The Benefits for Strength Athletes

Not only will these two poses – triangle and side angle – help you develop and deepen your hinging and squatting movement patterns while lengthening hamstrings, inner thighs, and your side waistline, but for those willing to dig a little deeper into the postures, they share a common adjustment that will reinforce your motor control and proficiency for generating hip torque, something we all need to increase strength gains and help prevent injury.

Our good friend Dr. Kelly Starrett of MobilityWOD makes this observation about the relationship between torque and trunk stability in his book Becoming a Supple Leopard:

“In other words, midline stabilization and torque are two parts of a unifying system that work in conjunction with each other. If you don’t have an organized carriage, you can’t generate torque or transmit force to your primary engines. Conversely, if you don’t generate enough torque, you can’t stabilize your trunk in a good position.”

Learning how to generate hip torque in a position that you are initially unfamiliar with will directly translate into a heightened sense of self awareness in all other athletic positions. Like I said before, yoga is so much more than stretching.

Triangle Pose

To get started, step your feet about three to four feet apart. Turn your right toes 90 degrees to the right and your left toes 10 to 15 degrees in the same direction:

Reach your right arm towards the wall as far as you can, keeping both side of your torso long:

Now bring your hand down to the floor, your shin, or an elevated block:

You will get more benefit from maintaining length in your sides and using a block for assistance than trying to reach for the floor while crunching up your side waistline:

Now the fun begins! Once you are in this basic shape, contract the quadriceps on both legs. If your knee on the right leg does not fully extend, continue pursuing that full extension; however, if your knee in this position has a tendency to hyperextend, you will need to place your right hand on your shin and then press your shin into your hand to stabilize your knee joint. My super bendy people, I’m talking to you!

Look straight ahead with a neutral neck position, or if you are able, rotate to look up at your top hand. Now press through the outer edge of your left foot while continuing to squeeze your left quadriceps. You’ve arrived!

Repeat on your left side.

This is triangle pose. However, after you’ve practiced this position for a while, it’s time to add a little torque. While maintaining your position, attempt to corkscrew your left foot open in a counter-clockwise path. In other words, try to scrape your foot open towards your pinky-toe side. Your foot should not actually go anywhere, but rather your inner foot arch will lift and the rotational force you’ve generated with this closed chain isometric contraction will be translated to your hip capsule.

You might not feel this adjustment the first few times you try it. But stick with it. Eventually you’ll start to notice the external rotation of your femur as an independent movement skill.

Side Angle Pose

To get started, step your feet much further apart than triangle pose, about four and a half to five feet. Turn your right toes 90 degrees to the right and your left toes 10 to 15 degrees in the same direction. Bend your right knee so that your shin is vertical:

Reach your right arm towards the wall as far as you can:

Place your right hand down on a block or to the ground:

You will get more benefit from the pose by keeping your hips low and elevating your right hand rather than trying to touch the floor at the expense of your hip position:

Lengthen through your left side ribs and reach your left arm overhead. Press through the outer edge of your left foot. You’ve arrived!

Repeat on your left side.

This is side angle pose. However, after you’ve practiced this position for a while, it’s time to add a little torque. While maintaining your position, attempt to corkscrew your right foot open in a clockwise path. You will see your bent knee translate externally, creating both space and stability in your right hip capsule. If side angle pose comes easily for you and the hip mobility is not an issue, begin practicing this pose exclusively in this way so that you can add a little more stability to that joint.

Try It Out

Practice these two poses as often as you can. The result will be a stable trunk with the ability to access your hip torque at any given moment. And we could all use a little more torque in our lives. Give these poses a shot and let me know how it went in the comments below.

References:

1. Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza, Becoming a Supple Leopard, (Las Vegas: Victory Belt Publishing Inc, 2013), 49.

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Before diving into the ways in which yoga will increase your performance, let me first lay out a few guiding principles in how to approach yoga postures in the context of strength training:

Yoga Is Not Stretching

Or rather, it is not stretching as you may think of “stretching.” There are tons of articles out there telling you not to “stretch” or why static stretching will decrease performance, and they usually have a picture of a guy sitting on the ground sort of leaning forward over one leg with a rounded spine, half-heartedly reaching for his toes while gazing off into the distance.

Well, yes, doing that sort of “stretching” will certainly not promote any positive gains of any sort for your body. Most yoga postures, by contrast, are a series of focused isometric contractions coupled with specific breathing patterns that yield gains in flexibility, mobility, and strength.

