Whether you are a road cyclist, gravel rider or mountain bike rider, yoga offers many benefits.
Looking to optimize your pedal stroke? Yoga has endless benefits to offer you. When integrated into your training load, it is the perfect way to optimize your performance. Bike friends, here are 3 reasons to roll out your mat and start practicing yoga.
1. Gain Flexibility
Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or experienced cyclist, the moment you hop on your bike, you are putting your body in a position that isn’t natural. You need to lean your body forward as you pedal and grip the handlebars with your hands.
Over time, your muscles and joints need a bit of love. Especially your psoas which is often overworked in cycling. Yoga is a great way to stretch and soothe your joints while also gaining flexibility, reducing your risk of injuries and muscle pain, while also helping you improve your overall range of motion. Once you have stretched your muscles and improved your flexibility, you’ll be ready to get back in the saddle and pedal better than ever optimizing every pedal stroke with a balanced power output.
2. Gain muscular strength
For cyclists, it is particularly important to work on strengthening the core muscles. A key area that is the starting point for many movements, a strong core allows for better alignment of the spine, which leads to better posture on your bike. Have you ever noticed that some cyclists lean to one side of their bike frame when going up a climb? This is mostly likely because their core is not strong enough to achieve stability in the saddle.
Yoga is an excellent way to improve your postural alignment and strengthen the core muscles, which also allows you to adopt an aerodynamic position on your bike. Yoga also helps to improve your balance by working your stabilizing muscles; which is helpful when you are on sections of the course that are narrow and fast.
3. Improve Breath Control
It is no secret to cyclists that VO2 max is very important ( which is the maximum flow of oxygen inhaled by the lungs and used by the muscles in a unit of time). Having the capacity to breathe better will optimize your performance and allow for a faster and more controlled recovery after effort.
What About Your Rest Day?
This is the day for your yoga practice. Yin & Hatha yoga are great options allowing for deep stretching as you hold poses for multiple minutes.
Yin yoga works deeply into our body with passive, longer-held poses. It targets the deepest tissues of the body, our connective tissues – ligaments, joints, bones, the deep fascia networks of the body and the meridians.
Marine LENEHAN
Sports nutritionist, massage therapist & yoga teacher
Hozzászólások