A Brief History of Yoga in the United States

Yoga first came to the United States in the mid 1800’s.  It didn’t gain popularity for the physical benefits it’s associated with today, but for its mental benefits.  An elite group of intellectuals known as the Concord Circle; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and William Henry Channing all popularized yoga’s mental benefits in America.  These scholars learned about and educated others on the ancient Vedic texts and the Bhagavad Gita, texts that define the meditative branch of yoga.  The spread of the gospel of yoga for its meditative benefits was fueled by the arrival of several prominent Indian swamis in the late 1800’s.  It took decades for the physical benefits of yoga to be popularized in the west, but around 1920, the first institute for studying the scientific aspects of yoga opened in Pune, India.  

Indira Devi, known as the first lady of yoga in America, opened her first studio in Hollywood, California in 1947.  Hollywood types such as Jennifer Jones, Gloria Swanson, and Robert Ryan flocked to her studio; they helped spread the word about yoga’s physical benefits.  Around the same time Inyegar and Ashtanga yoga were introduced to the west.  Shortly after, pop culture began publicly embracing the discipline.  The Beats and the Beatles famously popularized transcendental meditation; Richard Hittleman and Lilas Folan both hosted yoga programs on television.  In the 1970s, Jean Couch detailed an Inyegar yoga-based approach for athletes in The Runners Yoga Book, an educational guide that is still referenced by modern yoga instructors.  Health clubs began teaching yoga, but its popularity waned in favor of higher intensity aerobics in the 80’s. 

Celebrities once again breathed new life into yoga in the 1990s.  Madonna credited yoga with chiseling her frame, which sent young women signing up at yoga studios in droves.  Sting famously credited Tantric Yoga with giving him marathon orgasms, sending men rushing to the internet and bookstores to investigate.  Middle aged women identified with Jane Fonda’s Yoga Exercise Workout, which came out in 1994. 

Since its arrival to the United States in the 1800’s, enlightened individuals have striven to teach yoga’s vast benefits to others.  Today, in addition to the establishment of independent yoga studios across the United States, nearly all large gyms teach yoga classes.  Yoga has established itself as a popular and effective tool for expanding your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity; and its history in the west is only beginning.

5 Reasons Athlete's Should Do Yoga

As the athlete/yoga movement gains steam, we here at Mann Yoga thought it would be helpful to all the budding yogi athletes out there to offer our top five reasons athletes should do yoga.  After all, although our yoga + athlete = peak performance slogan is catchy, it’s probably helpful to explain why it’s true. So read on to find out how yoga will help improve your athletic performance.  

  

1.  Improves Flexibility and Balance

With the exception of gymnastics, diving, or cheerleading; most sports do not place a premium on balance or flexibility.  Flexibility is extremely important in most sports; the greater your range of motion, the less likely you are to injure yourself when or tear your too-tight muscles.  Certain positions require greater degrees of balance and flexibility than others (think pitchers in baseball throwing on one leg, quarterbacks throwing a football while running and being tackled); however, most sports do not focus on conditioning these areas as much as they do strength, agility, or speed.  Enter yoga!  

By incorporating yoga into an athletes’ training, one can improve on their balance and flexibility deficiencies.  A typical yoga class will offer a series of strength and balance poses.  Just attending one yoga class a week will improve on your balance by virtue of you just being there!  Not to mention that most of the strength poses incorporate improving flexibility at the same time.  Triangle pose is a great example of this; while it lengthening your leg muscles, you’re also improving the flexibility of your hamstrings as well as your balance by holding yourself in this unnatural position for an extended period of time. 

 

2.  Helps Prevent Injury and Improve Recovery Time from Injury

Tight muscles are more prone to injury in the form of strains and tears.  One of the most common sports injuries is a tearing of the Achilles tendon.  Loosening up those tight muscles with yoga is perfect for preventing this sort of injury because so many of the basic poses stretch the Achilles’ and hamstrings.  Hamstring stretch, downward dog, triangle pose, and the warrior series all stretch the legs and specifically the hamstrings.  This is just one example of the many common injuries yoga can prevent. 

