Yoga for recovery and fitness a personal perspective.

For most of us when we think of being fit, we consider our aerobic fitness. Whether or not we get out of breath too easily or can run 5km at a respectable pace?

We all know, that strength is also extremely important for our long term health as it dictates so much about our health from our metabolism and bone strength, to our hormones, and how we feel as a result.

In terms of our fitness however, it is perhaps less obvious to think about the efficiency of recovery from all this activity. Yet, recovery is absolutely essential to get the benefits of the exercise we have done and also reduces stiffness after exercise or general muscle stiffness and this was why I initially came to yoga myself. I wanted to be less inflexible and was beginning to notice that the amount of fitness I did was actually making me seize up.

So I decided to try yoga as a way to recover better between workouts and also to have an activity that suited me on a lower-impact day. I have to admit, I was also quite curious too — Why was it I asked myself was it that was yoga so popular? It wasn’t a fad, I knew that and yet I didn’t know anyone who did yoga when I was in my twenties and thirties and the first yoga class I went to didn’t work out very well because it turns out in the early stages of pregnancy, over-stretching, especially with a competitive mind-set is all too easy.

So it wasn't until some years later that I revisited yoga, and I noticed as well as becoming more flexible, I was also getting stronger, yet I also felt a lightness — more at ease, and somehow calmer too. Over time, I realised this wasn’t just flexibility; it was wellbeing.

I was soothed, not exhausted, and felt more balanced both physically and emotionally. This was from only one class a week, and I found myself quite impatient for the next.

It turns out, that all the running and strength training were not moderating stress in the same way I used to find they did, and as a result were not supporting my nervous system. I noticed was often exhausted and increasingly anxious. I realised this was part of the Peri-menopause, a time when hormone levels in the female body naturally decline as actual Menopause, which is 51 years of age on average approaches.

This was not something I was looking forward to, in part because I was aware of the challenges others had gone through my work as a personal trainer and also thanks to increased publicity about how rotten it all is for women. So with the idea in my own mind that doing what I could to mitigate any negative impacts of aging and menopause, yoga seemed a sensible idea. Yes it could be done more slowly, but still was not necessarily easy and there was so much more to it than I'd appreciated.

Unlike much of the exercise I'd done prior to my early forties, I was holding poses and cultivating an appreciation of being fully in the moment. This turned out to be a very effective tool to manage the daily stresses and strains of life and I started to find kindness and patience with myself that I didn't realise were absent before. So instead of asking, “What is it about, this yoga?” I began asking, “Why didn’t I discover yoga sooner?”

This was a big moment.

I signed up for a 200-hour teacher training course, and as I explored different styles of yoga in the months before the course started, a friend’s husband — who happened to run retreats and meditation workshops — gave me some valuable guidance. He was clearly proud of the tradition he was part of, and he helped me see that yoga is far more than just another way to exercise. He told me about the history of yoga and the reasoning behind the many different approaches — all rooted in thousands of years of philosophy that address the whole human, not just the physical body.

In today’s wellness-focused world, this may sound almost clichéd, but yoga recognised the connection between the physical, emotional, and spiritual long before we bought into nootropics* or hot–cold treatments for nervous system optimisation. I found this insight into that world history fascinating, and it helped me understand that the asana, or physical practice, isn’t the end goal but part of a much bigger, more meaningful journey. I realised I didn’t have to be the most flexible or athletic person to practise yoga — it could suit me at any stage of life. And more than that, it would probably help every stage of life suit me better too.

Certainly this has been the case recently. I'm still in peri-menopause and feel like I have a say in how it goes. Yoga provides another tool for managing myself and my fitness and I feel like I am still maintaining and building strength by optimising my recovery.

My conclusion:

I consider yoga was the missing piece of the fitness puzzle for many years. Being able to improve my fitness beyond my own expectations as a result of incorporating a more recovery focused activity into my routine has given me extra confidence and made me feel less frazzled and more fantastic.

If you sometimes feel you are not working hard enough, but are not sure how to do more, I often find starting by being kinder to yourself and less critical can be the start of something impressive.

This realisation of course helped define the 360° fitness method - which for which the following diagram provides a neat summary. More on this in my 360° fitness blog.. coming soon.

• Nootropics: substances or supplements that may improve cognitive function, such as focus and memory.

  
  

Asana: the physical postures or poses practised in yoga.

Ref: Yoga as part of sports medicine and rehabilitation, Int J Yoga, 2023, Manjunath Nandi Krishnamurthy, PMCID

The effects of yoga compared to active and inactive controls on phuysical afunction and health related quality of likfe in older adults-systematic review & meta-analysis of RCT's. 2019, Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act, Sivaramakrishnan, Fitzsimon, Kelly,Ludwig, Mutrie, Saunders & Baker, PMCID