Why Yoga and Football (part one)

What Yoga Does for the Athlete and for the Squad.


Having just completed my certification as a Yoga Sports Coach with Yoga Sports Science, I get the question, ¨why yoga and football?¨ frequently, and usually in two completely different ways.  First (usually from Americans and of course ¨why yoga and soccer?¨) with total incredulity, as they see no relationship between yoga and soccer and think it is totally strange anyone would be linking the two; second (usually from English) with genuine curiosity, as they see no relationship, but know there must be one as footballers such as Giggs and Freidel tout the benefits of yoga as integral to their continued performance. 

I have to open with a quick caveat: this are my thoughts and opinions based on my experience.  I am a YSS trained coach, but my opinions shouldn´t be construed as a position paper from Yoga Sports Science any more than they should be considered a position paper from the United States Soccer Federation just because I hold a coaching license from them as well.  That said, the benefits of a yoga practice are seen across multiple case studies by different YSS coaches.  Next week, I will talk a little more about how yoga changes me as a coach, and that is much more unique to my situation.

For performance enhancement, yoga is different from other modalities, as so much of the improvement is subtle, and very difficult to test.  However, with elite athletes, the differences in performance between dominating a match and never seeing the pitch are minimal.  There is a massive difference between a D3 college player and a journeyman professional.  There is very little between a journeyman professional and an international-level player.  As you move up the performance ladder, each incremental step in performance is smaller, and also harder to find. Elite athletes are looking for marginal gains, slight edges, and yoga helps find those marginal gains.

As a physical exercise protocol, yoga is not revolutionary, but combines eccentric exercise (well-demonstrated to improve tendinopathies and improve functional mobility), balance (well-demonstrated to reduce rates of joint injury), and flexibility (which shows marginal improvements in soft tissue injury rates as well as performance improvement.)  The unique approach yoga provides is not just in combining all three, but the emphasis on mental focus, which is massive in working with the elite athlete. 

Elite athletes are, obviously, competitive individuals, and the competitive nature extends to the attitude with their bodies.  Footballers, taking one with the other, view exercise as a competition to push their body beyond a previous limit, to ¨win¨ the workout.  Yoga turns that on its head – the athlete is invited to inhabit the body and to develop a knowledge of the limitations and capabilities of the body to use it as an ally to win a match. 

The marginal performance gains are seen with decrease in rates of injury, including injuries that don´t warrant a drop from the team sheet, and improvement in playing comfort.  An athlete with a regular yoga practice is also going to be able to more readily distinguish between an ache and a pain – and adjust training schedules accordingly.  Further, Yoga Sport Science data suggests (not published yet, and data set only approaching statistical significance, so suggests not concludes) that athletes with a yoga practice return to training and to competition sooner than those that don´t. 

It is a reality of modern sport that any discussion ultimately leads to, or comes from, money.  In soccer, at the professional level, one player every other game suffers a lost-time injury, and on average, about three games are lost per each injury.  (The actual numbers are 27.7 injuries per 1000 playing hours and 15 days lost per Hawkins et. al., published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 1999.)  Add to that training ground injuries, and on average a professional club is paying two players to be in the treatment room instead of on the pitch.  Just a 10% reduction in soft tissue injury (and the data shows greater reductions than that) means that a club gets four extra player/weeks per year.  At Premier League salaries, that is an order of magnitude beyond what retaining a sport-specific yoga instructor on staff year-round will be.

In my case study for YSS, I worked with a goalkeeper.  In addition to improvements in match-fatigue, overall health, and recovery times, there was one noticeable performance improvement: his kicking from the ground was more accurate, and marginally longer.  This marginal performance improvement dramatically changed the way his squad played.  As he was more comfortable kicking from the ground, he frequently took the ball out of the box rather than kicking out of hand.  The result was the ball was put into play 10 yards deeper, and with a man advantage, as he would not hit the ball out until one of the opposition forwards stepped towards him.  The point being, a marginal improvement in one thing, comfort and improved functional mobility in the goalkeeper´s groin, can significantly impact the play of the team.  Yoga is a way of finding and improving those subtle points.

Yoga optimizes existing fitness regimes both by improving balance, mobility, and flexibility, giving the athlete a greater maximum workload, but also by engaging the mind in a different way, so that the athlete self-regulates a workout to get closer to the edge of the performance envelope.  Through injury reduction, it makes financial sense for professional clubs at pretty much any level.  Finally, for individuals seeking the marginal performance gains that can take an athlete to the next level. 

Part two coming soon on what yoga does for me as a coach and as a match analyst.