Beth Shaw - The YogaFit Athlete: Up Your Game with Sport-Specific Poses to Build Strength, Flexibility, and Balance

W hether youre a morning jogger or a marathoner, a U.S. Open contender or just a reliable tennis partner, youre an athlete. In fact, no matter how you try to stay in shapeif youre training for the pros or a weekend warrior, if you have a sport you loveyoure an athlete. Being an athlete is about more than competition. It is a commitment to a craft, focusing both mental and physical energy on honing a skill, developing a healthy and strong body, and always striving to become better.

I teach yoga, fitness, wellness, and meditation and am the founder of YogaFit, the largest yoga teacher certification program in North America, which trains people in the YogaFit and YogaLean approach. For the past twenty years, Ive taught the yoga lifestyle and principles to thousands of people around the world. Yoga is a gift to the body and the mind, and my intent is to lead the way toward fitness, conscious business, and karmic responsibility. And now, I hope to help you approach your sport, whatever that may be, in a new, deeper way.

Ive always been an active personbesides practicing yoga, I love swimming, running, weight training, tennis, hiking, and walking. I also work with professional athletes and coaches for the NFL. And every day as a businesswoman and role model, Im required to show up in prime mental and physical condition.

We are all athletes in this game called life, and I encourage you to define yourself as one, too, to improve your lifestyle and physical and mental strength. An athletes well-rounded health regimen brings them resilience and vitality in all aspects of life, not just their sport. Athletes eat and train, rather than diet and exercise. Building a sound health routine will help you navigate away from the unhealthy, unhappy, and unfit version of yourself and master your physical and mental self. This doesnt mean that you have to run a marathon or be a power lifter, but you may start to get more personally competitive and truly care for the beautiful body with which you have been gifted.

Being an athlete is a lifestyle, one that I try to live every day. My life, like so many of yours, is a race, and I want to be in the best condition I can. Im athletic in the way I commit myself to my physical and mental health. If theres a day that Im not active, I feel despondent, depressed, and just off. I eat for energy and make sure that my day involves exercise. Imagine if we all lived like athletes: We would make our health our number one priority; commit to being fit and ready for action; use food as fuel and not as a vice; refrain from behaviors like smoking and drinking that move us away from a healthy lifestyle; work out regularly; strive for goals, purpose, focus, and discipline; and use mind-body techniques like meditation and visualization to achieve success.

Whether its about work, caring for your children, being a good partner and friend, or taking care of your pets, every corner of your life is enhanced by you BEING YOUR BEST YOU. In this book, you will learn breathing exercises, physical (hatha) yoga postures appropriate to help you improve in particular sports, and three categories of poses that will augment your play in any sport: core/balance poses, restorative poses, and poses to be done with weights. My breathing techniques as well as mental techniquesmeditation and guided imagerycomplement the physical. The combination gives you many options to create your own personal plan for success.

So how do you apply yourself as an athlete? Think for a moment about how you spend most of your time. Is it at work? With your family? Regardless of your arena, chances are you want to perform at an optimum level. Athletes commit themselves to daily practices, whether its on the field with a team, in the gym with a trainer, or in rest and recuperation. They work out regularly to gain muscle and stamina, to prevent injury, and, of course, to be better than the next. Because competition at all levels requires a fine-tuned commitment, many athletes train throughout the year to maintain excellent form, technique, and peak physical condition.

And heres my point: Athletes who are not practicing yoga are competing at a disadvantage and missing an opportunity for peak performance and longevity. The fact is that exercise tightens up your body, often putting muscle groups in opposition, and its crucial to find a balance as well as a way to release the strain and tension in your muscles. Yoga enhances alignment, balance, core stability, strength, flexibility, agility, endurance, and mobility. It stretches muscles for greater flexibility and strengthens the core and smaller muscles, which improves form and leads to an economy of movement that significantly improves performance. It develops your lung capacity, which helps sustain a steady breath during physical activities. Lastly, yoga gives you incredible body awareness.

The sport-specific yoga poses in will complement your sport, enhance your performance, and reduce the risk of injury. As you fine-tune your swing or shot or general form, you are at the same time building up a strong side. Consistent body movements, as in any sport, create habitual tightness in our muscles, often favoring one side or taxing tendons and ligaments. Here, youll learn to build a well-balanced body by incorporating yoga throughout your weekly routine. Once a week is good; three times is better; but if youre able to weave yoga into your life as a regular routine or restorative up to five times a week, that is best. In this book, I will prescribe different regimens based on pre-season preparation, off-season maintenance, and restoring after an injury. When yogas many benefits become part of your lifestyle, your gameand your lifewill change for the better.

Just as important as the physical, athletes need acute mental concentration and focus. I know that committing daily to a very specific regimen is not easy. It takes mental balance to integrate a well-rounded practice and diet, to focus, in the moment, on making the right move and tuning out distractions. Yoga, in all its many forms, will create positive change in your mind. Youll learn meditation for greater focus, improved performance, and less stress from competing, however it is that you do it. Visualization also helps you create the winning results you desire, while what Ive called transformational language will help you communicate with yourself in a more positive way. Positive changes add up just like negative ones do, and yoga will help eliminate the noise so that whether you compete with others or against yourself, youll learn to set goals, develop focus, and achieve your personal best. And, most excitingly, your game will improve. One of my doctors, an avid golfer, once asked me if he should start doing yoga. He described himself as an older, inflexible man, and I told him the same thing I tell everyone: Yoga meets you where you live. No matter your age, flexibility level, or hobby, yoga