Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008 - (Page 16)

[THE B A L A N C I N G TO BY KELLI CALABRESE ACT] OBSERVE WHAT WORKS of almost every health club or fitness center love this 4,000-year-old practice that combines science, art and medicine. As a union of mind, body and spirit, yoga helps its devoted followers achieve better flexibility, balance and elasticity in our joints and maximum functional range of motion. But does yoga belong in your arsenal of tools for training athletes? Yes, when yoga is specifically designed for sport. Athletes’ yoga is geared toward the unique needs of athletes, taking into consideration the repetitive stresses they place on their bodies during sport. For example, golfers need to make sure their hips, thoracic spine and scapulae open up in the rotational plane (for their back-swing and follow-through) in order to prevent injuries to muscles and/or joints in other parts of the kinetic chain. Basketball players need to have excellent dynamic balance, what is easily understood as balance in transitional motions or positions. Pitchers need a strong core, flexible back and hamstrings to maximally accelerate a pitch. Any prolonged or repetitive activities relating to work or sport can create muscle imbalances. Dependent on the activity, certain muscles are shortened, while others are lengthened and weakened. These imbalances can cause a strain on joints and result in injury. The yoga for athletes system was created to reduce these muscle imbalances. The practice of yoga increases strength, ﬂexibility, balance and stamina to improve overall sport performance, reduce injuries, enhance posture and overall function. In addition, it improves digestion, organ function, metabolism, body awareness and proprioception. Many athletes suffer from flexibility deficits. Since most sports involve the same repetitive motions, an athlete’s body becomes biased to those directional movements and positions. As a result, they become at risk of injury if they are challenged out of their available range of motion. Traditional stretching programs are uni-planar, meaning they only stretch the muscle groups in a single plane of motion. Each muscle in the body functions in three planes of motion. They have a dominant plane — for example, the hamstrings function primarily in the sagittal plane, yet this muscle group also functions in the frontal and transverse planes as well. The flexibility component of yoga is very dynamic. It stretches multiple muscles at the same time in all three planes of motion. It involves opening the entire kinetic chain, thus simulating the motions and creating flexibility that is sport-specific for the athlete. Athletes report fewer injuries after participating in a yoga program. Their dynamic balance, flexibility and strength have all improved. They report an improvement in their mental acuity and overall focus on the ﬁeld. Overall, athletes experience an improvement in their entire sport performance. Overwhelmingly, athletes who were most doubtful about yoga quickly catch on and incorporate it into their daily lives. They feel invigorated and report a much healthier outlook on their performance. Alyssa Dinowitz, RYT, is the founder of Athletes Yoga (www.athletesyoga.com). She has been practicing yoga for over 10 years, and she became a certified Yoga Instructor in 2003. Alyssa has taught yoga privately to professional hockey players, golfers and football players and works consistently with several players from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. ● Yoga is one of the most common group X programs today. Members SUCCESS Last month, I introduced the concept of F.O.C.U.S, where “F” represented your future as a ﬁtness professional — speciﬁcally, the keys to goal-setting. The next step is “O”bserving what is going on in your life. This involves asking yourself some vital questions. Most people go through life on a cruise to nowhere, like a ship being tossed by the wind and the waves. There is no clear direction and they don’t take notice as to what is working and what is not. The Hawthorn Eﬀect tells us that what we give attention to grows. When we give attention to our training and nutrition, it improves. When we give massive attention to growing our business, it ﬂourishes. The more capacity you give to a goal, the more rapidly it accelerates. Regarding your ﬁtness career, you want to take notice as to what brings you the most joy, prosperity, freedom or whatever words you personally use to deﬁne success. Many personal trainers wake up and, like the movie, have a “Groundhog Day” — the same schedule with different clients in each time slot. They train clients day after day, becoming numb to growth. They become reactive when a situation reaches a crisis state rather than being proactive to avoid damage. For example, a trainer may have a client lose her job, another client relocate, another client get injured, and yet another client decide to take a break when his sessions run out. Before long, that trainer has lost half of his client base and can’t afford his car payment. That’s a situation nobody wants to experience… and certainly not repeatedly. When I ﬁrst learned to ride a motorcycle, I remember the instructor used the acronym S.I.P.D.E. (Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide, Execute) to teach us to safely maneuver a motorcycle and enjoy riding. It reminds me to have heightened awareness about what is going on around me, identify any opportunity or obstacles, predict what my best response would be, quickly decide what to do and then act on it. The more you practice S.I.P.D.E., the better you become at making great decisions, the fewer mistakes you make and the closer you move towards your desired outcome. In order to balance your life and attract great things, observe all areas of your life: • How do you feel at the end of the day? • If you were ﬁnancially independent, what parts of your work would you do exclusively? • What do you most enjoy learning about? • What activities, tasks, accomplishments give you the most energy? • What 3 things pay you the most for your time? FOCUS ON READ THE REMAINING FIVE QUESTIONS AND THE FULL ARTICLE AT WWW.PFPPLUS.COM. http://www.athletesyoga.com http://www.athletesyoga.com http://www.pfpplus.com http://WWW.PFPPLUS.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008

Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008 Contents Letter from the Editor, Writers Current Controversies Combating with Obesity Pilates and Yoga for Athletes New! The Balancing Act The Top Prize Building a Base of Special Populations Datebook The Success Image The Anatomy of a Fitness Assessment Branding Training Ruts Product Profile New on the Market

Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008

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