Although yoga inevitably – and rather tediously – gets referred to as a pursuit for girls and less “manly” men, anyone with an ounce of sense can see how it is beneficial for a wide range of people, and that it can play a part in an overall fitness regime. It may be some time before we see it performed on the pitch by sportsmen, but one thing is certain – for optimum levels of fitness, yoga has very much got a place in an exercise routine. This works in even more ways than the immediately obvious ones.

For certain, yoga is an excellent way of improving general flexibility. This will come as absolutely no shock to anyone. But fewer people think of how the more general application of that level of flexibility can translate to a higher level of fitness. After all, the more flexible you are the more effectively you can exercise. If you find yourself stalling at an early stage when trying to advance your fitness, yoga can get you an extra stage further by permitting you to exercise for longer and do a wider range of exercises.

Another thing that yoga helps people to improve is their breath control. Controlling your breathing is something that people do not pay enough attention to when it comes to general fitness. However, practising yoga for long enough will get you to a level where you can take greater control over your breathing and perform much better when in the gym. Most of us have been in the situation where a run or a bench pressing exercise extends us perhaps more than we would have wished. If we practice yoga, this will happen less often.

Of course, as the first paragraph mentioned, we may not see sportsmen practising yoga on the field very much any time soon, but already a number of teams have specialist instructors to give players a level of instruction which will indeed allow them to become more effective players. Although the players themselves may be sceptical to begin with, the results speak for themselves.