Repair and rebuild
Undo the damage of cycling with these eight post-ride yoga poses
The more you cycle, the stronger you get. But all that time on the bike can also be detrimental to your body, resulting in aches and pains that prevent proper training or spoil your ride.
To combat this, more cyclists – amateur and pro – are turning to yoga, which can help improve flexibility and balance, release tension and correct muscular imbalances.
Why do cyclists need yoga?
Cyclists hold one basic posture that allows for minimal lateral or rotational movement: hips flexed, spine rounded, chin forward, arms out in front. It’s similar to the seated posture we adopt for much of the day (especially if you sit at a desk), except we increase stress on this fixed position by adding strength, power and long duration with repetitive motion from the hips down.
Maintaining this position for long periods creates muscular imbalances that can lead to pain and stiffness in the knees, hips, lower back, neck and in between the shoulder blades. Plus the narrow range of movement reduces mobility and can cause overuse injuries.
How does yoga help cyclists?
Yoga brings your body back into balance. Through careful pose selection we release tension, increase flexibility throughout the body, improve range of motion and build strength and stability in muscles that are under-worked.
Unlike in conventional stretching, breathing is a major focus. This can enhance body awareness, restore functional breathing patterns and calm and focus the mind.
The result is faster recovery, fewer aches and a reduction in stiffness. It can also help improve performance by allowing you to adopt a more aero riding position, with greater movement and energy efficiency and an increase in power, speed and endurance.
This eight-pose sequence should take you around 15 minutes. It’s likely to be most effective directly after a ride or in the evening, but you can play around with the time to see what works for you.