Photo: Creatas

Yoga isn’t just for your bendy sister-in-law or a satiated Buddha. In fact, taking just one weekly yoga class or doing 15 minutes of poses after every bike ride will make you a stronger, faster cyclist. “Yoga is the single best cross-training tool,” says Prisca Boris, Yoga for Athletes instructor in Vail, Colorado. “It gives you everything you want while you’re on your bike: Strength, flexibility, power, and stamina.” Yoga also makes you less injury-prone, promotes speedier recovery, reduces stress, and lengthens muscles to give you a longer, more powerful stride.

Need more reasons to start? Here are five.

1. Recover without Being Sore

When you finish a ride the two things on your mind aren’t Triangle Pose or Sun Salutations but before you shower and eat, doing at least five minutes of post-ride posture will open your hips, back, and shoulders release lactic acid from your muscles to reduce soreness, says Baxter Bell, M.D., a family practitioner, yoga instructor, and cyclist in Oakland, California. Stiff muscles are dry muscles, so stretching and lubricating them increases recovery speed. This will also increase your stamina during training and guard against saddle-soreness tomorrow.

Do Triangle Pose: Stand with your legs 4 feet apart. Raise your arms shoulder-height, parallel to the floor with your palms down. Turn your left foot in about 45 degrees, and your right foot out 90 degrees. Your front heel should bisect the back foot. Bending from your hips, extend your torso to the right directly over your right leg, placing your right arm on a block behind your right foot. Stretch your left arm toward the ceiling, keeping your shoulders stacked in a straight line. Stay in this pose for 30 seconds to one minute. Inhale to come up slowly. Reverse the feet and repeat to the left.


2. Crash Protection

Textbook crash instructions say bring your arms into your chest because using your extremities to break your fall will likely break your arms. So you hope you land on your shoulder. Problem is, shoulders are the most mobile joints in the body, making them the most unstable and prone to dislocation. “If you crash, it’s really helpful to have strong shoulders so they won’t budge from their sockets when you hit the ground,” says Andria Baldovin, creator of the Yoga for Cyclists DVD. Acing Downward Facing Dog will give you the shoulder strength you need.
 
Do Downward Facing Dog: Start on your hands and knees, placing your hands directly under your shoulders, spreading fingers wide. Align your knees directly under your hips, and your toes turned under. Exhale and raise your knees and hips away from the floor until your body is in an inverted V position. Press your shoulder blades firmly into your back, then widen and draw them toward your tailbone. Keep your head between your arms. Once you’ve mastered this move on the mat, find this position on the bike (especially in your shoulders and back) for greater stability.

3. Look Mom, No Pain!

Everyone knows that the greater pain threshold you establish, the greater the cyclist you become. “When done deeply and effectively, breathing delivers oxygen to muscles that are straining and cramping,” Boris says. Instead of traditional in-through-the-mouth-out-through-the-nose athletic breathing, pranayama or yoga-breathing increases your tolerance for torture by releasing toxins like lactic acid and carbon dioxide from your muscles, Baldovin says. Use the following technique when you are on your bike and need to break the pain barrier.

Do Pranayama: Sit or lie in a comfortable position with your body completely relaxed. Breathe in through your nose. Place your hands around the bottom of your rib cage. This is where your diaphragm is located—the muscle that controls your breathing. Inhale and feel the breath expanding the bottom of your ribcage. You should feel your hands moving away from the center. As you exhale through your nose, gently contract your abdominals, squeeze around your diaphragm, and expel all of the air from your lungs. Again, inhale fully expanding the diaphragm, rib cage, and now take the breath further up and broaden the collarbone. Slowly exhale, gently contract the belly and squeeze the diaphragm as it contracts. Continue this exercise for 3 to 5 minutes until you feel comfortable with it.

4. Protect the Pedalhouse

Every pedal stroke counts toward accrued shortening and tightening in your legs muscles—a recipe for strains, pulls, and tears if you don’t attend to lower body imbalances. “Riding creates shortened muscles that fatigue easily,” says Dr. Bell. Since we’re not exactly known for listening to our bodies when they’re tired or in pain, prevent overuse injuries by hitting the mat after every ride. “Yoga will help you develop longer muscles, which puts less stress on your joints—especially those around your knees,” Dr. Bell says. You make sure your legs are lean, strong, and (sometimes) stretched, but your oft-neglected glutes deserve attention, too, as one of the largest muscle groups in your body. Thank them for generating the power behind “spinning.” However, “your cycling will be ineffective if your major power center is too tight,” says Beth Shaw, owner of YogaFit and teacher of yoga for cyclists in Redondo Beach, California. Chill out while you loosen your legs and bum in Child’s Pose.

Do Child’s Pose: Kneel on the floor, sit on your heels, and separate your knees about hip-width apart. Exhale and lay your torso between your thighs, placing your forehead on the ground. Lengthen your tailbone away from your body. Lay your hands on the floor alongside your torso, palms up, and release the fronts of your shoulders toward the floor. Stay here for 3 to 5 minutes—or more.


5. Get Down on Your Knees

Tight hips come from time in the saddle (good) but they off-set your alignment inviting overuse injuries in your ligaments and tendons. “Hip flexors are the main muscle controlling the movement when you pull the pedal up and bring your knee toward your torso,” Baldovin says. Stiff hips translate to a tight iliotibial band, a ligament that runs from the top of your hips to the outside of your knees keeping knees stable as you cycle. Iliotibial band friction syndrome, one of the most common causes of knee pain in cyclists, occurs when the ligament rubs against a projection at the end of your femur causing pain and swelling along the knee. Keep your hips open and knees healthy in Pigeon Pose.

Do Pigeon Pose: Start on your hands and knees with hands directly below your shoulders and knees directly under your hips. Slide your right knee forward, placing it between your hands. Lengthen your left leg straight back, and lower your hips toward the ground, keeping both hips facing forward. Press your shoulders back and down. Hold for one minute. Supporting your weight on your hands, return to starting position before repeating on the left.

More for Cyclists:
Stretch Your Gym Workout: Spinning
Spin, Doctored
Yoga on Two Wheels