The Athlete S Guide To Yoga

Yoga makes good athletes better. This time-honored discipline imparts flexibility, balance, and whole-body strength, creating improvements in an athlete’s form, efficiency, and power. In addition, yoga’s attention to concentration and breath awareness improves mental focus and mental endurance—hidden assets that become especially important at the end of a long training session or race. In The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga, yoga instructor, endurance athlete, and coach Sage Rountree explains the benefits that yoga can bring to every training program. With hundreds of color photographs featuring more than 100 poses, this book treats common problem areas to make athletes stronger in their sport. Rountree helps athletes see progress from just 10 minutes of yoga each day. In an engaging and easy-to-follow style, The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga presents: warm-up and cool-down routines for workouts simple poses to specifically target areas of inflexibility and overuse breath and meditation exercises different types of yoga for each phase of training recommendations for intensity and volume of yoga workouts throughout the training year Rountree’s applications for training and racing ease the introduction to yoga, making it practical and accessible for all athletes.

"Perfect for athletes in need of a reminder that being quick with their recovery efforts isn’t a quick fix. This impressive book shows how slowing down speeds up results in the gym, on the road, and beyond." - Library Journal, Starred Review An invaluable guide to help athletes maximize training gains by making the most of their recovery time. Recovery—physical and mental—is a red-hot topic, and the worlds of sports, technology, and commerce have all taken note. But which practices and devices really make a difference in recovery, and which should be avoided? What will truly maximize performance? In this second edition of The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery, endurance and recovery coach Sage Rountree, PhD, explains exactly how to get the most out of training by optimizing recovery time. She provides easy-to-follow and practical recovery tips that include: How athletes can measure their own state of recovery What can go wrong when recovery is insufficient Proven techniques to enhance recovery and improve performance Evaluations of current tech devices Sample recovery plans for all types of training and competition Emphasizing the fundamentals of sleep, nutrition, and stress management, this second edition features up-to-date research that has emerged to support the importance of these basic recovery strategies and includes a much-needed, careful look at new devices on the market. Whether self-coached, coached, or team-sport athletes, The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery provides readers with an evidence-based approach to finding the right balance between stress and rest.

For runners, weight lifters, Crossfitters, triathletes, cyclists, and any fitness enthusiast who loves an intense workout: learn exactly how yoga will benefit your performance. You've heard yoga can improve your fitness pursuits, but all you can find is vague information on starting a "beginner's vinyasa practice." And who really has the time for a 60 minute yoga class when all you want to do is lift weights? The good news is a yoga practice really can make you better at your sport; and specific tips, postures, and yoga workouts do exist to help you. This book is absolutely everything you need, and absolutely nothing you don't, to be a better athlete. Dean Pohlman, founder of Man Flow Yoga and author of DK's best-selling book Yoga Fitness for Men, is your no-nonsense guide for integrating yoga with your existing resistance and endurance training. He's a respected athlete, fitness enthusiast, and functional yoga expert who actually knows how to speak to your fitness discipline. In partnership with other professional athletes in your field, Yoga For Athletes has all of the credible and effective information you need. Choose your primary discipline: resistance training or endurance training (or both!). Then use the targeted assessment to identify your areas of opportunity. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be guided to select from a variety of 10-minute yoga workouts you can easily merge with existing fitness plans. Yoga for Athletes offers: • 30+ yoga workouts designed with the athlete's goals in mind. Most workouts require just 10 minutes of your time and are easily slid into your existing workout program. • 30+ yoga postures in this detailed step-by-step guide for improved mobility, strength, and balance. • Beat your pain points and perfect your fitness with a systematic evaluation of your training program. Discover how to fix muscle weaknesses, overtraining, common injuries, stiffness, and more. "Dean has taken what is essential to our bodies, brains, and minds, and created a model based on the principles of a yogic practice. You can drop this excellent book into whatever sport, practice, class, or activity you love, and it will make you better." -Dr. Kelly Starrett

