Running puts a lot of stress on your body. In fact over the course of a 5K your foot may strike the ground upwards of 5,000 times. With each of those foot strikes you are also striking with about 3-4 times your body weight. That is a lot of stress. To help relive sore muscles and to recovery after runs we all know to stretch in some form or another. Some people stretch before runs, some afterwards but we all understand that stretching plays a role in running.
However, something that a lot of people put aside is yoga. Yoga is known as a calming and relaxing exercise and if you have never done it before it is also a really good addition to your running regime. You use many muscles in yoga that you don’t normally use. Tons of stabilization muscles are used to help maintain your balance through the different poses and transitions between poses. By doing yoga and strengthening these muscles you are really going to be able to improve your running form.
Runners can benefit a lot from yoga. It not only can help you to improve your running form it can help you to recovery quicker and prevent injuries. Taking a yoga class is a great solution, as there are many gyms that offer yoga classes throughout the week. However, many runners run because they don’t have a gym membership or don’t feel that they need one (I don’t have a gym membership anymore). So going to the gym for a yoga class is out of the question.
Here is a list of a few yoga poses that more–>
