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Cross-training can be simply understood as selecting two or more forms of exercise and alternating between them. For instance, some people choose to alternate between strength training and cardio in the gym.
Cross-training might seem overwhelming to some people, but it's actualyl quite simple and achievable. Pairing different exercises together can help one avoid the monotony of workouts and also work on their muscles in unique ways.
Including yoga in your cross-training routine can help you in improving the results of your other workouts. It can also provide a break and give your body time to recover from a high intensity routine.
This article will help you understand the benefits of including yoga in your cross-training routine. Let's get started.
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Benefits of Including Yoga in Cross-Training Routine
The inclusion of yoga in cross-training routines is beneficial for everyone, whether novice or professional. It can also help athletes include variety, reduce the risk associated with injuries and decrease their impact:
On that note, here are seven benefits of including yoga in your cross-training routine:
1) Reduced Issues of Muscle Imbalance
Incorporating yoga into your cross-training routine can target all the major muscle groups, which helps create balance. Different yoga poses work on different muscles. For instance, the chair poses targets your glutes, while the downward facing dog targets your external obliques. Therefore, yoga can be a comprehensive training programme that can be included in your cross-training workout.
2) Enhances Flexibility
Yoga has a major impact on the balance and flexibility of the body. It can help in improving the overall athletic performance. Integrating yoga into your cross-training routine can work on your joints and overall mobility. That can help in maintaining a good stance for various exercises, such as deadlifts, squats and lunges.
3) Builds Stability and Strength
People's minds often wander straight towards weight training exercises when they think about getting stronger.
Even yoga helps in building the strength of your body. Holding different yoga positions and using your body weight for the poses helps in building a lot of strength in your joints and muscles.
While you might be used to high intensity workouts, slow yoga poses can challenge you both physically and mentally. Yoga can also help in building greater stability in the joints and the body.
4) Develops Better Body Awareness
Breathing can be considered a cornerstone of yoga. The greater focus and control on breathing can enable you to engage in strength training activities along with building greater endurance.
Integrating yoga into your cross-training routine can help you become more aware of your body movements, enabling alignment correction.
5) Aids in Injury Prevention
Integrating yoga into your cross-training routine can aid your body in quicker recovery and prevent unwanted injuries. It can promote efficient recovery by working on the body's repair and rest system along with managing stress hormones.
Yoga can also be highly beneficial for athletes to recover and repair from their strict training regimes.
A strict training routine puts athletes at a greater risk of developing injuries and increase their cortisol level excessively. All that can increase the negative impact of excess training, such as anxiety, lack of motivation, chronic fatigue, and so on.
6) Improved Mind-Body Connection
One of the dynamic advantages of yoga is that it helps in building better connections and coordination between mind and body.
The strong and positive connection between mind and body is crucial, as our physical state is directly affected by our emotional state. So, if you can adjust one state of the body, it can have a direct impact on your other state.
Yoga can help in optimising this process and enable a better mind-body connection. That's why yoga should be added to your cross-training routine.
7) Increased Productivity
Yoga helps in the effective management of stress in several ways. It helps in providing a mechanism that enhances self-compassion and creates a positive effect on the body.
That can help build problem-solving skills and enhance their creative skills. Lower stress levels, better creativity skills and efficient problem-solving skills can provide for increased productivity.
Takeaway
Adding yoga to your cross-training routine can provide many benefits, such as strengthening muscles, enhancing posture, greater flexibility, and aiding in the recovery process. Yoga can be added to your cross-training routine in various ways. For instance, you can simply add some yoga poses after a workout session, or swap Bikram yoga for cardio days, as it helps in burning calories.
While yoga can be considered a low-impact exercise, overstraining your body can result in unwanted injuries. The most common injuries from yoga include shoulder strains, back twists and strained neck, among others. Therefore, take the necessary precautions, and assume a proper stance while doing yoga.
