Good Advice
Running’s newest recruits? Yogis
(Photo: Flickr/Lululemon Athletica)
Look around a yoga class and you’ll likely spot a runner there working on her flexibility. But until recently, if you counted the yogis lapping Central Park or killing it on the treadmill, you’d still have a free hand left to hold your water bottle.
The cardio tide is slowly turning for yogis, says Alie Carey, a life-long runner and an instructor at YogaWorks, and at Jack Rabbit stores. “For a long time I thought running was working against my yoga practice by re-tightening all of my muscles. But I learned how to optimize the relationship between running and yoga, and lately I’ve seen quite a few serious yoga practitioners make the leap, too.”
It’s no surprise to Amanda Taylor, founder of Yoga Gives and a former distance runner, that the Berlin Wall separating yoga and running seems to be crumbling. “I think both yogis and runners tend to be very disciplined people who ‘need’ their asana or their runs to stay centered,” says Taylor. “So they appeal to parallel personalities.”
Some yoga studios even make leaping into a pair of cross-trainers seem logical, like I.Am.You. Founder Lauren Imparato, a yogi and a runner with a “love of sweat, endorphins, and a cardiovascular challenge,” leads an athletic practice that gets the heart racing as well as centered. The vibe here is that your higher self can also be your more athletic self. Once you see what you can physically do on the yoga mat, the thinking goes, you get inspired to try other demanding practices or sports.
Of course, improving endurance and cardiovascular conditioning are probably the most talked about benefits of running. But less discussed are its more subtle payoffs that may appeal to yogis—like learning to find and work in a zone, quieting the mind, staying in the moment, and focusing on breathing.
“When yogis take up running,” says Elizabeth Neuse, a marathoner and senior teacher at YogaWorks, “they realize the runner’s high feels a lot like that post-yoga bliss.” —Ingrid Skjong
Know a yogi or two with a pair of cross-trainers to break in? Email them this article!
[...] • New running recruits: yogis. (Well + Good) [...]
This is totally awesome. i agree on the combination. nothing makes me more focused on breath and the moment as yoga & running do for me. i start my run with thoughts i end with endorphines and toxic sweat released from my body – just like in a good. strong asana practice.
YEAH!! I am runner/yogi who loves both.
I love this post! I am a yogi who hasn’t owned running shoes in, oh, five years? I have hiking boots and chuck taylors—that’s it, and yet I JUST got a new pair of running shoes and am ready to take the leap. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified.
Go, Siobhan!
I found that a regular Bikram Yoga practice made it possible for me to become a runner. Yoga improved my cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength, which allowed me to break through the personal barrier between me and enjoyable running. I am running my first 5k in two weeks!
This is a great article. And, I agree, as a practitioner of Ashtanga, and avid runner, and now a Triathlete, I feel Yoga is the hidden secret to success in all of these other activities-running, cycling, swimmming. It’s a combination of the discipline and focus that are inherent throughout all of the above.
I had one yoga client who hated running.
I said “Really? But its so meditative!” She did not see the link. I implored her to focus on the breath with each footfall. To apply the same mantra and ujjayi breath from her practice to the run.
She tried it a few times and is now hooked. She just recently bought some new cross trainers AND clocked a 9min mile on the track last week!!
Im happy to see this shift in the yoga community.
Giddy up Yogis!! :-)
[...] New running recruits: yogis. (Well + Good) Share This [...]
Hi all! I really encourage you all to come try a class at I.AM.YOU.. – sweaty, meditative, sweaty, restorative, and fun all at once!
[...] Speaking of people who love yoga, Well and Good NYC has an article about running yogis. There’s a strain of thought among many runners – and evidently among yoga [...]
I have been a yoga teacher for 18 years, and a casual runner my whole life, but when I decided to pick up my running about 5 years ago and begin training for triathlons and marathons, I was SO grateful for my yoga practice to balance out the running. Plus, it was actually interesting to add in so much running and then watch how different the yoga practice became. Pigeon pose never felt so necessary!!!
I’m a runner and I never thought about taking up yoga. But maybe now I’ll check out a class in at the local gym.
My 2 main exercises have been running and yoga. I have always enjoyed both and have found them to compliment each other.