Would doing Yoga be beneficial in any way? Son bought some dvd's and plans on doing them a couple days a week. Didn't see how it would be beneficial to piching. Would this help his pitching perfomance?
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I will give you my opinion, for what it's worth (not very much). I think yoga is very beneficial, especially to a pitcher. I had a AA level pitcher tell my son that yoga was the single greatest thing he discovered. He said it helped him get much more in tune where his body was in space. My son just signed with LSU. On his official visit, the S & C coach was pushing yoga. He stated they just started doing it as a team very recent. The way he explained it was it doesn't matter how strong you are if you cannot convert that to your specific job. That is where he saw the biggest benefit of yoga.
Yoga is great for pitching, and it is a great place to start, however there are a lot of positions in Yoga that don't benefit pitchers. Get going and then check out eric cressey's site for workouts and mobilitywod for pitching specific parts of Yoga that apply to pitchers.
Both of my boys now do yoga. My pitcher says his flexibility and balance are now much improved. He does it with the women's soccer team. My other son's team does yoga as a group. He also highly recommends it.
Funny- I just finished some yoga then logged on and saw this!
It definetly helps the flexibility and balance of a pitcher like LauraZA said- I highly recommend it as well.
POD, a scout recommended it in August, suggested start after his fall season ended. We saw in the mid-game/between innings interviews during the Arizona Fall League games that many AZL players said they were starting yoga after their fall seasons.
Son started yoga with a trainer about a month ago. He says it is a lot harder than it looks. As others say above there are position specific things to do & probably to avoid. Would guess it will be a regular part of college baseball.
Best of luck to your son.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving.
Yoga helps with flexibility and other things. Pitching is about flexibility. Strongly encourage you to join your son to check it out. I was somewhat skeptical as well and it helped me (old guy) with flexibility.
Over the course of my son's college career, it seemed that when he got away from yoga & flexibility exercise that he had issues.
Have fun with it!
I don't want to hijack this thread but since POD has received the answer that Yoga is most definitely beneficial and many pro and college programs are doing it I will add just a bit more information on flexibility (and lifting to some extent)
As we all know pitching (actually all baseball for that matter) is about power and flexibility. While Yoga is a great first step to gaining flexibility there is a lot of Yoga that does not necessarily apply to baseball athletes, not that it won't hurt it just that it may be not the most efficient use of time. There is also a website called mobilitywod (link below) that is dedicated to mobility of athletes. Guys like them, eric cressey and P3 sports are taking the next step in understanding and implementing programs for athletes that are studying and developing routines that are even better than the accepted "olympic lifts", Yoga, etc, that are becoming more accepted in the training of baseball athletes.
By all means get into a Yoga class and start working on core and legs, as this is great stuff and will improve a pitcher, but just be aware there is more information out there and even better activities available for those who want to seek them out.
I took a yoga class in college (when dinosaurs roamed) and to this day I still can do a lot of the moves and techniques, mainly to stretch. I found it to be a tremendous workout.
Barry Zito was a big practioner. Not that that is any great advertisement though.
Yoga is great. Pilates is great too. Similar to Yoga in it's aims, but more dynamic, less static. Both are great for increasing core strength and flexibility. My understanding is that many major league teams have long seen the benefits and incorporated them in their training regimes.
Please don't take this the wrong way, as I am only trying "cut to the chase" and save the OP time. But, I think we are well past the debate as to whether Yoga is beneficial to Pitchers, or any other baseball players, or any other athlete, frankly. The answer is Yes! It addresses core, flexibility, balance and strength...and mental focus. I don't do Yoga or own a Yoga studio, fwiw. I just know how great it is for those that have the time to do it (did experience it when I did P90X a couple years ago).
BOF posted some great links that I also definitely recommend checking out. To answer the OP's question, it really all depends on the athlete. For athletes who are "tight" and generally have mobility issues, yoga is great. For athletes who have hypermobile joints and are "loose" yoga can actually be detrimental as it can increase the risk of injury.
To simplify it even more, most athletes either have a stability or mobility issue. Some are kind of right in the middle and can benefit from both, but most of the athletes I work with are either on one far side or the other. To determine what side you're on you can perform a simple joint laxity test. To view how to do the test go to this link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...CxjFL3Tk&index=4
To score this test:
Give yourself a 1 if you can make an angle of 90* or > between your pinky and top of your hand. Score this for both sides.
Give yourself a 1 if you can touch your thumb to your forearm. Score this for both sides.
Give yourself a 1 if you can make a 10* or > angle between your upper arm and forearm (moderate to significant elbow hyperextension). Score this for both sides.
Lastly, give yourself a 1 if you can touch both palms to the floor while keeping your legs straight.
Tally up your total score out of 7. If you score a 0-2 your joints are naturally "tight" and you can greatly benefit from yoga. if you score a 3-4 you are kind of right in the middle and we'd probably need to look at your joints individually in more detail to determine which joints need more mobility and what joints need more stability. If you score a 5-7 your joints are naturally "loose" and yoga might actually increase your risk for injury. We need to do more stability work with you and very little to no stretching.
Hope this post helps some of y'all!
Originally Posted by Austin Womack:
BOF posted some great links that I also definitely recommend checking out. To answer the OP's question, it really all depends on the athlete. For athletes who are "tight" and generally have mobility issues, yoga is great. For athletes who have hypermobile joints and are "loose" yoga can actually be detrimental as it can increase the risk of injury.
To simplify it even more, most athletes either have a stability or mobility issue. Some are kind of right in the middle and can benefit from both, but most of the athletes I work with are either on one far side or the other. To determine what side you're on you can perform a simple joint laxity test. To view how to do the test go to this link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...CxjFL3Tk&index=4
To score this test:
Give yourself a 1 if you can make an angle of 90* or > between your pinky and top of your hand. Score this for both sides.
Give yourself a 1 if you can touch your thumb to your forearm. Score this for both sides.
Give yourself a 1 if you can make a 10* or > angle between your upper arm and forearm (moderate to significant elbow hyperextension). Score this for both sides.
Lastly, give yourself a 1 if you can touch both palms to the floor while keeping your legs straight.
Tally up your total score out of 7. If you score a 0-2 your joints are naturally "tight" and you can greatly benefit from yoga. if you score a 3-4 you are kind of right in the middle and we'd probably need to look at your joints individually in more detail to determine which joints need more mobility and what joints need more stability. If you score a 5-7 your joints are naturally "loose" and yoga might actually increase your risk for injury. We need to do more stability work with you and very little to no stretching.
Hope this post helps some of y'all!
Thank you to all that replied. This has been a huge help and I will pass on to son that he is most def not wasting his time. Above I can go ahead and tell you son probably has mobility issue. He is not just super flexible which is why he wanted to start in the first place I believe. Also, on a side note, son did a workout called Kempo today. Said it was super fun, lots of cardio, lots of core, and he was dripping sweat when he was finished. Anyone else worked out like this before?
I saw this on Erik Cressey's twitter feed and it looked interesting so I thought I would pass it along.
http://www.ericcressey.com/yog...nhibition-stretching
"Because many yoga positions require multi-planar movement in a controlled manner or positional hold, demanding perfect alignment in those poses forces athletes out of compensation patterns. Taking them out of these patterns activates muscles that have been dysfunctionally dormant, and inhibits the overactive compensators (effectively turning off the tension). It’s the activation and inhibition initiated in yoga—not stretching—that actually helps athletes become more mobile."
My 2016 LHP just started yoga. It came by way of a recommendation from Alan Jaeger regarding concentration and focus. My son uses it as a sort of pseudo form of meditation. Trying to calm his mind down. He says it works. He likes it