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| I'm 16, and I play Varsity baseball for my highschool team.
I have heard at a few baseball camps that yoga has been used increasingly more for pitchers and developing balance and velocity, and me being a pitcher I thought I'd give it a shot. I've researched it through the internet but I havn't really been able to find much. But my sister used to do it and she let me borrow one of her videos. I started doing it once a day and I noted a difference in my windup and also in my control and velocity.
I was wondering if anyone could help me out and give me a few pointers and positions that would develop my balance and strength, as well as getting the most flexibilty out of my torso area.
Anything would be great
thank you in advance
-Jason |
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| Jason
Excellent question! Welcome!
Yoga will benefit your pitching in a couple of ways:
First, increased range of motion. You will become more flexible and increase your range of motion in the shoulders and hips which are essential to pitching. Generating velocity requires you to exert force on the ball over a distance and the longer the distance the greater the velocity. (I fudged the physics there but you get the point).
Second, yoga will help you calm your mind. Mental focus is extremely important to pitchers especially in clutch situations. Your ability to calm your mind, breathe deeply and focus will help you keep pitching strikes and picking off potential base stealers.
Third, balance will improve. You spend most of your time on one foot then the next. There are lots of good yoga poses that will help you strengthen your legs and balance.
However you want to remember NEVER do yoga before your games or before practices. There are numerous studies that show that static stretching can hinder performance especially in explosive actions. Light stretching is ok and dynamic stretches are good pre workout. Pitching is an explosive action: you need to generate as much force as possible in as short amount of time as possible. If you do too many deep yoga poses before or during a game, it will slow you down. Breathing exercises are great, but only do yoga poses after your regular workout or on off days.
You're young and you probably don't want to get too deep into yoga, so I would recommend reading
"Real Men Do Yoga" by John Capouya http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0757301126/qid=1104866971/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/104-9139157-8813540?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 It's a real basic intro to yoga for athletes.
Also check out "Power Yoga for Dummies" by Doug Swenson (an awesome yoga guy) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764553429/qid=1104867049/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-9139157-8813540 This book is a little deeper despite the title.
Also there are several yoga dvds for athletes that you might check out although I haven't seen any of them so I can't recommend them.
Despite all the books and videos, I recommend you take some real yoga classes at a real yoga studio. An athlete always benefits from a good coach. Yoga is no different. It would be a shame for you to learn something incorrectly and get injured. Furthermore, it's easier to learn something right the first time than to correct it years down the line.
Good luck and let us know how it goes. |
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| I'd have to agree with YogaGuy's points on this subject--especially the one about doing yoga with an instructor. I cannot stress enough the importance of doing yoga--especially as a beginner--with someone with lots of experience. A good instructor can help show you a lot of things that can help impove your "game," watch and correct your form, as well as show you how to prevent injury when going into a posture. The major drawback of following videos as a beginner is that no one is there to watch you and tell you what you're doing right or wrong!
Another suggestion: you might want to do your homework about finding a teacher that fits your needs by asking around your community, doing some research on the internet (yoga.com's instructor/studio directory is a great place to start), or going to your local sports club to see if there are yoga instructors in your area with a background in sports therapy or baseball who might be able to help you with a practice that can enrich your baseball training.
Have fun with yoga and baseball! Namasté. |
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| wow, those are some good answers, more than I expected
I'll look into those links and see if there are any local yoga instructors... I've also heard about not doing yoga before throwing or games, we do dynamic stretching as well as resistance stretching with surgical tubing.
Thanks a bunch for the info
-Jason |
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Yoga for Baseball?
