Before you read this, can you think of any ideas on how Yoga can transfer over to other sports and into our everyday lives? I truthfully never really knew
how MUCH it could. I use to think unless I was jarring, sweating, and straining my body in my workouts, I was doing minimal to create gains within my body. 

"Yoga" means to unite. Uniting the mind and body into perfect harmony. IF ONLY it were that simple right? Coming from someone who deals with anxiety, I can tell you once I embraced Yoga, it has helped me in many ways.

As I was thinking about how I wanted to put together this article this past week, one night it was storming and my daughter snuck into our room. I glanced over and THIS is how she happened to be sleeping. It made me smile on how peaceful she looked in "Child's Pose" DUH!  "Child's Pose=peaceful.  

Being an amateur kickboxer/boxer for many years, the training that is involves takes very intense conditioning drills and workouts with little to NO rest, especially when I train for a fight. I use to believe yoga was boring and served no purpose with my style of workingout and sport I am involved in. I never really learned to like it, but I tried. I  even became a Certified Nesta Sport Yoga Instructor back in 2008 in hopes I could get more into it, I just could not.

It wasn't until a few years ago I decided to try it once again and let me tell you, something clicked! I did p90x Yoga by Tony Horton and it has been a major game changer within my body. (I will link Tony Horton p90x Videos below! If all else fails and you can't make it to your gym and have no time or equipment, these videos never disappoint and they are ONLY 30 min!) It was in that video I learned to embrace what yoga had to offer and how it would benefit me in all areas of my life. 

Yoga has helped me create strength and balance within and outside of my body. It has improved my FLEXIBILITY immensely and my ability to flow within my movements. It has helped my back issues I deal with because I have Scoliosis. Instead of limiting what I do, it has helped my weakened areas of my back and hips to become stronger and stabilize the areas I need that usually create pain. I also believe it has really helped in my prevention from injury. I also deal with a significant amount of anxiety, and I can not tell you enough how much it has helped when my breathing starts to become more shallow. I learned how to breath more deeply from my diaphragm instead of short breaths. It helps slow my heart rate and believe it or not is has helped in the biggest way to be able to breath more efficiently in the ring! I am going to randomly throw this in here as well,  I believe this lung expander has helped me in many ways as well. I feel like it helps keep my lungs strong, has improved my endurance and really has helped me with deep long breaths. I will link this below as well. 

Our muscles become tight and shorten with over use of certain workouts and sports. I find sometimes not even my recovery drink can fully help me recover after a strenuous workout. Yoga is an amazing way to elongate and restore our muscles by releasing the tension we put them under and restore flexibility which allows further movement.  A perfect example are my kicks in Taekwondo and Kickboxing! I have seen major improvement within the height of my kicks, and  balance which is a HUGE component of the martial arts! It is also a huge component as we get older, it is important to have good balance!  Can you think of other sports or everyday life that Yoga could really help with?

I use Yoga as my active rest day usually on Sundays to recharge and balance my body and soul from all the jarring workouts I do, and the demands every day life puts on my body. I feel centered and refreshed to start my week. Believe me when I say, liking Yoga had been a struggle, but I embrace it now as a part of my routine. The cool thing I have seen lately is after my kickboxing classes I see the guys doing some poses to further their strength, flexibility and balance! MY husband, who is NOT a petite guy was a line man in football,  lifts weights,  and kickboxing, has also incorporated yoga into his routine! For him, its mainly for his overly tight hamstrings and flexibility. If you take away anything from this article.....try Yoga!!!!!!! Even if you don't do other sports, balance is such a key factor in life, all the things Yoga has to offer are factors in everyday life!

P.S. I feel like there is always a "p.s" what does "p.s." even mean hahaha  I will link yoga support blocks as well. It helps you with your yoga poses until you are flexible enough to do the poses without them. Every thing is a work in progress. So please, if you feel like you think ":yea right! Katie, I can't do this. Yes you can!!!! Take it step by step and work your way up!!!! 

I am always here to help!

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