Over the last few months I’ve been amazed by the amount of athletes who’ve approached me, wanting to try out Sport-Specific Yoga. What makes it even more amazing is that I’m still a student Yoga Sports Coach!

Perhaps it’s not so surprising when you take recent media attention around Yoga in sport – particularly football – into account. Premiership players and teams are almost falling over themselves to talk about how they use Yoga in their training. It’s really great for those of us working in the sector, and to be honest, about time too.

But it’s not all about football. Recently I’ve had the pleasure of working with Triathlete, Mike Jubb. He decided to explore how Yoga might give him the edge in competition by working with me, employing Yoga Sports Science’s unique Sports-Specific Yoga techniques.

Mike kindly agreed to talk to me about his new Yoga practice and it’s effects on his athletic performance for this piece. He had this to say:

“One thing that I’ve been doing since July is a weekly Yoga session. Now it could just be coincidence but all my good performances have occurred since I started this weekly session with Dezi. Far from the lentil-eating, incense burning, ‘look at me I’m a tree’, impression I may have previously had of people who practice Yoga, Dezi takes a more sport focussed approach to her sessions with me, and after an initial assessment to determine my ‘strengths’ (I think the list was short) and ‘development areas’ (several pages full methinks) she has put together Sport-Specific Yoga exercises focussed on developing areas to improve my sporting performance.

And I’ve got to say that at this stage I’m impressed. From a basic ‘downward dog’ that stretches areas in the back of my legs and glutes that I didn’t even know existed, to wrist stretches that have me putting my hands in positions that frankly I’m not sure they should go in, the 1hr weekly session seems to be doing me some good. I now have much more control over my Yoga movements than I had when I started, not to mention the accompanying performances I have achieved.”

As always, it’s great to see an athlete getting benefit from Sport-Specific Yoga training. And it’s wonderful to hear Mike’s preconceptions about Yoga – certainly not groundless – dispelled by the reality of his Yoga Sports Science training. Spiritual development and relaxation are important parts of Yoga, but at Yoga Sports Science we know it can achieve so much more.

Dezi

Dezi graduates as a fully fledged Yoga Sports Coach this Saturday. Congratulations to both Dezi and our other graduate Yoga Sports Coaches!