Yoga is also great for recovering from injury.  People who suffer from lower back pain as a result of years of sitting and poor posture can find relief in yoga.  The basic vinyasa some yoga books and yoga instructors provide really help to stretch out the spinal column.  By stretching the spinal column, the pressure on the fluid filled disks between the vertebrae is relieved, lessening some of the pain.   This too is just one example of the many common injuries yoga can help you recover from.

3.  Improves Concentration

Yoga has been referred to as the key to the zone.  Real athletes know the zone: it’s the mental state you achieve where your body and mind are in complete unison, enabling both to perform at their peak.  Yoga trains you to use your body, mind, and spirit in unison.  It teaches you true control over your mind, thus enabling you to master the art of concentration and focus.  Yoga provides a vehicle for athletes to access the zone, the unique mental state where your body and mind are working in perfect harmony.  

Yoga can also help with calming your pre-game jitters.  These jitters can be detrimental for some athletes, especially those who don’t have an entire quarter or inning to get used to the nerves.  Choking is an unfortunate side effect that can result when one’s nerves get the best of them.  The Olympics provides numerous examples of this; gymnasts, divers, or archers who spent years training for these moments all wasted their Olympic experience because of a bad choke.  The breathing and meditation exercises learned in yoga are valuable tools for calming the nerves prior to an event. 

4.  Makes Muscles Stronger

Since the muscle fibers can shorten in response to the accumulation of lactic acid (a result of weight lifting and constant physical activity), the poses one performs in yoga can be very beneficial because they help process the lactic acid and move it out of the muscle.  This helps muscles recover faster after a tough workout. Over time, practicing the postures will stretch tight muscles and encourage use of your full range of motion, unobstructed by lactic acid.  Since yoga elongates the muscles, it also allows them to be stronger by giving you more muscle to build upon. 

Additionally, athlete’s repetitive motions usually mean they’re super strong on one side, and severely underdeveloped on the other, causing a large imbalance in strength from one side of their body to another.  Legendary yoga teacher Baron Baptiste offers this great tip for balancing your body.  When working with athletes, Baptiste teaches that in order to compensate for individuals who use predominantly one side in their sport, the student should hold strength poses longer on the weaker side of the body and lengthening poses on the stronger, overused side.  For example, a right footed place kicker would perform the Warrior series with their left leg in front (acting as the stronger, stabilizing leg) and right leg in back for balance.  This technique helps with to strengthen underused muscles while lengthening the overused ones.

5.  Improves Breathing and Oxygen Flow through the Body

If you perform a basic downward dog right now, you’ll feel your hamstrings lengthen as you breathe and relax into the pose.  Holding this pose as you inhale and exhale allows oxygen to flow into the blood and muscles and lengthen and stretch as you hold.  A critical component of yoga is breathing.  Breathing exercises are the keys to success in yoga; they help focus concentration on the pose and away from the discomfort you feel.  This technique can be used both in the yoga studio and in everyday life.  Focused deep breathing keeps a steady supply of oxygen in the blood, which helps your muscles work at their peak.  Breathing keeps your mind calm and focused which will improve your workout.

When to Use Props

Walking into a yoga class for the first time can be intimidating.  People may be standing (or sitting) on their heads, chanting funny words, or breathing in very peculiar ways.  Luckily yoga is all about acceptance and not at all about competition, so feel free to leave your ego at the door!  

When beginning yoga for the first time, props can be very useful support tools.  They help keep your spine aligned, help you reach deeper into a stretch, and keep proper symmetry when trying a challenging pose.  So don’t shun props or think that only weaklings use them; unless you’re naturally very flexible, all yoga novices should incorporate props into their practice in order to improving their technique.  If you push yourself too hard too soon, you run the risk of injury.  So break out your yoga props, you won’t advance in your yoga practice without them!

