Hey runners, some thoughts on how you can use yoga to your advantage.

1) Take your movability test. Find a kind of yoga that moves, rather than just holds poses. You can do Strala Online if that’s tough to find. Take a class, and see how you feel.

Can you move every inch of your body pretty easily? If yes, good, you’re ready for the open road. Better yet, head for the hills. But if you find it’s tough to get all your inches working happily together, then move along to part 2.

2) If moving in more than just a straight line is tough for you, consider using yoga as training for easy movability.

Think of it this way. In yoga, you’re rolling around through a full range of motion in your hips and belly, alongside balancing and moving from foot to foot. If that’s pretty hard for you in yoga, it’s not going to be suddenly easy when you go for a run. You won’t notice it as readily, and you might still have a good run. You just won’t have a great run.

When parts of your body are tight, immovable, or don’t work easily with other parts – you’re working against your body when you move. Every step and breath is requiring more energy to move things that aren’t happy about moving.

Yoga gives you an opportunity to make it all easier. I’ve done my share of high altitude mountaineering, ski touring, triathlons, and hill station runs with virtually no cross-training outside of yoga. No extra cardio training. I just show up, get on the mountain, and go. It’s worked well.

This isn’t because I have special yoga powers from Tara. It’s because my body works pretty easily, without much effort. Yoga has been my practice time for moving every inch of me in every direction. No pushing or struggling, even when things get tricky. Just calm, easy movement.

Yoga gives a chance for stress and tension to leave my body. It creates easy movability. This creates speed, strength, and endurance, without having to exercise myself or think much about it. It also feels pretty good.

Give it a try!

Mike

About Strala Yoga Training

Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.

It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.

In our Strala Yoga Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.

Who’s What’s and When’s of Strala Yoga Training