Yoga Has Potential Applications for Anyone

You need not already be hyper-mobile or super-bendy to begin integrating yoga postures into your training. You also do not need to practice a minimum sixty minutes of yoga five days per week to get the benefits. There are dozens of variations and preparatory poses that can meet you where you are at, regardless of age, injury, athletic goal, or structural imbalance.

Use Yoga on Active Rest Days or After Your Training Session

In order to utilize yoga postures for the purpose of gaining strength and increasing performance, practice them after your training session so that your body has at least 24 hours to recover from the poses. Although yoga is restorative, it is still a very intense physical practice (when you want it to be) and your body, especially your nervous system, needs time to recover from it.

The 10 Essential Yoga Postures (or Asanas)

I’ve selected the following ten postures to assist any strength athlete because of their ability to address the areas where so many of us often have limitations. Specifically, these postures will mobilize your hamstrings, decompress your vertebra, assist in relieving inflammation caused by a tight IT band, and allow for deeper hip flexion and rotation. They will also increase your ability to maintain thoracic extension in both seated and squatting positions. And the reduction in low back pain is a nice little bonus too. These postures can be used in this sequence or enjoyed individually after an intense training session.

In future posts we’ll dig into some of the finer details of each pose as well as some beginner modifications that make all of these accessible to anyone. But first, an overview of the ten best poses for strength athletes:

1. Triangle

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Aids in developing and deepening the hip hinge movement pattern.
• Direct application for kettlebell swing, deadlift, and kettlebell windmill.

2. Extended Side Angle

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Increases mobility in hip flexion, abduction, and external rotation.
• Lengthening lats.
• Direct application for all squatting patterns and overhead presses.

3. Downward Dog

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Lengthens and mobilizes the entire superficial back line while decompressing spine.
• Benefits ankle mobility and Achilles tendon.

4. Low Pyramid

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• IT band and hamstrings. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.

5. Warrior 1

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Thoracic extension coupled with shoulder and hip flexion.
• Direct application for the front squat.

6. Lunge Variation

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Lengthens side waist and psoas.
• Awesome pose for anyone who sits more than two hours in a day.

7. Low Lunge With Quad Stretch Variation

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Lengthens quadriceps while assisting deep knee flexion.
• Also improves thoracic rotation.

8. Pigeon

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Facilitates a much deeper hip opening.
• Helps to alleviate low back pain in most cases.

9. Shoelace

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Stretches butt muscles you forgot you had.
• Amazing recovery tool after sessions with a high volume of hip-hinging movements.

10. Reclined Spinal Twist

Primary Musculoskeletal Benefits:

• Deep thoracic rotation while calming the central nervous system.

How to Combine Yoga With Strength Training

I want to highlight two methods of integrating these postures into your training:

• Method #1 – Add in one full day of yoga practice during a day when you would normally do a light workout or a day you would normally devote to active recovery. At the same time, add in fifteen minutes of yoga practice after training sessions. Pick just three or four poses each day and work on them. Focus on just these basic ten postures for now. You can add in all the other fancy poses later if needed.

• Method #2 – For twelve weeks, scale back on the intensity of your training. Devote only two days per week to your strength training, preferably a short-duration total-body workout of a lighter than usual intensity utilizing exercises such as kettlebell swings, deadlifts, kettlebell front squats, TRX low rows, kettlebell overhead presses, Olympic lifts and variations, and Turkish get ups, or whatever lifts compliment your overall goals.

Aim to practice yoga five days per week, four days of just yoga, and one day of yoga combined with your strength training. Try a few group classes, and also practice on your own. For the first four weeks, you will probably feel as if you are getting weaker or not making any strength gains. But keep at it. Commit to twelve weeks and then transition back to Method #1, integrating yoga while adding intensity to your current program.

Give one of these methods a try and see what happens. I believe that In the long run you will be stronger and more importantly you will have increased the sustainability of your training.

Photo 1 courtesy of Shutterstock; all other photos by Brandon Hofer.

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New research in Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation, tested a forearm supported yoga pose as a possible alternative treatment for rotator cuff syndrome. Researchers examined 50 outpatient subjects with partial or full thickness supraspinatus tears. The participants practiced a triangular supported forearm posture, based on a yoga series used by yoga luminary B. K. S. Iyengar.

Researchers found that the forearm supported pose elicited an improvement in shoulder abduction and flexion, and a reduction in pain. Researchers also found that the yoga posture appeared to reduce pain and disability of the rotator cuff syndrome quickly, and permanently for some patients. These positive results were maintained long term, at a two and a half year follow up. This study suggests that alternative therapies could be useful for prevention and treatment of sports related injuries and pain.

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