PUBLISHED 02/10/2006
Yoga isn't just for folks who can already bend like a pretzel. In fact, tight, inflexible runners stand to gain the most. This simple yoga-for-runners routine will make you stronger, fitter, faster, and less injury-prone. With a little practice, you may even touch your toes again.
I could tell that I was getting into marathon shape. I was running long. I was feeling strong. And I was creaking around the house after workouts. After 20 years of running, my lack of flexibility was becoming harder to ignore. My idea of stretching was swinging my leg up on a fence rail after a run, and if I was really ambitious, I'd try to touch my toes--most times I failed. Clearly this half-hearted routine wasn't cutting it anymore, as my hamstrings and lower back felt tighter and my knees and hips grew stiffer with each passing marathon season.
This was two years ago, and my knowledge of yoga was limited. Back in my college days, I'd had a girlfriend who was a devotee. Once she dragged me to a class, which I found uncomfortable. After that, I associated yoga with ex-girlfriends and hippies. More recently, as yoga grew in popularity, I became intrigued. I didn't doubt that it could benefit Madonna and Sting, who could twist into advanced positions, but could it help a tightly wound runner like me?
I found a local yoga studio and nervously e-mailed a list of questions to the instructor, Jeff Logan, a former bank officer who had started a second career as a yoga teacher. "Do I have to be able to touch my toes? Can I sit in the back of the class? How good are the other people in the class?" He responded: "This isn't a race, John, it's a yoga class. Don't worry about what you or the other people can do, just show up."
So I skulked into the back of one of Logan's classes, not sure what to expect. Logan, who was lean and tall, with the quads of a cyclist, bent over backward for his students--literally (and from a kneeling position, no less). Aside from him, I was the only male in a room of hyper-flexible women. Some men might've been thrilled. I was intimidated. The class started, and as we extended our bodies into the inverted V-shaped position known as downward-facing dog--the women moving as smoothly as lawn chairs being closed up--I half-expected springs and bolts to come bursting out of my hamstrings and lower back. While I clunked along like a rusty old can, the women moved with the suppleness of reeds, and inhaled with the rafter-rattling noise of bellows. This, I learned, was part of the yoga drill: deep, belly breathing to expand the rib cage and calm the mind. It went on like this for an hour. In the class's final minutes we laid down on our mats for savasana--or, in its far less attractive English translation, "corpse pose." During this period of deep relaxation you're supposed to release all tension in the body and clear the mind of any thoughts. Even this was difficult. I caught myself figuring out the mile splits from my last tempo run.
Still, by the end of that first session, I felt, in a rather vague way, better. Unlike running, where progress can be so precisely measured in miles or minutes, this was more subjective and subtle. Certainly, I wasn't any more flexible. After a month, I was still not able to touch my toes, do a split, or even get my knees closer to the ground while sitting cross-legged. I did notice, however, that I was starting to stand straighter, with my shoulders back, not hunched forward like every other keyboard slave I knew. I was also aware that when I started a run, I wasn't as constricted or choppy in the first few steps. It was a good feeling, and I wanted more. Which is why yoga is now part of my life.
