If you ask someone who’s never done yoga before what they think it involves, the usual response is “stretching.” It’s always great fun to get someone in a yoga class for the first time who thinks it’s going to be a workout for lightweights. Fifteen minutes into it, when they haven’t left their 6′ x 2′ mat and they’re sweating like crazy, it begins to sink in that this workout could be better than they’d originally thought.
The truth of the matter is yoga can be as mellow or as arduous as you make it, just like any physical practice. The beauty of yoga is that it goes beyond just the physical. If you allow it to be so, it can be quite spiritual and transformational as well.
The physical branch of yoga, which is popular in the West, is called asana. While very useful unto itself, asana is actually a precursor to deeper and more spiritual mind and body practices.
Benefits to Firefighters
As firefighters, we should recognize that many of the benefits of yoga are tailor-made for our needs. Strength, flexibility, balance and breath control are four of the many physiological benefits that come with regular yoga practice.
Strength Training
Although it may appear passive to the casual onlooker, there’s a great deal of strength to be gained by doing yoga, both physically and mentally. Ironically, the mental strength comes in letting go of the notion that you have to think your way through every action. The truth is that the more you understand your body and learn how to use it more efficiently, what used to be challenging becomes effortless.
Mental strength is also built through increasing mental focus applied throughout asana class. Try taking four long, slow breaths without letting your mind wander from the act of taking those breaths.
The physical strengthening comes from resisting gravity, extending your body in opposing directions and creating tension between various body parts. Yoga poses are effective at strengthening because typically, the muscles are contracting while stretching or elongating, commonly referred to as an “eccentric muscle contraction.” As discussed in our article, “Ouch! It hurts, but muscle soreness is key to muscle strength” (www.firefighternation.com/profiles/blogs/ouch-it-hurts-but-muscle), eccentric exercises are typically a more effective way to strengthen than the alternative, concentric exercises, which involve flexing the muscle as it shortens.
Flexibility
Contracting agonist and antagonist muscles while stretching is what helps make yoga effective at increasing flexibility. Also, after 20 seconds in a pose, the body’s stretch reflex is inhibited, allowing the nervous system to reset the resting length of a muscle.
Flexibility comes with your own willingness to explore your body’s ability to relax while working, but the real key to deep stretching is in learning to let go of resistance–resistance you probably don’t realize you’re creating. It’s like peeling an onion: As you peel away the top layer of resistance, you find another layer underneath. Each exhale carries you to a deeper level of release and flexibility range.
Note: For more on the concepts of stretching, many of which are integrated into yoga, read “Exercise Isn’t Enough,” June 2009, p. 92.
Balance
One intention of yoga is to create balance between mind, body and spirit. The physical practice of yoga offers a profound method for creating balance in the body. Most sports and physical activities offer a limited range of motion, and tend to exacerbate imbalance in the body. Tight hamstrings and quads, tight outer hips, a hypermobile sacrum, a weak upper back, even tight or weak ankles will lead to problems through the body over time.
Yoga, however, is specifically designed to work toward a balance of strength and flexibility in all muscle groups, with a special focus on proper alignment. It creates overall balance not only by focusing on healthy muscles, heart and lungs, but also by mobilizing all the organs, stimulating the glandular system and regulating the nervous system.
One of the most sobering realizations most people have after their first attempt at yoga is their poor level of physical balance. Poor balance isn’t as obvious as weakness or inflexibility on a daily basis. But in trying to perform certain one- and even two-legged yoga poses, your ability or inability to balance will become crystal clear.
Don’t get discouraged! Balance is only one component that can help you achieve your goals within yoga practice. You can use walls, railings, furniture or any other stationary item to maintain a pose.
Another clever idea that will give you versatility when supporting your pose: Use a 4’—5′ wooden dowel that measures ¾ to 1 inch thick. This will provide some stability, but you’ll still be able to test and improve your balance.
Breath Control
The benefits of breath control will serve you well in many ways. Air moves into and out of the lungs in one of two ways: deeply through the nose or shallowly through the mouth. Each of these techniques has its own unique effect on the body as a whole.
The autonomic nervous system is a component of our peripheral nervous system, which controls our involuntary actions at a visceral level. It’s divided primarily into two distinct subsystems: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS.)
Rapid, shallow mouth breathing stimulates the SNS, which is closely associated with fight-or-flight physiology. Therefore, by virtue of your very breathing pattern, you can initiate the manifestation of your body’s physiological effects of fight-or-flight preparation. This can include shunting of the blood from your brain and organs to the extremities, elevated heart rate, dilated pupils, decreased bowel function and dilated bronchioles. In essence, it prepares your body for exertion, not relaxation.
Conversely, the effects of breathing deeply through the nose stimulate the PSNS. The function of the PSNS is, as you might expect, quite different than that of the SNS. The PSNS, at a basic level, facilitates a restful state. And when your body is in this physical state, it allows your mind to focus and work from a calm place. So by working the breathing aspect of yoga, you’re teaching your body how to stay relaxed even while it’s working.
Many yoga poses encourage you to reach and hold deep, extended positions while maintaining control over your breathing. For the purposes of enhancing ourselves as firefighters, we encourage long and deep breathing practice. This is particularly beneficial when we’re in strenuous situations with a limited air supply.
Deep breathing isn’t just about taking a deep breath. It’s also about exhaling thoroughly to allow for more complete oxygenation. When you take full inspirations and push the old stale air out of your lungs with your diaphragm, you introduce fresh air into the depths of your lungs.
A Final Note
There are many styles of asana yoga. Half the fun is exploring what works best for you.
In our next column, we’ll discuss the key elements to yoga practice and how to get the most of that practice.
The authors would like to thank Mary Johnston-Coursey, their yogi, for her input on this article.
