Is yoga good for figure skating?

Yoga increases core strength – excellent for figure skaters

Core strength is so woven into the fabric of yoga, it is difficult to name many postures (asana) that don’t incorporate core strength.

Figure skaters need an all round strong core (as do we all) and yoga provides that in abundance.

The reason why yoga as so good for figure skating is that it targets all four sides of the core.

When many of us think of a strong core, we think of six pack abs (a six pack is more to do with levels of body fat than muscles in the core and a six pack is not a guarantee of a strong core), but all four sides of the core require strengthening, the abs at the front, the obliques to the sides and the muscles of the back (there are many more muscles in the core, but I don’t want to bore you). There are internal and external versions of some of these muscles too! Yoga can help with many of these.

Not forgetting the importance of the psoas (including the hip flexors), the pelvic floor and the way in which all of these interact with muscles like the glutes and more.

Positions such as side plank (vasisthasana), upward plank (purvottanasana), boat pose (paripurna navasana) and locust pose (salabhasana) among many others will work the core intensely.

Many of the poses in yoga that work the core also involve some degree of balance, which in turn, works the core even more. Both core strength and balance are an important element in figure skating.

Is yoga good for figure skaters in terms of full body functional strength?

Yoga is great for functional strength. Yoga is not a ‘cure all’ and will not work all muscles evenly. There are many of the ‘pull’ muscles that yoga does not work as much as the ‘push’ muscles, but yoga does work many muscles in a functional way. This can be an advantage to figure skaters that require a great deal of functional strength.

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If you look up the definition of functional strength, it will probably look like this. ‘The ability of muscles working together in groups to perform a movement and or load bearing function’. Or something close to that, there are probably references to the skeleton, joins and nervous system too.

The bottom line is, its takes lots of muscles and joints to pick up your shopping bags at the store, not just the biceps in your arms.

Yoga often focuses on whole body interaction whilst performing and transitioning into and out of poses. Many yoga teachers will refer to some poses as a whole body experience.

Working in a functional way such as in yoga assists the strengthening of muscles in the groups that usually work in to perform tasks. This is very helpful to figure skaters, as figure skating is also a ‘full body experience’.

Figure skaters need strength, not necessarily bulky muscles. I have seen videos on you tube where even very muscular body builders, have seen increases in their strength due to the functional nature of the movements.

Yoga could increase figure skaters control through strength

The ability of figure skaters to control their body is immense. Yoga can help with control, by encouraging yogis to hold positions and transition between them slowly. Using breath control and and the increased functional strength provided by yoga, figure skaters could apply the control of strength to their training on ice.

Yoga is good for figure skaters flexibility

Is yoga good for the all round flexibility required by figure skaters?

In general, Yoga is great for all round flexibility. The range of movement used in yoga is vast.

Monkey pose (hanumanasana), low lunge (anjenayasana), king pigeon pose (eka pada rajakapotasana) and cobblers pose (baddha konasana) are all hip openers, as are revolved head to knee pose (parivrtta janu sirsana) and wide angled seated bend (upavistha konasana) and there are many more.

Standing poses like king dancer (natarajasana) are very similar to biellman spins and could help a great deal in the preparation for such moves on ice.

Figure skaters could also benefit from yoga poses such as warrior III (viribhadrasana III), which increase flexibility strength and balance needed for figure skating spirals.

Yoga will take you some of the way, but possibly not all of the way

Yoga will certainly provide a good all round flexibility, but there are some areas of figure skating where very high levels of flexibility are required for certain elements. For these elements regular stretching of that particular part of the body may be required.

Is yoga good for hamstring flexibility?

Ham string flexibility is a constant work in progress for most figure skaters, yogis an d myself included. The ham strings seem to tighten so easily. For me they need stretching regularly.

This is where I find that yoga comes into its own. So many of the yoga sequences involve standing forward folds (uttanasana), that you end up stretching your ham strings regularly.

Many of the more static poses also have ham string stretches in them. I f you practice yoga regularly, I find that you don’t have to focus on your ham strings that much, as they just seem to get more supple through the general practice of yoga.

Is yoga good for figure skating moves like spirals and biellman spins?

Yes it is. If you look at the Biellman spin, it does look a lot like the yoga asana King Dancer, also known as Lord of the Dance (Natarajasana), you have to admit it looks an awful lot like the figure skating element, the Biellman spin.

Of course it takes a lot more that practicing King Dancer a few times to perfect a Biellman spin. But the elements are there. Yoga can help in other ways in terms of the flexibility required in the back, in the legs and in the hips. Back bends like cobra (Bhujangasana), Puppy Pose (Uttana Shishosana) and Bow Pose (Dhanurasana) are good for working on back flexibility.

