Cyclists may have their hands and feet pressed to the ground, with their rear ends high in the air, because they've taken a nasty spill. Or, if they're like a group of locals, they're practicing downward-facing dog and other yoga poses to increase endurance and relieve tension.
"Yoga is a great cross-training tool to help build strength and endurance and stretch those chronically tight muscles from biking," said Cassie Bell, who teaches yoga to cyclists each Wednesday night at the Ogden Bike Collective. "Every class may use a similar series of poses, but rarely are those poses in the same order. Most trainers will say this is better than doing the same exercise every day."
Another dimension
Bell says that because cycling is a repetitious, one-dimensional sport, cyclists benefit from yoga poses that put the body into different planes.
"With cycling, there is a lot of lateral movement. With yoga you get balance ... the poses together stretch and strengthen hip flexors, legs, back and arms, giving an overall balancing effect. Yoga is the perfect complementary exercise for cross-training with other sports to increase performance and endurance," she said.
An article on yoga for cyclists by Baron Baptiste and Kathleen Finn Mendola, found at www.yogajournal.com, says cyclists overwork some muscles and underuse others. Bell said she focuses heavily on the hamstrings, which do a lot of work on the bike, and the shoulders, which are hunched over the handlebars.
"Yoga -- with its ability to usher athletes through other dimensions and angles -- is the perfect foil for bicycling, a one-dimensional sport," Baptiste and Mendola wrote. "Bicycling, like other linear sports such as running, hiking and swimming, calls out for the counterbalancing benefits of yoga. Not only do poses aid in elongating and strengthening overtaxed muscles, but applying the finer nuances of yoga alignment will help you establish a new relationship with your bike, one of comfort and ease."
K.C. Russell, a BMX rider from Ogden, said yoga also helps prevent injuries.
"It's muscles that don't get worked a lot," he said, "BMX makes you fall. It's good to be able to move in the right areas."
Bell hopes to prevent injury by stretching the hips during class. This can help lesson injury to the iliotibial (IT) band, a group of fibers that run along the outside of the thigh.
"Overused hip flexors cause problems with IT bands. Stretching hips is a preventative measure for IT injuries, which is the number one injury in cyclists not caused by wrecking," she said.
Balancing the body
Baptiste and Mendola point out that it's common for cyclists to have an imbalanced body. For example, if one hip is inflexible, the other hip will overwork to compensate for it. If one knee is tighter than the other, it will do less work. If the hips, thighs, knees and ankles are not all pointed straight ahead, the rider can wear down ligaments and tendons and have imbalanced muscle groups. The overused quadriceps may tighten and weaken the hamstrings.
Bell said yoga can help get rid of the "cyclists' haunch" that comes from overused chest muscles, underused back muscles and being hunched over the handlebars.
"A bicyclist's spine is in a constant state of flexion, hunched over the handlebars," Baptiste and Mendola write. "In order to achieve overall flexibility and balanced muscle groups, a biker needs to incorporate balancing, counteracting movements -- for example, backbends, which stretch and elongate oft-used hip flexors and quadriceps. A yoga practice can help restore balance, first by taking the alignment principles of yoga and transferring them to how you sit on your bike."
Bell said she uses traditional yoga poses that target the under- and overused muscle groups.
"I tell the crowd how the poses will benefit them if they are cycling," she said.
Matt Gallegos of Layton began cycling as rehabilitation after an injury and likes that Bell uses some of the same poses he practiced in physical therapy.
"Yoga definitely helps. I'm looser than I normally was," he said.
A stronger core
Yoga improves core strength, which enhances performance in any sport, Bell says. Russell's wife, Shauna, said her primary sport is snowboarding, but she cycles during the off-season. Yoga has helped her with both.
"Yoga is low impact on the body, which is also why I bike. Yoga helps with your core and balance," she said.
A strong core also prevents injury.
"Hips are the core of movement for the cyclist. If the core is weak, then the upper body has to work harder, and this can lead to back strain," Baptiste and Mendola said.
Matthew Howell of North Ogden said he is a martial artist as well as a cyclist and needs a strong core.
"Yoga is a break (from my normal workout). It's very intense training for that core strength. You don't realize how important core strength is until you throw your back out," he said.
Breathing for endurance
Bell said she focuses on breathing in the class because the way you breathe can help you stay in poses longer and that translates to endurance on the bike.
"Breath is the most important aspect of yoga," she said. "If you aren't breathing in a pose, the muscles tend to cramp and tire faster and the heart rate increases, causing further fatigue. Learning to have control of your breath not only brings an awareness to your body but also helps it relax during exercise."
Baptiste and Mendola believe that those who practice yoga learn to connect the rhythm of their breath with their pedal strokes.
"As in yoga poses, breath is vital to reaching those tight, restricted muscles that are in need of oxygen. So transfer your awareness of the breath in postures to your biking, where muscles undergoing physical exertion are especially in need of oxygen," they wrote.
Howell said slow breathing is also helpful when riding through an inversion.
"When breathing is hard you need extra lung capacity," he said.
Scott Davis of West Haven uses the breathing he's learned in yoga on long rides.
"Yoga helps a ton," he said. "You are stretching everything you don't stretch good enough. Breathing is a big thing. I learn how to breathe."
Baptiste and Mendola say the slow breathing of yoga also brings relaxation: "A tension-free upper body is vital to a cyclist's comfort and endurance. Tension sucks up the power you can put into pedaling."
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