Flex Your Flexibility - Make Your Muscles Pop and Improve Your Stage Presentation with Yoga
Do you feel like no matter how many squats or dead lifts you do, you still can’t get a lift in your butt nor a respectable glute-ham tie-in? Does your shoulder development fall short in comparison to the rest of your body? When you look at stage photos from your competitions do you feel like your posing could use a tune-up?
Yoga just might be the missing link you need to bring together all of your training elements into one nice kinetic chain.
Once upon a time, my workout program consisted of lifting and cardio. I believed I was doing everything I should to see results; I consistently changed things up, whether it was adding time to my Stair Master session or upping the intensity on my treadmill sprints; I would switch up my training modalities from free weights and machines to resistance bands and body weight; I would utilize different lifting techniques, such as FST-7 or 10x10 training to increase my muscle gains.
I hit it hard in the gym for an hour and would make my way out the door with protein shake in hand. But more often than not I would forgo stretching in place of an extra set, or I would do a half-hearted attempt to touch my toes or stretch my lats.
I began competing in 2010, and when I stepped on stage for my first show I couldn’t have been happier with the progress I had made. I had achieved one of my major goals of entering and competing in my first NPC figure competition. Overall, I was happy with the way my body had transformed over the months and years leading up to my first show.
However, as a certified personal trainer, I always knew my program was lacking in one area – flexibility. Looking back at photos from my first show compared to how my posing, posture and presentation appear today, it is obvious that yoga has helped me to improve not only in the amount of muscle I’ve gained, but also my ability to maintain poses on stage with better form.
I have always encouraged clients to stretch or use foam rollers to enhance their gains and speed recovery, but it took me a long time to follow my own advice. I had tried yoga in the past, but always felt like I was wasting my time and should be lifting rather than barely breaking a sweat holding static poses and chanting “Ohm”. My balance was horrible and I felt out of place trying to be a part of this practice.
Months later I learned that a hot yoga studio opened nearby and after finally buying into the buzz around Bikram, I decided to give yoga another go. A beginner Vinyasa class was offered in a warm setting, as opposed to the 105-degrees you experience in Bikram yoga. The 60 minute class challenged my body and mind, and created both a serious sweat and sense of accomplishment for me; I was instantly hooked and haven’t stopped my practice since. It was simply a matter of finding the right form of yoga for me, and the changes I have seen in my physique over the past two years have created my addiction with Bikram (also known as H26 for the “H”ot temperature and 26 poses that make up this class).
I now take at least one express H26 class a week, and here are just some of the benefits I have received from my practice:
· My muscles appear longer and leaner but I am able to lift heavier weight
· Committing to at least one class each week guarantees some form of flexibility training in my weekly regimen
· Despite having bulging disks in my low back, my pain and aggravation to the area has diminished
· During one hour each week my thoughts are undisturbed as I sweat more than any bout of cardio could ever produce
· I have the knowledge and understanding of how important flexibility training can truly be to a competitive athlete in the bodybuilding world.
What does this mean to YOU?
Every time you walk into the gym and you lift weight, you are contracting your muscles and pushing them a little harder than last time. Your goal is hypertrophy, and in your effort to achieve more lean muscle mass, you are continually tightening and shortening your muscle fibers.
Let’s say you are working out your chest and you perform different variations of presses and flies, but you don’t take 5-10 minutes at the end of your session to stretch out your chest muscles. Those muscle fibers are now in a shortened position and you haven’t done anything to help them return to their normal, resting length.
If we take the above scenario a step further, two days la
ter you are training shoulders and your goal is to achieve nicely developed shoulder caps. When you perform your shoulder press, you now have a limited range of motion due to your tight chest muscles. Rather than bringing your arms up in a smooth vertical line straight overhead, your arms rise above you, but slightly anterior to your shoulders. Overtime this leads to overdeveloped front deltoids but less development of the lateral head. Of course we have lateral raises and rear delt flies to help balance things out, but if you want optimal development and range of motion, omitting flexibility work will inhibit your gains.
For the ladies who are busting their butts in the gym for a developed and lifted derrière, here is another scenario for you. If your job or daily routine involves consecutive hours in a seated position, meaning your hips are continually in a state of flexion, this will lead to tight hip flexors, which in turn translates into lengthened gluteal muscles. If those muscles remain at a greater-than-optimal length, it is much harder for your muscle fibers to contract.
Now for an abbreviated science lesson: Actin and myosin are the protein filaments within your muscle fibers, and when there is stimulation to contract your muscle, they both need to touch each other to generate the contraction – the further apart the protein filaments are, the harder it becomes to connect and contract. Additionally, due to reciprocal inhibition, if your hip flexors are shortened and overactive, they are likely to inhibit the contraction of your glutes.
What does the above jargon mean for us ladies of iron? When you are doing exercises like squats and step-ups, or even simply walking and climbing the stairs, your hamstrings – which are secondary, synergistic muscles to your gluteus for these exercises and movement patterns – ultimately have to take over. This leads to more tightness and fatigue of your hamstrings and less tightening and lifting of your booty!
A simple solution is making sure you incorporate flexibility and yoga practice into your training program to help lengthen your hip flexors and stretch out your tight hamstrings.
Finding the practice that's right for YOU
With so many different options out there, it can be confusing to decide which is best for you. Do you enjoy breaking a serious sweat? Do you like holding static poses, or do you prefer to flow through the movements? Do you have 90 minutes to spare, or is one hour your limit? Here is a breakdown of some common types of yoga.
·Hatha Yoga: This is likely the most common form of yoga in the US, and simply refers to the physical practice of yoga. This is a great beginner class where you can learn the different asanas (postures) and proper breathing techniques.
·Vinyasa Yoga: Vinyasa means the alignment of movement and breath, and rather than holding each static 
pose, you will flow through the movements. The sequence typically includes 12 asanas, but you will likely come across different variations from class to class or studio to studio. This class welcomes beginner and advanced yogis alike, and helps you not only increase flexibility but, with the use of only your body weight, will help with muscle tone.
·Ashtanga Yoga: This is a form of yoga also known as power Yoga, and is physically demanding in comparison to traditional Hatha Yoga. Ashtanga and Vinyasa are closely related and you will often see classes labeled as Ashtanga Vinyasa. This practice is geared toward individuals who are conditioned and looking to improve strength, flexibility and coordination. Your heart rate will increase in this class, as will your body heat production.
·Bikram Yoga: In this class setting, the room is heated to 105 degrees as you flow through a sequence of 26 postures. A typical class is 90 minutes and you move through each posture twice. The express version is 60 minutes, and some postures will only be performed once. You will break a serious sweat and the purpose is to flush out the toxins as you increase flexibility and enhance recovery.
·Restorative Yoga: As the name implies, this practice focuses on relaxation and stress relief. This is a great option for an active rest day and also allows your body to heal and recover. The poses are said to relieve the effects of chronic stress.
Yoga has gained such popularity that you are likely to find a studio with different offerings no matter where you live. And if you aren’t a fan of taking group classes, you can find DVDs online and in stores that focus on different types of yoga.
Just as with weight training, if you want to reap the benefits that yoga has to offer, consistency is key. Find a style that suits you and that you can adhere to on a weekly basis, and I promise you will see changes in your muscular development, appearance, posture, and recovery.
Flexing and flexibility should go hand in hand. For more information on yoga and its many benefits, check out http://yogahealthfoundation.org.
//
Subscribe to RxMuscle on Youtube
