5 Reasons Why Every Hockey Player Should Practice Yoga

Yoga is a practice that’s been around for literally thousands of years, however, it wasn’t until the last decade or so that it really took off here in the West. Today, yoga pants seem to be the number one outfit of every women’s choice, and lets be honest, most guys don’t mind that choice either. But modern science is revealing that yoga isn’t just a way to stay fit and look good in tight pants, yoga is a practice that every high-performance athlete should be doing, and if you’re not… you’re already falling behind your competition.

Here Are 5 Ways Yoga Can Improve Your Athletic Performance

1. Improved Muscle Function

Yoga is all about following your breath along with your movement, which ultimately leads to more efficient oxygen intake, fuller exhalations, and an overall improvement in muscle function. Simply by proper breathing, yoga can reduce muscle fatigue, asthma symptoms and even being short of breath. By nourishing your muscles through proper breathing, the blood flow & oxygen levels within the body can operate more efficiently. This increase in efficiency means shorter rest times needed between whistles, shifts and periods, helping you to recover faster & get back into the game sooner.

2. Increased Power

One of the most obvious benefits of yoga is that it drastically improves your flexibility, which is important because good flexibility keeps your muscles and joints safe & protected. Hockey players tend to be extremely tight, especially in the hips, hamstrings, and groin regions?—?this is all from using the lower legs in such repetitive movements. When muscles get too tight, your body starts to recruit other muscles to help out, and continuously relying on other muscle to do a job they’re not designed to do leads to serious injuries. Keeping your muscles elastic and joints supple allows you to move more efficiently, improve recovery time and provides the body with an ideal environment to function at a high level. Even just a slight increase in flexibility can help lengthen range of motion, including the stride-length for a hockey player, which provides you with a longer, fuller stride. And not to mention, the increased flexibility also leads to an increase in power output due to greater muscle recruitment & muscle efficiency.

3. Mental Toughness

Your body is an extension of your mind, by practicing yoga you begin to understand this mind-body connection. When you hold a pose in a difficult position your mind may be screaming, “take a break!” but if you just become aware of those thoughts and continue to hold your pose despite the physical discomfort, your mind grows stronger, along with your body. Whether through the moving meditation, or by doing a headstand, your mental toughness and overall focus are destined to see improvement.

4. Greater Focus

I hate to break it to you, but a goldfish is better than you. That’s right. When it comes to attention, the average attention span of a human being is just 8 seconds… 1 second less to our counterpart, the goldfish. I could go off on a tangent for all the reasons why this is, but the best solution to combat this issue is simple, develop a yoga practice. Yoga, at its core, is designed to help you harness your energy & create a focus towards a single point. Your mind will naturally want to wander throughout a yoga class, but when you continuously bring yourself back to one focal point you are training your mind to be focused, attentive and still. This concentration translates into an improved focus in the heat of competition, and it’s also a huge help in the classroom for the student-athletes with ADHD symptoms.

5. Resilience

You are going to fail. And yes, that failure is the key to your success. However, when we fail, we tend to get so distraught that we never push through to the next level. We don’t have the resilient attitude that’s needed to achieve greatness in life & sport. By practicing mindfulness, through yoga, you increase your resilience?—?you gain the ability to stabilize negative, self-doubting thoughts & emotions. When you embrace this same mindfulness throughout a hockey game it allows you to deal with the roller coaster of emotions, this sense of resilience & focus keeps you prepared to take on whatever challenge the present moment brings you.

There’s no doubt that yoga can, and will, give you the competitive edge that you’re looking for athletically. But more importantly, it will give you a greater understanding of your sense of self. Yoga shows you all of your limitations, whether physically or mentally, and it provides you with the opportunity to expand & grow as an individual beyond the field of competition.

* Disclaimer: This site may contain advice, opinions and statements from various authors and information providers. Views expressed in these article reflect the personal opinion of the author, and not necessarily the views of RPM Hockey Company RPM Hockey Company does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other info provided in the article, or from any other member of this site.