How to make yoga more functional
If you are using yoga to improve the way you move, whether it be for sport or just doing stuff better, you probably aren’t covering all of the bases that need covering. My whole vibe for developing the Not Really Yoga system has been to address this, but here, I outline some things you can do to tweak your yoga practice, if you’re not quite ready to come over to the dark side just yet.
What is the point?
An area that used to constantly bother me around the use of yoga poses for physical gain, was the lack of understanding of what is happening biomechanically in a pose. Obviously this isn’t across the board, and there are some great yoga teachers put there, but as the yoga teaching mills churn out a gazillion fresh eyed faces every 6 weeks, the herd is thinning.
Just like I say to the personal trainers I mentor, every exercise you prescribe is saying yes to the other 100 you could have done. You need a good reason for its inclusion. Yoga is no different. Sure you could talk chakras, or whatever other wizardry you want to throw around, which is fine if thats your vibe, but if you want to use the practice to move better, then you need to have a good reason for every pose that makes up part of your practice.
How can I make this functional?
Just like mindfulness, body and mind, holistic, and various other terms that have been hijacked by health and fitness, functional is a word that has lost any of it’s original meaning. But since it might be the reason you clicked on this article, I’ll begrudgingly use it.
Here’s a phrase I utter a lot that the 6 week trained yoga teachers hate;
Yoga just makes you better at yoga.
And I’ll light some incense and chant it till the sacred cows come home, because with around 175 times the experience with yoga (yep, I’m so petty I did the maths), I’m pretty confident to jam on this.
I’m also completely fine with yoga making you better at yoga. Because yoga friggin rocks. But it sucks worse than a Justin Bieber Metallic cover for allowing you to move better in your daily life. Just because you can put your hamstrings on stretch enough to touch the floor in a forward fold, it doesn’t mean you can use this range of motion (watch a video on this here).
If you want yoga to crossover into your movement a few things need to happen, but most importantly, the range of movement that you acquire, needs to be understood by the nervous system, and the opposing muscle group must be string enough at that new range of movement, to utilise the effects of the stretch.
What stops me
Some yoga stuff is hard. Many people see large increases in the ability to do some poses, and little in others. In a perfect world, regular practice sees incremental improvements across the board, but sometimes, you need to ask, “What is stopping me improving?”
This is the problem with focusing only on improving stretching muscles (and fascia maybe..another word that is rapidly achieving buzzword status with little understanding). Failing to address joint control and range, means that stretching may actually decrease your ability to utilise pain free joint movement, particularly in a poorly designed practice.
Become familiar with sensations that are felt in poses that are difficult. Pinching, jamming, and shooting pains are certainly cause for thinking beyond the sentiment that more practice will make you better.
Do I need strength work?
Many forms of yoga are great at improving strength, particularly isometric strength, though with the sudden emergence of yin yoga practices (buzzword central..or not even), the strength that is gained both isometrically and during movement is starting to lack more and more in some yoga practices. But even the inclusion of long held poses, and continuous flow, isn’t enough to allow this strength work to be more functional (errgh). Strength is essentially the ability of the brain to communicate with, and recruit, working muscle. Being more functional means being able to allow to brain to get the meaty bits moving through the desired range with the ideally timed sequence of events. This is unlikely to be achieved through held poses and chatarungas.
Isometrics (held poses) can be great for getting muscles to do their thing that have been lazy, but in order for that to cross over into the real world, we need to teach the muscles to work through range of movement. Incorporating some sort of moving based exercise immediately after isometric work is a big part of moving towards this. Even better, if you are an athlete, putting some sport specific work in is also a great idea.
If you're a yoga teacher and are ready to stab me in the eye with some incense, understand that I love yoga. Also understand that your ability to deliver what your students need to move better is not only hindered by how much knowledge you own on the body and movement, but also by the limitations of teaching a general yoga practice to a room of individuals with varying requirements. Having said this, there is scope to being able to deliver a great practice, that delivers. A good start is taking the above on board.
A better move is checking out my Not Really Yoga system, for all of this and wayyy more.