A Big Towel

A big towel is a key component of every yoga kit; not only can you blot your sweat with it, it can be folded and placed underneath the hips in seated poses to support the spine, hips, hamstrings, or lower back.  When kneeling, it can be placed under the knees for those with knee issues.  If seated in a chair (another great yoga tool that will be addresses later), a towel can be folded and placed under the feet if they don’t rest comfortably flat on the floor.  It can also be placed on top of the mat for extra grip and cushion.  A beach towel is the easiest to find, but any oversized towel that isn’t too soft will work.

Block

A foam or wooden block is another great, multifaceted yoga tool.  Blocks can offer great support in a variety of ways; they can help you stretch further in difficult positions, effectively lengthening the body and allowing you to touch the ground when you otherwise couldn’t. Blocks can also help keep your feet parallel when sitting or standing with your feet hip width apart.

Strap

A yoga strap is an essential tool for new yogis.  For difficult positions, a strap is helpful for easing your way into a pose.  If you can’t touch your toes, a strap can be placed under your toes when standing to help pull you closer to the floor.  If lying on your back, the use of a strap can help stretch the hamstrings when the strap is looped around the arch of your foot.  Most gyms have elastic bands available for use, which make great yoga straps.  At home, a woven belt or cotton belt would also work.

Chair

Most people have at least one chair in their house.  A chair is a great yoga tool because 99.9% of houses or physical structures have at least one chair inside, meaning you can take your yoga practice anywhere you can find a seat!  An armless chair or standard folding chair work best; these tools can be used for seated breathing exercises and meditation, and it’s highly recommended as an alternative to sitting on the floor.  Chairs are also great when learning inversion (upside-down) poses, they serve as great balancing tools to help steady you if your arms and abs are wobbly.  Chairs also provide a great alternative to people with bad knees; most kneeling poses can be modified to a seated chair position. 

The Wall

Walls are another great tool you can find almost anywhere.  Like chairs, walls are useful for balancing when learning inversion poses.  They also act as an alignment corrector if a teacher isn’t available to correct it for you.  Whatever part of your body is touching the wall, it can act as a support or alignment tool that creates symmetry and balance in a variety of poses.

 

Knee Pads

Knee pads are making their way into yoga classes as individuals with poor knees increasingly turn to yoga for physical therapy.  Soft knee pads buffer sensitive knees from the hard floor, while supporting them in lunging positions such as the warrior series or runners pose.

Know of any other yoga props not mentioned here?  Be sure to leave it in the comment section below and make sure to note how you use it.

Source: Yoga Journal, Yoga Basics

How Do You Know When Your Spine is Properly Aligned?

Having proper spinal alignment is very important.  When your spine is out of whack, pain and discomfort can slowly creep in and throw your weight, balance, and movement off.  Most athletes need these three components to be predictable, therefore having an aligned spine is in their best interest.

In yoga, there is a thing called the plumb line; this line refers to the invisible line that guides the spine’s alignment. Most handy types know the plumb line as a line from which a weight is suspended to determine verticality or depth.  In yoga, the plumb line is the vertical line (pictured right) that connects the earlobe, shoulder, hip, knee, and front of the ankle.  When sitting in a chair or on the floor, the plumb line is measured from the earlobe to the hip.  The straighter the plumb line, the better your spinal alignment.

Despite the plumb line being straight, the spine has its own natural curves.  From the top of the neck to the top of the shoulders lies the cervical curve, which curves inward.  From the top of the shoulders to the middle of the back is the thoracic curve, which curves outward.  From the middle of the back to the base of the spine is the lumbar curve, which curves inward.  These curves in the back are useful for measuring the health and alignment of one’s body.  These curves are important because when they are balanced, they facilitate movement, allowing the spine to deflect stress and weight more easily.  When any of these curves becomes exaggerated, another part of the spine or body must compensate, leading to back problems.  Common problems of the spine such as scoliosis, hump, or a sway back can all be detected and corrected by keeping an eye on and correcting spinal deviations.

