts.

In conclusion, while both regular yoga and yoga for athletes share foundational elements, their applications differ significantly. Yoga for athletes is more functional, sport-specific, and performance-driven, making it an invaluable tool for anyone looking to gain a competitive edge. Whether you’re a squash player, runner, swimmer, or strength athlete, integrating yoga into your training can help you move better, recover faster, and stay injury-free.

And if you’re an athlete looking to enhance your game by incorporating yoga into your routine, head over to yogathletic.passion.io to start your 7 day FREE TRIAL. Your body—and your performance—will thank you!

Once considered the preserve of new age hippies, yoga is now being incorporated by top level athletes as a core element of their training regimes. Here are 5 reasons why yoga can help you to perform better on the court…

1. Yoga (and mobility training) improves movement efficiency

Regular practice of yoga has many physical benefits that carry over into athletic and sporting endeavours - in particular increased flexibility (our ability to passively lengthen muscles) and mobility (active range of motion around a joint), as well as improved joint stability, core strength and balance.

Greg Gaultier showing the benefits of having a full range of accessible movement

In combination, these attributes help us to move with greater ease and efficiency through greater ranges, enabling us to improve our performance levels.

Indeed, one of the core benefits of yoga and mobility training is that we have an opportunity to develop strength at ‘end ranges’. Muscles tend to be strongest at mid-range length and have less ability to produce force when lengthened or shortened.

So when we move a joint towards its passive end range of motion and then contract the muscles across both sides of the joint (as we do in yoga), we begin to develop greater strength and control through our full range of movement.

This can be helpful if you’re looking to improve movement efficiency…or if you’re lunging to pick up a drop shot by allowing you to reach the ball and then recover your position as quickly and efficiently as possible (think of how well Gina Kennedy moves for example).

2. Yoga helps to mitigate against the risk of injury

Increasing flexibility, mobility and end range strength is also helpful for ‘pre-habbing’ the body and mitigating against the potential risk of injury.

Take the above example of lunging to reach a drop shot - if the lead leg happens to slip and you move towards the ‘splits’ position, you could be in trouble if you haven’t spent sufficient time working on your hamstrings flexibility and hip mobility.

So by engaging muscles as we move joints through their full ranges, we’re able to prepare the body for the ‘unexpected’ (at least to a degree!) by training it to be stronger and more resilient in all potential ranges of movement. Yoga also helps us to develop greater muscular endurance and recruit and engage our stabiliser muscles around joints - both of which will once again help to create more robust bodies.

This is partly why so many athletes now incorporate yoga into their training programmes to keep their bodies functioning as well as possible.

3. Yoga aids rest and recovery

When we train, exercise or play sport, it comes at a ‘cost’ to our nervous system and depletes our energy reserves.

In fact we’re actually weaker at the end of a training session than we were at the start - it’s when we recover that we get stronger as the nervous system ‘super compensates’ to adapt to the demands we’ve placed on the body so that we’re better able to cope with those stresses in future.

This is why smart training programs will include opportunities for the body and the nervous system to fully recover, and this is where yoga can act as the perfect counterpoint to high intensity training and sports.

It helps to downregulate the nervous system and dial up the parasympathetic rest and digest response to aid recovery, and gentle movement can also help to alleviate the effects of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness).

Moreover, yoga helps to provide "symmetry relief" for asymmetric sports such as squash (ex world number 1 James Willstrop bears testament to the benefits of yoga in ‘Shot and a Ghost’), and it can also help to counter the effects of gravity associated with high impact activities.

4. Yoga helps to improve breathing biomechanics

One of the major benefits of yoga practice is that it helps us to address faulty breathing patterns and improve breathing biomechanics.

As I’ve explained in previous posts, this helps to improve the efficiency of oxygen uptake by the body’s cells, muscles and organs, significantly improving athletic performance. Moreover, many breathing techniques help to strengthen the muscles of respiration, improve lung capacity and increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the bloodstream - all of which will have carry-over benefits on the court.

Another benefit of optimising the way in which we breathe is that it helps to maintain and increase ‘intra abdominal pressure’ (IAP), a key contributing factor to ‘core stability’ which in turn has a significant bearing on both mobility and movement efficiency.

5. Yoga improves mental focus

Any dedicated athlete will tell you that mental focus is a critical element of performance.

This is why top level players such as Paul Coll are increasingly embracing the benefits of breathwork, meditation and mindfulness for improving mental clarity, minimising distraction, maintaining focus and managing pre game anxiety.

These practices can also help athletes to better cope with the highs and lows of sporting life as they experience the joys of success or the pain of defeat, and it can help them to maintain their mental health as they deal with the pressures of performing or the frustration, stress and isolation of injury.

And whilst you might not be performing at quite the same level as Paul, regular engagement in these practices will undoubtedly help to improve the mental aspect of your game too.

So there we have 5 reasons why I believe every squash player should be incorporating yoga, mobility practises and breathing techniques into their training routines, no matter what level they’re performing at. And if you’re looking to level up your own game please do get in touch today to set up an initial 30 minute consultation about how we can work together to improve your performance through yoga.