If you are looking to improve your performance on the rugby field, in the pool or in any sport, yoga can do it for you. Yoga is the basis of all movement and posture, it helps you achieve a neutral spine. Everyone has their own abnormal postures and there is need for energy to maintain that posture.
With yoga, your body is trained to utilise energy in the muscles that you are using for specific function, like a golf swing. Instead of using muscles that are not necessary, yoga makes sure that you only use the muscles you need. It’s what you need to achieve a neutral spine or ideal posture.
Yoga works because you’re mobilising your neural tissue. It’s more than simply a muscle stretch and has a better long-term effect on the body. Physiotherapists believe that people have discovered the core stability concept of yoga and are slowly realising that the core is linked to everything in the body. It will help any form of sportsman because you improve posture, you start to integrate your core stabilisers and the breathing aspect of yoga causes the rib cage to expand, thereby increasing your VO2 capacity – an accurate measure of fitness.
There is a new trend out there that has seen yoga spread like wildfire among men in search of lifelong fitness without the risk of injury.
The peculiarly named postures and associate health shop fads have for years cast yoga as the middle-aged muesli madam’s club! The yoga repertoire is the answer many muscle-bound men can vouch for. Physiologically, men naturally have a stronger upper body than women, mainly because the male hormone testosterone determines the percentage of muscle bulk and fat reserves in the body.
A study in the journal of Applied Physiology on skeletal muscle mass in 500 men and women of all ages, concluded that there was a 40 percent difference in the muscular make-up between the genders.
Being more muscled is not necessarily a good thing. Exercise specialists have shown how men’s physiological make-up leaves them rigid and that increased flexibility is the key to their improved performance. Physiologically, men are muscle-bound in the arms, shoulders and the pelvic structure, making them stiff in the hip joints. They need mens yogawear.
The majority struggle to do the hamstring stretches and shoulder-focused poses, and will rarely do a handstand with straight arms. Yoga can help all that and improve performance.
