…Using Yoga To Treat Sports Injuries…
Spirituality is a big part of yoga and it first gained popularity amongst people that wanted to use it as a form of meditation, but these days everybody seems to be doing it for all sorts of different reasons. It’s been known to help people relieve stress, give up smoking, and even improve their performance in a range of sports. These are just a couple of the many ways that yoga can improve your life but one thing that people don’t often think to use yoga for is injury prevention and treatment. Yoga is a valuable tool that you should be taking advantage of, here’s how it can help you to avoid injuries and help you to recover from them quicker.
Pain Relief
If you’ve got a serious sporting injury then you might be prescribed painkillers by your doctor but if you don’t want to take loads of medication that might affect your mood, yoga can often be a good alternative form of pain relief as well as a way to inspire quicker healing. Learning to control your breathing through meditation at yoga chiang mai retreats can help you to improve the oxygen and nutrient flow to your muscles which will aid quick recovery. Slow stretches and held poses also help to increase the elasticity of your muscles which is a great way to get some relief if you’ve pulled muscles. Yoga also improves your cardiovascular and respiratory functions which both help with injury recovery.
Muscle Flexibility
A lack of muscle flexibility is a common cause of sports injury. If you aren’t flexible enough then you increase your risk of pulling and tearing muscles. You can also encounter severe joint problems if you don’t keep them in good shape. Certain yoga poses can help you to loosen up different muscle groups as well as giving you control over the spinal reflexes that cause automatic muscle contraction. Stretching out as part of a warm down is also a great way to avoid any muscle pain after working out. The best poses for muscle flexibility are downward dog, sit easy, and the cobra. Between them, those three poses will stretch out all of your muscles and loosen things up a bit.
Rehabilitation
Some injuries will be ok after a bit of stretching out but if you have a more serious injury like a broken limb which puts you out of action for a while, it’s important that you don’t rush back into exercising. Easing yourself in gently with lower impact exercises to test the water and see if your ready is the key to avoiding further injuries. Yoga is a great way to gradually introduce bit more movement to the injured part of your body without putting it under too much strain. Start off with very simple poses that don’t require too much stretching or flexibility and gradually increase the difficulty until you’re back to normal.
Another benefit of yoga when you’re recovering from an injury is that it keeps you healthy mentally as well as physically, which is something that athletes often struggle with if they are unable to compete for a long time.
Everybody should incorporate yoga into their workout routine to avoid injury and keep their body in tip top shape.
