5 Ways Yoga Can Increase Your Performance in Soccer

Yoga is a discipline that includes breath control, simple meditation, and the adoption of specific bodily postures and is widely practiced for health and relaxation. And yoga is one of those exercises that have multiple benefits for athletes. Most athletes think that strength training and endurance are the most important forms of training for a soccer player. However, there is another type of training that is highly beneficial to increase an athlete’s performance on the field–yoga. Soccer players can utilize yoga to improve strength, flexibility, endurance, focus, and much more.  

What are the benefits of adding yoga to your soccer training?

• Reducing injury by increasing flexibility. A soccer player’s hips must have optimal mobility in multiple directions. And, yoga focuses on strengthening and stretching the hips through multiple poses such as; pigeon pose, low lunge, figure four. Yoga exercises help create flexibility in the joints, allowing for more movement and less tense tissue, which could be an underlying cause of injury. 

• Improve focus through challenging poses. Yoga challenges the athlete to slow down, think about how their body is moving, and control it during poses that are held and control flow poses. Having a practice that focuses on breath and body allows an increase in the athlete’s ability to focus.  

• Increase Strength. Yoga isn’t the first place a coach’s or athlete’s mind goes when they consider gaining strength. Typically, they think of hitting the weight room. Yoga trains strength using posture, position, and the core. Core strength transfers over to performance in the weight room and on the field. Here are ten poses for strength development in athletes.

• Enhance Recovery. As soccer players, we all know that heavy leg exhaustion after the first couple of games of the season doesn’t seem to go away. Therefore, recovery is a crucial part of a player’s approach to their performance. Yoga-focused sessions on breathing techniques, calming music, meditation, and poses focused on player-specific soreness/tightness can assist players with recovery.  

• Improves Balance. Yoga creates better body awareness, balance, and stability that can translate to improved performance on the pitch. Think about someone almost knocking you off the ball, or needing to quickly change directions, or even losing a ball going for a 50/50. These scenarios can have a more favorable outcome when balance, stability, awareness, and strength are developed. All of which an athlete can get from yoga.

From standing poses to inversions, seated poses, to laying, yoga has a variety of methods to help an athlete increase performance. The best part? Practicing yoga is easily accessible. You can find athlete-specific videos on YouTube for performance and recovery, take a class at a local gym, or even find a private instructor in a studio or virtual.

Don’t wait for a coach to introduce you to yoga. Try a few videos, stay consistent, and feel the benefits for yourself!

Featured image via Adobe Stock Images

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