An Honest Approach to Yoga for Runners
By: Emily Hendricks Escovar
Tags: Fitness, Running, Yoga, Flexibility, Training

An Honest Approach to Yoga for Runners

Editor’s Note: Please consult a medical professional before beginning any exercise program.

For runners, yoga can be the dreaded yin to our running yang.

Many of us have extra-tight hips and hamstrings from years of logging miles, and flexibility-focused activities like yoga can feel downright awful when you get down to it.

Even worse is going to a yoga class and seeing what all the flexible yoga Gumbys can do with their bodies. Watching them contort and twist, you’re left wondering how they got there, and if it’ll ever be possible to bend like that.

As a runner, I always struggled with certain yoga poses. But I had a breakthrough when I attended a teacher training course and realized that I was taking the wrong approach for my runner’s body.

It’s not the fault of yoga teachers, who are usually instructing a variety of bodies with varying levels of flexibility. It just so happens that generic advice doesn’t apply so well to those of us with tight hamstrings and hips.

Here are some of the major myths and misconceptions that I learned about common yoga poses for runners and how to address them:

Forward Folds

Yoga myth: Your knees should always be straight during forward folds

Yoga for runners reality: Go ahead and bend those knees!

Photo by Elly Fairytale from Pexels

If you have especially tight hamstrings, bending your knees during forward folds — both standing and sitting — will actually allow you to execute these poses more fully and reap their benefits for your back and pelvis. If you force your knees to straighten, you’re essentially hamstringing yourself and your ability to bend forward.

If you’re feeling forward folds exclusively in your hamstrings, go ahead and bend your knees a little (or a lot). Focus instead on bringing your chest closer to your legs. With time and patience, you’ll notice that you can straighten your knees in a more natural way while also folding more deeply into the pose.

In fact, if you straighten your knees too much, this can potentially lead to hyper-extension and knee problems. When in doubt, it’s better to keep your knees slightly bent rather than over-straighten them.

Downward Facing Dog

Yoga myth: Your heels should touch the ground during downward facing dog

Yoga for runners reality: Don’t worry about your heels

Photo by Elly Fairytale from Pexels

Downward facing dog does provide a great hamstring stretch, but that’s not the only focus of the pose. This pose is also great for your shoulders, pelvis and back, and if you’re only focused on reaching your heels towards the ground, you may miss out on some of those benefits.

If your hamstrings feel super tight in downward facing dog, it’s okay to actually come up on your toes more and bend your knees a little bit. This allows you to bring your hips up towards the ceiling, push your weight into your legs and get a full stretch through your upper body.

Triangle Pose

Yoga myth: Triangle pose is about reaching as far down towards the ground as possible

Yoga for runners reality: Focus on lifting up instead of letting your body fall down

Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels

I always thought Triangle pose was all about getting a mean hip stretch in. While it does offer a great hip stretch, Triangle pose is primarily a twisting pose that’s often practiced incorrectly, in two different ways:

Mistake #1: Many yoga teachers will have you transition to triangle pose straight from Warrior I or II, which is fine for hyper-flexible yoga Gumbys. But Triangle pose can actually be better executed with your feet closer together — about 3 or 4 feet apart— depending on your height and flexibility.

So if you feel a bit unstable in this pose, try shortening your stance. It may help you to open your body up into a deeper twist.

Mistake #2: By force of habit or imitation, it seems like we should be trying to get our bottom hands as low as we possibly can during Triangle. But by doing this, you may compromise the twist in the pose. Instead, the emphasis should first be on bringing your top hand towards the sky and straightening it fully. It should feel more like a lifting up sensation, with zero weight on your bottom hand whatsoever.

To achieve this, try bringing your bottom hand up on your leg a little bit and focusing all of your energy towards your top hand. To test the integrity of your pose, try lifting your bottom hand to make sure that you’re not putting any weight on it. You should be able to lift your hand with no issue.

As you build more flexibility in this pose, you can experiment with bringing your bottom hand lower on your leg, perhaps eventually reaching the floor or grabbing your toe someday.

A last note: Don’t be afraid to use props

If you’re having trouble executing poses — for example, if you can’t reach the ground during a twisting pose like Triangle— don’t be afraid to grab a block or belt. Props aren’t for wimps — quite the opposite in fact. They basically serve as limb extenders, helping you to complete a pose with the right form and allowing your body to work into that pose. If you try to force your way into a pose before your body is ready, you’re only doing more harm in the long run.

And if you use props enough, in the right way, you’ll find that one day you can do the pose without the help of a prop.