Forums >Cross Training>Is too much Yoga bad for runners?
Is too much Yoga bad for runners? Flexible muscles and ligaments are actually fragile and more prone to injury?
I think extreme yoga may be not be the best option for long distance runners who aim to improve their speed and running performance. Practicing yoga can cause the muscles and ligaments in the body to become more flexible and are stretched over and and over again which also loses its snap back.
Yoga has many health benefits as long as it is practiced safely and not over stretching, but if you are not doing it correctly or doing too much of it, you will most likely suffer serious injury.
I got some injury the second times because of a stretch after a long run. This time is my IT band.
5k - 20:56 (09/12), 7k - 28:40 (11/12), 10k trial - 43:08 (03/13), 42:05 (05/13), FM - 3:09:28 (05/13), HM - 1:28:20 (05/14), Failed 10K trial - 6:10/mi for 4mi (08/14), FM - 3:03 (09/14)
I'm a runner and yoga teacher in Vancouver, Canada. I teach yoga specifically to runners.
My website is www.yogamadeforrunners.com is you're interested in articles I've written or other stuff.
Drop me a line if you have any questions.
thanks . . . Mike Dennison
I used to think the more flexible of your muscles and ligaments, the less injury a runner can get. However, I read somewhere (can't remember where) saying flexible muscles and ligaments are actually fragile and more prone to injury, such as hamstring. Is it true? Does practicing Yoga often increase the chance to get injury as a runner?
I used to think the more flexible of your muscles and ligaments, the less injury a runner can get. However, I read somewhere (can't remember where) saying flexible muscles and ligaments are actually fragile and more prone to injury, such as hamstring. Is it true?
Does practicing Yoga often increase the chance to get injury as a runner?
Too much of anything can be bad for you...and thus your running. The question then becomes, what is too much? Or more appropriately, perhaps work a yoga routine that is conducive to your running, and not just "any" yoga class you randomly decided to join.
ABSOLUTELY. YOGA = SATAN.
When me move, especially when we run, muscles and tendons absorb and release energy, just like springs. So if we do too much yoga, the muscles and tendons become "played out", and become like an old, worn out spring that absorbs but doesn't return energy.
Muscles and tendons are not more prone to injury if they are too flexible, but the energy they absorb is just lost. So you become like Gumby.
Yoga is great for runners, because most runners tend to have really stiff muscles and tendons. Doing yoga three of four times a week will not hurt your running or turn you into an overly flexible person.
Chief Endurance Dork
What I tell clients is that everyone has their own baseline of flexibility necessary to not create a problem or get injured.
One runner may be perfectly fine and uninjured, and not be able to get their hands below their knees on a standing forward bend, while the runner next door may be injured because he sits all day at work and he can ONLY get his hands to his ankles (but when he's flexible and healthy he can get his hands to the floor).
Generally if we're developing an injury or some early-phase nagging issue because we've skimped on the stretching for a while, we generally only need to improve our flexibility a small amount to get back to OUR baseline -- we don't have to be as flexible as our neighbor in order to heal.
endurancenerd.com
queen of headlamps
That's a neat observation. Completely true in my experience. Most of my joints tend to be hypermobile (PT to her colleague when I was rehabbing a shoulder injury: want to see what 125 degrees of shoulder rotation looks like?) and so limited mobility for me often means I can touch my toes, but not the floor. When I messed up my hip earlier this year, the new resident assisting the doctor was confused because I had normal range of motion but pain -- so I told him to check the other side to compare. I think he learned something.
Hey, another running blog.
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