True Power Yoga for Athletes
YOGA CAN IMPROVE YOUR GAME
Just take it from pro-football player T.J. Houshmandzadeh athletes from all walks of life are discovering the key benefits of incorporating MARK BLANCHARD'S TRUE POWER YOGA into their exercise routine. Mark's Power Yoga helps to improve your game by providing greater strength and mental focus. Mark Blanchard's True Power Yoga isn't for sissies.
Check out the clips with T.J. and the interview. T.J. can tell you first hand how Mark has changed his game and T.J. can show you first hand in the True Flow Workout. Watch T.J. fall, wobble, laugh, and sweat with two other students. True flow is one of the 4 workouts in the New True Power Yoga 4 workout DVD series.
How does Mark know what athletes need? Mark Blanchard started out as a professional athlete in baseball. His workouts are strong. As Mark states, "the combination of stretches and resistance exercises in yoga are designed to increase muscular strength and flexibility, improve concentration, and reduce stress". He has worked with a number of professional athletes throughout the year, including Cincinnati Bengals Wide-Receiver T.J. Houshmanzadeh, All-Star NBA Player Steve Smith, Two-Time PGA Player of the Year Fred Couples, and many other members of the NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball.
Some of the key physical and mental benefits of Mark Blanchard's True Power Yoga for Athletes:
CORE STRENGTH Regular yoga practice will improve core strength, which is essential to sports performance and injury preventions. A variety of yoga poses such as plank, chaturanga, and chair pose increase strength overall, including core strength. It adds a new form of resistance training to one's typical machine-based workouts.
FLEXIBILITY OF RANGE AND MOTION Engaging in frequent yoga exercises will make the spine more flexible and muscles more supple. Yoga routines offer the steady increase in flexibility and range in motion that are ideal for athletes which can drastically decrease any risk to injuries. It lengthens the entire body and releases joints, thus adding to the overall improvement of one's game.
BALANCE Balance exercises are often overlooked by athletes, but it is actually one of the most effective ways to correct muscle imbalances and mechanical problems in the body. Athletes often tend to perform repetitive motion exercises that focus on a group of muscles while the others are ignored. Yoga helps to fix these imbalances, as well as imbalances in the mind.
RELIEVING CHRONIC PAIN Regular training done by athletes is often accompanied by chronic aches and pain. Practicing Mark Blanchard's Power yoga helps the muscles to release chronic pain and allows players with mobility and agility to play more effectively.
FOCUS One of the key aspects to successful playing is mental focus. A player's mental approach will ultimately dictate the outcome of his or her performance. The principles of yoga offer complete mind and body awareness and heighten mental focus, a crucial aspect that vastly effects any athlete's ability to perform.
Mark's Power Yoga combines breathing exercises with swift movements that WILL give you a complete cardiovascular workout as T.J. says it's like lifting weights and stretching at the same time. It is a complete total mind/body exercise.
UPBEAT, CARDIO, MAKE-YOU-SWEAT EXERCISE REGIMEN Mark Blanchard's Ture Power Yoga is an upbeat, cardio, make-you-sweat exercise regimen that will help you get your body into the best shape you've always dreamed of. Sculpt long, lean muscles, decrease stress, look and feel younger, increase your energy, lose weight, boost confidence, rev up your metabolism, increase mental focus and clarity, enhance your immune system and increase your longevity with the these 4 workouts which provide a complete mind/body fitness regimen.
An introduction to this form of yoga will literally bend your misconceptions and physique into and indomitable, healthy, stronger, and better you.
Yoga Tip: Ujjayi breath
Ujjayi is a diaphragmatic breath, which first fills the lower belly (activating the first and second chakras), rises to the lower rib cage (the third and fourth chakras), and finally moves into the upper chest and throat.
For beginners to yoga, it is often suggested that proper execution of the ujjayi breath be audible. Ujjayi breathing by an experienced practitioner, however, is soundless – the only sensory feedback that the skilled practitioner has is the faint sensation of rubbing or vibration in the throat; the breath is so effortless that it would not move a feather held in front of the face. The inhalations and exhalations are equal in duration, and are controlled in a manner that causes no distress to the practitioner.
Ujjayi is a balancing and calming breath, which increases oxygenation and builds internal body heat. This breath enables the practitioner to maintain a rhythm to their practice, take in enough oxygen, and helps build energy to maintain practice, while clearing toxins out of the bodily system.
Ujjayi breathing is used in Power Yoga and Vinyasa, or Flow Yoga. This breath is especially important during transition into and out of asanas (postures), as it helps practitioners to stay present, self-aware, and grounded in the practice, which lends it a meditative quality
Courtesy of Wikipedia, The Free Encylopedia.