You're a Rugby Player: this is why you should be doing yoga

Rugby has got to be one of the most demanding sports. It is unbelievably tough on your body.

Rugby has it all: from high force collision impact to scrummaging; from tacking to jackaling; from high intensity acceleration to bursting through a tackle; from sprinting, kicking, throwing tracking back, jumping, cutting, pulling, pushing to driving into contact and dominating a collision.

This takes a huge toll on your body – getting tighter and stiffer, losing agility, and frequent injury. Yoga will help you move better on the pitch, injure less, recover from injury faster and increase your longevity in the game. All without compromising your strength and power.

Yoga will improve your performance.

Flexibility gains are performance gains. Shortened muscles restrict how much you and your joints can move making movement harder, less efficient and less effective.

Stretching out your hip flexors, calves, hamstrings and groins will improve your sprinting, weaving, cutting, accelerating by restoring adequate muscle length.

Passing while running needs good spine, shoulder & neck rotation whilst maintaining strong forward propulsion from the hips down.

A good jackal and clean out requires good hamstring and hip flexor length to get low and back up, fast.

Tackling low needs good hip and leg muscle length.

Stretching your pectorals, shoulder and upper back muscles improves throwing technique and the ability to stay strong and tall whilst moving.

You need to keep stretching.  All those repetitive sprints, formations, impacts and collisions will shorten your muscles and reduce power, efficiency and performance.

Injure less & recover faster

Rugby injuries are serious and frequent. Sprains, tears, dislocations, low back pain, stingers, ACJ injuries all affecting ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, necks, wrists plus calves, hamstrings, groins, biceps, deltoids.

Yoga isn’t going to stop you doing your ACL in a tackle or prevent a shoulder dislocation in a collision.

What yoga will do is give your muscles a bit more protective length – longer hamstrings, groins, hip flexors, calves can stretch a bit further before tearing, whether in play or under impact.

And the emphasis on mobility helps restore movement lost through years of playing and injury so that you can get back on the pitch faster and keep playing for longer.

Awesome core

The enormous strength requirement for rugby can mean that core stability gets overlooked. Torso strength is great for driving through a tackle or dominating a collision, but a strong torso can become a rigid torso with the bigger muscles dominating the smaller stabilisers around the spine.

A good yoga class will help you use your whole abdominal wall (obliques and transversus as well as 6 pack and back muscles!) to transfer power more efficiently between shoulders and hips and restore rotation and length to your spine.

And working stability as well as strength will help reduce grumbling low back pain, spams and disc bulging.

Also building an awesome core will help improve your stamina and endurance through a match. Remember: fatigue kills performance.

Recovery - Yoga Will Help Your Post-Training & Post-Match Recovery.

This is huge. The multi-directional movement of yoga, plus all that stretching helps you recover faster. You flush out the build-up of metabolic waste, pump fresh blood through, untether tissues that have become stuck down and tight, and re-set the length of your muscles. You will feel less fatigued, less stiff and playing the day after your yoga will feel easier.

Mental focus

Yoga includes mindfulness – which means being present, not being distracted by our thoughts. That head space gives clarity and the ability to focus on what is happening right now without becoming angry, dispirited, reactive or tense. Huge on the pitch; huge for your life.

Longevity in the Game

You know this one already – if you want to go on playing for longer, then do your yoga. Years of playing rugby makes muscles tight and short and that slowly impacts your speed and skill: your positioning sense and ability to read the game may be better as you get older, but that doesn’t help if you are too stiff and restricted for move freely. It is no coincidence that so many top players credit yoga for helping them play at the highest level well into their thirties.

Why rugby players don't do yoga

Because yoga is for bendy, skinny women and you will feel embarrassed.
Don’t believe what you see on Instagram!!! Loads of top athletes do yoga and many classes have a good gender balance. I teach loads of really stiff, restricted, real-life human beings. We do good functional movement and the flexibility they really need in a way they can manage. BTW if you ever get to a class that looks like its straight off Instagram, then it is not for you: leave.

Because your training programme doesn’t allow you the time to do so.
Remember that if you don’t look after your body then you won’t be training or playing - you’ll be out injured.  Far better to get to a yoga class AND keep on playing.

Because is isn’t important – I can push through pain
Really? Remember there is no Mind-Over-Matter (except in the super short-term). Your body is always in control and will nag you to start with and then stop you if it really needs your attention: willpower is no match for physiology.

I’ve taught yoga at Manchester City FC, Manchester United FC, worked with instructors at top rugby clubs, plus lots of other elite athletes and regular rugby players, cyclists, runners, triathletes… Yoga as a compliment to rugby works. You will feel easier and freer. You will injure less, and chronic problems will slowly subside. Your movement, efficiency and power output will improve. You will go on playing for longer. Your body and your rugby will love you for it.