Here are a few tips for creating good spinal alignment:

• Balance your weight from the floor up, and from foot to foot or hip to hip
• Adjust your plumb line when sitting or standing
• Focus on your core and holding it tight when sitting or standing to prevent slouching

Yoga Journal Sequence Builder

Here's a great tool from the folks at Yoga Journal.  Follow the link below to access their online sequence builder to customize your own yoga routine.

Yoga Journal Sequence Builder

Cross Training for Softball Players

Here's a great article from Yoga Journal on yoga benefits and exercises for softball, soccer, and volleyball players.  Check it out...

Yoga Journal - Yoga Cross Training for Ball Players

5 Tips to Improve Flexibility

Along with cardiovascular health and physical strength, flexibility is an equally important component of overall physical fitness.  Yoga, pilates and basic stretching are great tools to improve flexibility, but keep these 5 rules in mind to maximize your efforts.

1.  Turn Up the Heat!

It’s always a good idea to stretch before and after a workout, but never when your muscles are cold.  When doing pre-workout stretching, do some jumping jacks or jump rope first to warm up the body.  Cold stretching is a quick and easy way to accidentally tear your muscles.

Imagine your muscles are like a rubber band.  If you put that rubber band in the refrigerator for 20 minutes and try to stretch it after taking it out, it’ll snap.  The same idea applies to your muscles.  Post-workout stretching can really work to your advantage when trying to improve flexibility.  When the body is warm, it is able to stretch further than when it’s cold.  In fact, one of the reasons yoga instructors turn up the temperature in studios during class is to make sure the muscles are warm enough to stretch without snapping.

2.  Practice Makes Perfect

We’ve all heard the saying ‘practice makes perfect’ and the same is true for stretching.  The more you stretch, the better you’ll become at it.  Simple!

3.  Don’t Push It

One of the quickest ways to undo all your hard work on your flexibility is to over exert yourself when stretching.  If you’ve reached a point in your stretching that your limbs are shaking or your muscles hurt, STOP AND RETREAT!  Your body is very smart and it’s got subtle ways of letting you know when you’re about to do damage.  Pain and the shakes are warning signs that you’re about to damage something. 

4. Breathe and Hydrate

Do you remember the V-sit-and-reach exercise from the Presidential Physical Fitness Tests from elementary school? If your gym teacher was anything like mine, he’d yell “BREATHE” until he was red in the face when performing this exercise because breathing helped you stretch further.  Oxygen intake is critically important to the development of cells.  Every cell in the human body requires oxygen to perform, so deep breathing can really help to improve flexibility.  So the next time you’re in the gym stretching, breathe in deeply and see how much deeper into your stretch you’ll get (but remember #3 and don’t push it if it starts to hurt).

Water intake is also critically important to the development of cells.  Like oxygen, every cell in the human body requires water to perform, so the amount of water you intake can either make or break you, literally.  Water helps loosen and lubricate the muscles and joints, which is one reason why staying hydrated during your workout is so important.  Also, if your body doesn’t get enough water, it’ll hoard the water already in your body which may lead to dehydration and muscle tears.

5.  Eat Healthy

Food intake is so important to all elements of physical fitness, including stretching.  Have you ever noticed how difficult it is for overweight people to stretch?  That’s because they’ve got a spare tire stopping their progress!  Foods high in caffeine, sugars, sodium, and fat literally get in your way when trying to improve flexibility.  Nutritionally poor foods can cause inflammation in the joints and tissue, making it more difficult to stretch your muscles.  Green vegetables like spinach, asparagus, lettuce, peas, kale, and celery; berries, and nuts all help reduce inflammation in the body and improve blood flow, making it easier to get deep into a stretch.