Did you know that hot yoga is good for runners? I wasn’t really sure at first, but I looked into it and I have learned that it is a nice complement to running. I’ll share with you the reasons why hot yoga is good for runners and what you should look out for.
Why Hot Yoga Is Good For Runners
I’ve been doing yoga for several years and I love it. I have been doing it mostly for mental training and relaxation but recently, I added hot yoga to my practice and I immediately loved it! It’s hard, it pushes me, and it’s working areas of my body I don’t work on with my strength training and running.
Heat Acclimation and Endurance
This summer I did a lot of running and working out in the heat. I enjoyed finishing while dripping with sweat. The same is true with hot yoga. We are in a room with a temperature between 90 and 110 degrees.
Working out in high temperatures raises the heart rate, increasing cardio output. This is great because despite doing slow, deliberate poses, I am challenging myself and teaching my body to cope with the physical stress and the heat. This is very similar to the plasma runs I do in the summer. The first few times out it is very hard; but eventually, over time, my body adapts to it and it becomes easier.
Breathwork and Mindfulness
Breathing in yoga is one of the first things you focus on when beginning practice. By slowing down and focusing on your breathing, you are training your body to rely on the breath for help during hard poses. This is also true for running. As the miles get harder, focusing on breathing is important to get you back to your center. To keep you from feeling like you are losing control of your pace.
When I am doing a hard pose or an inversion in hot yoga, I have learned that you can’t hold your breath. You need to breathe through the pose and use the breath to help bring you to the place you need to be to secure that pose.
Mental Training
Hot yoga is hard! It’s also referred to as power flow yoga. When you are doing hot yoga, your mind doesn’t really have time to go off task. That’s hard for me given that I have ADHD, but there are a few things that will help me quiet my brain. Yoga and running are two specific activities that help me quiet my mind and shut off my thoughts.
Running is almost as much a mental game as it is a physical one. My big struggle a lot of time is not actually doing the activity of running, it is wrapping my mind around the distance I have to run, or the goal I am working towards. When I have a long run on my schedule I will think of that long run for several days to a week prior to it. I imagine what it will feel like, where my route will be, and what will I listen to while participating in that run.
Much of the time, attempting to do a hard pose requires you to believe you can do it. My yoga instructors are great because they encourage you when you have to do a hard pose. They tell you to trust yourself and give yourself grace. Having grace and intention are also important to have a good experience.
Core Strength and Flexibility
Hot yoga and power flow yoga also require a lot of core work. After my first week of classes, my obliques and lower abdominal muscles were sore. Yoga is an excellent way to build your core strength. I am also feeling it in my back muscles. This is very helpful with running as you use your upper body to keep you upright, especially during the long runs.
We do a lot of planks in hot yoga. In addition to planks, we do leg lifts and scissors while elevating our upper body off of the mat. Those are hard exercises, but I am getting stronger each week.
Twitch Muscle Strengthening
When you run, you use your fast-twitch muscles to push yourself off the ground and into your stance. Some of those muscles are not trained when doing strength training, but when doing yoga you are strengthening those muscles to help stay balanced, and you are also strengthening your feet.
This will help make your feet more stable to land on when running. I also think it has been helping me keep my plantar fasciitis at bay. Downward dog poses have been helpful to me to stretch my hamstrings all the way down to my toes.
Injury Prevention
I used to just run primarily for my workouts and I have learned the hard way, it is not a good idea to just run for fitness. Your body adapts to it and only uses the muscles required to maintain that sport. But sometimes you lose strength in your supporting muscles.
Having a “lazy ass” is a common running injury for runners. I suffered from this, unfortunately. I had to go to physical therapy for several months to learn how to strengthen my glutes, quads, hips, and hamstrings. Incorporating strength training into my routine has been very helpful in eliminating this problem. I love a hard leg workout day!
If you are like me and love to run, but have an injury or a “nagging issue”, we tend to run right through it without taking the time to listen to our body and rest it or treat it. Doing hot yoga helps with injury prevention because stretching is beneficial to increasing flexibility and balance. You are also learning how to listen to your body while working on a yoga pose.
Will You Try Hot Yoga?
In the past several months I have been doing a wide variety of activities like running, restorative yoga, hot yoga, skiing, and strength training. I do most of my workout activities at home, but I do look forward to leaving the house and going to my hot yoga classes. It’s nice to get out and see other people these days!
I also think I may be getting addicted to hot yoga. I have that kind of personality when I try something new. I tend to fall in love with it and keep doing it until I either burn out doing it; or like with my running, I keep doing it 10 years later! I also think it is helping me with my ADHD and helping to keep me calmer.
I’ll be sharing more about my recent yoga classes and techniques so be sure to like my Facebook Page for the latest posts.