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.

From a strictly yogic perspective pranayama practices are designed to manipulate the flow of energy in the subtle body in order to still the mind as we seek to transcend material existence…!

However when approached correctly, yogic breathing techniques also provide many practical benefits, including improving athletic and sporting performance. So here are 4 ways of working with the breath that will help you to perform better in your chosen sport, whether you’re a high end athlete seeking competitive advantage or a weekend warrior looking to improve your park run time.

1. Breathe through your nose

Nasal breathing helps to strengthen our respiratory muscles by creating resistance to air flow.

It also helps to improve the efficiency of oxygen delivery to our muscles by ensuring that there’s sufficient presence of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream. Efficient oxygen uptake is determined not by blood oxygen saturation - which tends to sit at 95%+ - but by the presence of sufficient levels of carbon dioxide to stimulate the release of oxygen from haemoglobin in red blood cells (known as the Bohr effect and referred to as the ‘Oxygen Paradox’ by Patrick McKeown).

Moreover, when we breathe through the nose it stimulates the production of nasal nitric oxide which has the effect of dilating the blood vessels, improving circulation of oxygen carrying red blood cells to the body’s tissues.

So whilst our natural tendency when we exercise will likely be to take ‘big’ breaths in through the mouth, this is actually counterproductive to optimising athletic performance. Admittedly it can be very challenging at first to retrain the body to breathe through the nose when we feel like we’re struggling for air, but it will reap benefits over time. A good way to begin is by consciously breathing through your nose when you take a brisk walk

2. Slow down your respiratory rate

Taking long, slow, full breaths (but not ‘big’ breaths into the chest - see above) also helps to improve oxygen uptake by ensuring that more air reaches the alveoli and that proportionally less air remains in the ‘dead space’ (dead space is the amount of air that is inhaled but does not take part in gaseous exchange).

Indeed, in a recent interview James Nestor (the author of ‘Breath’) suggested that when we slow our respiratory rate to 6 breaths per minute we absorb 85% of the oxygen vs. just 50% when we breathe at 18 - 20 breaths per minute.

Breathing in this way also helps to stimulate our parasympathetic rest and digest response, aiding recovery from training and calming the mind, thus improving focus.

And deep breathing has many other benefits too including improving lung capacity, and stabilising the spine which allows us to move more efficiently.

3. Practice resisted breathing exercises

When we take resisted breathing exercises (for example closing one nostril, or partly closing both nostrils) we create additional resistance to airflow, further strengthening our respiratory muscles and increasing our tolerance to carbon dioxide.

When we explore these practices we are seeking to create a tolerable level of ‘air hunger’ (the desire to breathe deeper) - when we feel this we know that we’re increasing the pressure of carbon dioxide in our bloodstream. As our system adapts over time to become more tolerant to carbon dioxide, the efficiency of oxygen uptake to muscles will increase accordingly (as explained above).

4. Explore breath holds

Another way of increasing our tolerance to carbon dioxide is by exploring breath holds. A word of caution however - these should not be practised if you suffer from high blood pressure or if you’re pregnant, and they should never be practised in water!

Extreme breath holds can also trigger anxiety so it’s definitely best to start small…‘box breathing’* is a good way to begin your exploration.

In box breathing we inhale to a count of 4, retain the inhalation to a count of 4, exhale to a count of 4 and then hold the breath out to a count of 4. Very simple…repeat for 5 - 10 minutes (you can also see the video above for a guided exploration).

An additional benefit of holding the breath after an exhalation is that it stimulates the spleen to release more oxygen carrying red blood cells, thus increasing the oxygen capacity of the blood...in effect stimulating the effects of high altitude training.

So there we have 4 ways of working with the breath to improve athletic and sporting performance. Like most practices they require consistent and regular practice over time to begin to realise the benefits - so stick at it and you’ll start to see improvements in the weeks and months ahead. And if you have any questions about these practices, or if you’d like to work together to optimise your breathing, then please do get in touch.

Much of the information above is taken from, or inspired by, the work of Patrick McKeown, author of The Oxygen Advantage and The Breathing Cure.

* In yoga we refer to box breathing as samavritti (‘same fluctuation’) pranayama (control of life force) with antara kumbhaka (internal breath retention) and bahya kumbhaka (external breath retention)