Yoga will make you a better runner. Millions of runners practice yoga daily because it cuts injuries and leads to more fluid, enjoyable running. In The Runner's Guide to Yoga, Sage Rountree--America's leading expert on yoga for athletes--shows you the poses and practices for stronger, healthier running. Filled with color photographs, clear instruction, and easy-to-follow routines, The Runner's Guide to Yoga offers simple ways to make yoga a part of your everyday training, even if you have never set foot in a yoga studio. This practical guide highlights the routines that ease tightness in the hamstrings and hips, strengthen the core, build strength and flexibility throughout your body, and speed recovery from minor injuries. Rountree highlights over 100 key poses modeled by real runners and includes focused routines as well as key pre- and post-race yoga sequences. The Runner's Guide to Yoga will complement your running every day, all season long. Discover how yoga can improve your running with Dynamic warm-ups and cooldowns for your workouts Poses that target typical trouble spots, such as hips, calves, and hamstrings Self-tests to determine areas of weakness or imbalance Breath and meditation exercises to sharpen mental focus

Perfect for those who want a total body and mind workout.

Athletes have different needs than the typical yogi. They come to the practice with more tightness from hours spent training, little time for lengthy sessions, and at the height of the season they often abandon yoga classes altogether for demanding sport-specific training. In this accessible guide, yoga teacher Sage Rountree makes it easy for athletes to reap the benefits of the practice year-round. Designed to complement a rigorous training schedule, the book includes quick, five-minute warm-ups to prepare for daily workouts; strength sessions for the off-season and base periods; flexibility sessions as training grows more demanding, including 20-minute flexibility routines to follow workouts; and focus sessions incorporating breath exercises and meditation to improve restoration and sharpen mental toughness for competition. A spiral binding makes it easy to progress through each routine, and attractive color photographs fluidly detail every pose. Tips to simplify trickier poses or vary the routine from one session to the next are included.

With its revolutionary approach to yoga and innovative, male-oriented instruction, Real Men Do Yoga will be the definitive guide for both novice and veteran men who are discovering the innumerable physical and mental benefits of yoga. Satisfying the male fascination with sports and admiration for athletes are interviews with more than twenty pros, all of whom are enthusiastic yoga practitioners: football's Eddie George, Shannon Sharpe and Amani Toomer; baseball pitchers Barry Zito (2002 Cy Young Award winner) and Al Leiter, star hockey goalie Sean Burke and NBA superstar Kevin Garnett as well as pro golfers and tennis players. Photos of sports stars doing yoga, such as football greats Dan Marino and Chris Carter, drive home a powerful message. Each chapter offers a combination of stretches and strength-builders that target and benefit specific areas: Conquering back pain (which afflicts an estimated 10 million men) Improving sports performance including yoga for golf, running, basketball, tennis and more Increasing flexibility in the upper body, spine and lower body Building muscle strength Improving sexual performance In a sea of yoga books aimed at women, Real Men Do Yoga is an easily accessible, "non-New Agey" guidebook that takes something mysterious to American men and offers a reassuringly effective and practical guide that they'll actually use.

From the gridiron to the hard court, today’s top athletes know the benefits of yoga. It’s why so many have made it an essential component in their training and conditioning programs. Now you can too with Yoga for Athletes. Author and instructor Ryanne Cunningham has worked with some of the top names in sports. She’s helped keep some of the toughest NFL players on the field, and top endurance athletes run longer and stronger. Her step-by-step instruction, expert advice, and pose variations focus on active muscles and movements across sports such as these: • Football • Soccer • Running • Swimming • Cycling • Tennis • Golf • Baseball and Softball • Basketball Yoga for Athletes is designed for every athlete, from weekend enthusiast to professional. Using demonstrations of the physical poses, breathing, and guided visualization, you’ll improve performance, reduce the risk of injury, and maximize training results. Your secret to improved strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, and performance is Yoga for Athletes.