Pairing Yoga with Body Awareness and Strength Training
By Alison Wells
Alison Wells is a RYT-500hr Yoga Instructor, Yoga Medicine Therapeutic Specialist, and PMBIA (Professional Mountain Bike Instructor Association) Level 1 Mountain Bike Instructor. She is the owner of Wander Wellness, a yoga and outdoor fitness company that aims to pair yoga with body awareness and strength building training to enhance your athletic ability. She teaches yoga to large and small groups, pre/post other outdoor events, and 1:1 consultations.
Editor’s Note: I had a chance to chat with Alison recently about a nagging injury and wondered how, and if, Yoga could be something I should incorporate into my pre/post ride routines. Here’s a few answers to my questions along with some recommended exercises that may benefit your cycling. If you’d like help creating your own yoga plan, reach out to Alison at wanderwellnessllc@gmail.com.
What is Yoga?
There are a lot of different ways to define and practice yoga; from breath awareness, meditation, restorative, to power vinyasa, and many more. Yoga often involves bridging the gap between your mind, breath, and body, by bringing awareness to and connecting it all together. The level of intensity is up to the individual.
How is yoga different from a pre/post ride stretch?
Stretching pre/post ride is great! It’s actually a subset of yoga. Yoga typically considers the whole body, while sometimes when we “just stretch” we only consider certain muscle groups.
What are some of the benefits of incorporating a yoga routine into your exercise habits?
Benefits of yoga include enhanced performance, stability, balance, expedited recovery, minimized injuries, mental focus, decreased anxiety, and many more.
Can Yoga help alleviate pain?
It’s definitely possible for yoga to help alleviate pain. It depends where and why you’re having pain in the first place. There are a lot of things that could be happening. You might be compensating for a muscle deficiency, and yoga could:
help bring awareness to this deficiency and/or
help build strength to the area(s).
A good rule to remember is to seek advice from a medical professional where pain is concerned. Cross training (like yoga for cyclists) helps to prevent injury in the first place.
Prioritize Recovery
Another aspect of yoga is the use of passive and active recovery to accelerate the recovery process post workout and/or injury. Passive recovery including restorative, yin (deep, long movement holds), pranayama (breath awareness), and meditation can all expedite this process. Engaging in active recovery with gentle and dynamic movements, assists our blood and lymph circulation to help clear our metabolic byproducts. These different forms of yoga can help us get back on our bikes sooner and be better prepared when we do.
Also, hydrate – hydrate – hydrate.
Common Cyclist Problematic areas
Cyclists share a few common injuries. These include: IT band, psoas, low back, hips, calves, upper back, wrists, neck, muscle imbalances, and falling injuries.
Different types of riding are going to call for slightly different types of cross training and yoga.
Below are some example exercises you can try to help you with your specific riding discipline.
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Think about your own personal riding style (XC, enduro, downhill, gravel, road, jumping, etc.). I bet you’d ride a different bike for each type of ride (n+1, right?). You’re also using slightly different muscles for each of those activities. A downhill rider is most likely going to need more upper body strength in their arms, wrists, and neck (i.e. stretch and strengthen these muscles) than a road rider, who is going to need to focus more on releasing their hip flexors and opening up their chest.
A lot of cyclists forget about stretching and strengthening their backs, sidelines, and core. We tend to focus just on our legs, but it’s all connected. Having a stronger core and back will help with your riding. Having stronger legs will also help with your riding. But working on your whole body together is the best. Bring awareness to it all: stretch, strengthen, and release.
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General rule: start with moving your spine in all 6 directions (forwards, backwards, left side bend, right side bend, left twist, right twist). You don’t need to do an intense hour-long yoga session before each ride, just try to incorporate a short stretch for each major muscle group before/after your ride and it’ll go a long way.
Note on Muscle Imbalances: Ever notice if you always favor one leg forward? Does the other leg ‘feel weaker’? What if you’re riding and you happen to need to use that ‘weaker’ leg to make it over an obstacle? Yoga and strength training can help with that. On a cross training day, add a few extra squats on your ‘weaker’ leg to strengthen it.