Monday, June 22, 2009

Yoga for Boxers?

Boxing Friends,

Stretching isn't only for warm-up before a fight or training session, but instead is a training session in itself. Whether you call it stretching, callisthenics, or yoga, this type of exercise is a must so that a boxer becomes a complete and fully-functioning athlete. Yoga, the more complete form of stretching exercises, should be in every boxer's training schedule throughout their career.

A boxer becomes a complete athlete with the help of yoga exercises. The stretches, especially for someone new to yoga, shocks long-forgotten muscles, tendons, and nerves to life. It creates flexibility and the ability to move in a new, more fluid way. And don't let the slow movement and breathing fool you--even the softer forms of yoga are more difficult and strenuous to do than a lot of boxing training exercises such as hitting the focus mitts or jumping rope. And regardless of how experienced one becomes at yoga, there are always new positions to learn and use.

Waking up those nerves, tendons, and muscles makes the boxer stronger by putting those body parts fully into play. Only when the boxer awakens those body parts is he able to use them 100 % for more power, speed, strength and flexibility. Recovery time from injury and damage to the body is also shortened because more of the body is being used to help itself recover. Yoga should be done daily so that the boxer will be able to train harder and longer rather than spend so much time recovering from the daily grind of sparring, mitt, and heavy-bag work.

Yoga also has the added benefit of helping digestion and weight management. Forget about sitting in a sauna to sweat out those extra couple of pounds before a fight -- there are few things that can make a boxer run to the bathroom faster than the reverse triangle position.

2 comments:

  1. Grew up an athlete always stretched well. Havent done any working out since high school. Except manual labor. I got back in 2 shadow boxing then lifting weights about a month ago how was so tense from lifting and everything was so stiff I tried yoga 1 night. Wow i cant believe the difference. I can move again I think I may get into it seriously... now

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  2. Good for you. Obviously, yoga isn't the first thing to come to mind when getting back into shape, but definitely should be.

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