Abingdon yoga

HOW YOGA CAN IMPROVE YOUR GOLF SWING

Golfer's spend millions each year trying to perfect their golf swing; yet the most important pieces of equiptment are often overlooked, their body and mind. Many prestigious golfing clubs and schools are now recommending yoga instruction to their clients as a result of the tremendous proven benefits it can provide for their members.

Golf magazine editor, Tara Gravel, says that along with weight training, yoga has become a complimentary fitness factor for golfers. Golf pros David Duval, Annika Sorenstam, Brad Faxon, Julie Inkster, Ty Tryon, Gary McCord, and Gary Player make yoga a part of their golf preparation.

Katherine Roberts, a columnist for GolfChannel.com notes how much the two activities have in common. Both require strength, flexibility, balance, a steady mind, and even steadier breathing. Each teaches you to live in the moment.

"Most golfers have rounded shoulders and inflexible back muscles, so they can't get full rotation on their swing," Roberts says. Poses like the modified cobra help you build strength in your lower back and thoracic spine and create openness in your chest. "Once your spine is in the correct position, you need less energy to rotate." Deep Ujjayi breathing, she adds, can help you relax on the green and concentrate more easily.

Golfers' back pain can result in some golfers giving up the game altogether. Vijay Vad, M.D., Hospital for Special Surgery, NY, developed a program randomly adding Yoga practice to his patients on medication for back pain. After 6 months about 80% of the patients practicing yoga experienced a decrease in back pain compared to 44% reduction for patients on medication only. 56% of the patients on medication experienced another acute episode of their injury, while only 12% of patients using yoga experienced a reoccurance.

Golfer's can also suffer from extra stress on joints. A study at the University of California at Davis found that within eight weeks of practicing yoga, subjects increased elbow extension by 31%, elbow flexion by 19%, knee extension by 28%, knee flexion 57%, ankle flexibility 13%, shoulder elevation 155%, trunk extension 188%, and trunk flexion 14%.

Studies have also shown that Yoga can produce measurable results in general health, including pulse, respiratory rates, and blood pressure. Important to any athlete, Yoga has also been found to increase dexterity, eye-hand coordination, steadiness, depth perception, coordination, energy level, endurance and strength.

Finally, other benefits from adding Yoga to your golf practice include the addition of breathing techniques and visualization. Learning how to connect the breath with movement increases strength, concentration, and calmness. The practice of quieting the mind, being able to focus on a single task at hand, and visualizing a winning putt is of enormous benefit to any golfer.

Sound too good to be true? Give it a try!

****If you are interested in setting up a yoga group of your own to focus on more power and flexibility for your golf game, please contact instructor.

Instructor's Recommendations

In order to gain all of the health benefits of a yoga practice, one must understand the importance of

discipline, patience, and time.

For many, this is a concept that is transformational in itself.

Results from a yoga practice can be quite dramatic, but only over time.

The body is continually reacting to our minds, our emotions, stresses, disease, and/or trauma.

When one introduces a new healthy regimen, the body will respond and eventually transform itself, if given enough time.

If you are a beginner, please feel free to join us anytime and try out a class.

If you decide to continue, please commit to at least 1 class a week.

Experts suggest a practice of at least 3 times/ week for maximum benefit.

Classes have been arranged so that you can take more than one class a week if preferred.

A good routine would be T/ TH/ SAT or T/Th, with some personal practice once a week at home.

Don't see a time that suites you? Grab some friends and contact Kristin to design a class just for you! (min. 5 students)

Personal instruction can also be scheduled, please contact the instructor

Yoga and Weight Loss Studies

It's not high intensity, and it doesn't burn megacalories, but a gentle yoga routine blasts fat as effectively as weight lifting does, says research represented at the American College of Sports Medicine's 2004 conference.

In one of the few studies that have compared these radically different exercise regimens, University of Pittsburgh researchers put 59 obese, inactive women, ages 25 to 55, on a low-fat diet. Everyone walked for 40 minutes 5 days a week; a third of the volunteers did additional strength-training exercises; and another third added a yoga routine 3 days a week. After 4 months, the yoga devotees dropped an average of 27 pounds; the strength trainers whittled away 23; and the walking-only group lost 20.

Study author Kara Gallagher, PhD, an exercise physiologist, warns that the differences aren't big enough to conclude that yoga is better than dumbbells. But it appears to be a soothing option with a surprising power to fend off excess pounds.

from Prevention.com

ADD WALKING TO YOUR YOGA ROUTINE

If 89.8 million Americans are walking for exercise, we bet they're having a good time doing it. And since 10 million folks are yoga-ing why not do both? Besides the obvious fat burn you feel when you've taken a new city by storm or run errands like a madwoman, recent studies show that regular walking decreases a wonman's risks of colon cancer. And, like yoga, it lowers blood pressure.

Keeping you BP on target lowers your risk for heart disease, the leading cause of death for women(and men). Combine yoga with walking and you've got the number one hybrid for long-term health.

from iyogalife.com

REDUCING ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION: Yoga can greatly improve your aliveness and mental health.

Read what the latest research is saying:

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and McLean

Hospital have found that practicing yoga may elevate brain

gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) levels, the brain's primary inhibitory

neurotransmitter. The findings suggest that the practice of yoga be explored

as a possible treatment for depression and anxiety, disorders associated

with low GABA levels.

The World Health Organization reports that mental illness makes up to

fifteen percent of disease in the world. Depression and anxiety disorders

both contribute to this burden and are associated with low GABA levels.

Currently, these disorders have been successfully treated with

pharmaceutical agents designed to increase GABA levels.

Using magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging, the researchers compared the

GABA levels of eight subjects prior to and after one hour of yoga, with 11

subjects who did no yoga but instead read for one hour. The researchers

found a twenty-seven percent increase in GABA levels in the yoga

practitioner group after their session, but no change in the comparison

subject group after their reading session. The acquisition of the GABA

levels was done using a magnetic resonance spectroscopy technique developed

by J. Eric Jensen, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard

Medical School and an associate physicist at McLean Hospital.

According to the researchers, yoga has shown promise in improving symptoms

associated with depression, anxiety and epilepsy. "Our findings clearly

demonstrate that in experienced yoga practitioners, brain GABA levels

increase after a session of yoga," said lead author Chris Streeter, MD, an

assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology at BUSM and a research

associate at McLean Hospital.

"This study contributes to the understanding of how the GABA system is

affected by both pharmacologic and behavioral interventions and will help to

guide the development of new treatments for low GABA states," said co-author

Domenic Ciraulo, MD, professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry

at BUSM.

"The development of an inexpensive, widely available intervention such as

yoga that has no side effects but is effective in alleviating the symptoms

of disorders associated with low GABA levels has clear public health

advantage," added senior author Perry Renshaw, MD, PhD, director of the

Brain Imaging Center at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital