Here at Yoga Wellbeing we seem to be getting a huge amount of professional runners come to us asking for a little bit of help with flexibilty. One of the main questions is how clients can improve their classic runner’s hamstring tightness. We take classic yoga poses and alter them to take limited flexibilty into account. We play to runners strengths and adress the weaknesses. 
One of our clients has ran five London Marathons and has found yoga an excellent cure for the hamstring problem. Yoga postures can correct the muscle imblances that result in high impact training. They help to realign the joints abd stretch and strengthen the muscles to prevent pain and injury. Yoga for runners is about felxibilty, so we’re not running with the brakes on and increasing the chance of injury.
A huge part of the programme is breath. Breathing through all of the stretches is key and yoga helps you to breath through some of the more challenging stretches. Running is wonderful but is not an all rounder. While most runners can run 25 miles comfortably they have difficulty touching their toes. This is because running only works mostly in one plane of motion – forward. In yoga we work in all directions. It brings balance to a running regime, strengthening to the muscles underused in running (such as the back extensors and the abs) and stretching those that get overused like the calves and the hamstrings.
If you would like to know more about our Yoga for Runners programme then please just click here.
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