Extended Hand to Big Toe Pose (Utthita Hasta Padangustasana) is great for flexibility in the legs, the hips and requires a lot of balance! Getting those ham strings a little longer, can be helped along by the seated forward fold (Paschimottanasana). Head to knee pose (Janu Sirsasana) is a classic for stretching those ham strings.

Low lunge (Anjaneyasana) is a great hip opener, as is the splits, or how it is known in yoga – Monkey pose (Hanumanasana). These will all help to approach the Biellman.

There is a yoga approach to the spiral too. The standing split (Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana), is a great way of approaching the figure skating element, the spiral. When learning the standing splits, you start attempting to raise your free leg to the horizontal position, parallel to the floor. Just as you do when learning the spiral on ice. As you progress, you begin to raise your leg higher.

Unlike the spiral, as the standing splits free leg gets higher, the head goes down. As you know, in spirals, you have to keep your head up, arching your back. This is why it is valuable to practice yoga poses such as the King Dancer, bow and locust pose (Salabhasana).

It is the combination and regular practice of all of these yoga poses that will help with figure skating elements like the Biellman spin and spirals. Yoga regularly transitions between these poses and the practice of yoga will naturally help.

Is yoga good for figure skaters balance?

Balance is a funny thing, you sort of practice it whist wobbling and assume you have terrible balance and that its never going to get better. But you do slowly.

Yoga is good for general all over balance for figure skaters and non skaters alike

As you practice yoga, you will notice that there are certain poses that are dedicated to balance, like tree pose (Vriksasana). But then so many poses that are associated with strength and flexibility also require a measure of balance, like triangle pose (Trikonasana).

Balance is sort of woven into the fabric of yoga and I think that there may be some benefits of this constant balancing that may be transferable to figure skating.

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Does yoga improve control muscles for figure skaters?

Well according to the Cleveland Clinic, yes it does. That is to say not just for figure skaters, but in general.

Yoga, involves a lot of balance. It has a lot of balancing postures in it. The balances cause you to wobble. Controlling these wobbles, causes your stabilizing muscles to get stronger. From this, other muscle groups that act in combination with these stabilizing muscles get stronger too.

So there is a good argument to say that yoga does increase your control muscles that act to stabilize the body which may well be a transferable skill in terms of figure skating.

Of course figure skating itself is great for building those control muscles and increases balance. To see just how many ways figure skating has a positive affect on your health and fitness, I have researched and written a comprehensive guide to how figure skating affects your body. Check it out here in my article…. Is ice skating good exercise?

Yoga contains a lot of one leg postures and side balances that could be helpful to figure skaters

Most figure skaters will agree that when skating, you spend most of your time on one leg or another. Skating with feet on the ice at the same time is known as ‘dual tracking’ and except when it is needed, is generally frowned upon in figure skating.

Yoga has many one leg poses and also side balances that strengthen the side core and put weight over one leg or one side of the core. The transitioning into and holding these postures could well be of use to figure skaters.

Can yoga be used to prevent or reduce injury in figure skaters?

Good question right? Well make no mistake, falling in figure skating is never going to be a pleasant experience. Even with the best preparation, ice skating is an inherently dangerous sport, but could yoga help when falls happen?

Could gains in flexibility obtained through yoga lessen injuries for figure skaters?

Well I am neither a figure skating coach nor a qualified yoga instructor. I am a figure skater and a yogi of about nine years each at the time of writing this article.

My guess is that, if you are generally more flexible, you are less likely to tare and strain body parts when you fall. If this is true in medicine fact, I don’t know. I have taken a couple of falls where I have ended up in obtuse positions, where, were I less supple. I may have been injured more. Certainly, if you accidentally do the splits on ice, i would be less painful if you could do the splits anyway? I will leave it up to you to decide. But I think flexibility gained from yoga helps.

Core strength via yoga to help with figure skating falls

The bottom line hear is keeping your head off the ice. When you fall backwards, there is a good chance that your bottom will hit the ice first. When this happens you are in a sort of banana shape, your head is up, your feet are up and your bottom is hitting the ice.

When all of your weight is transferred to the ice, more or less the only things stopping your head hitting the ice are your neck and core muscles. If you have good core muscles, they will be strong enough to help keep your head off the ice. When your body wants to flatten out on impact, your core will help keep the banana shape and keep your head up.

Now this isn’t always possible. I had a bad fall a few weeks back. I fell back when I clashed skates with my dance partner and I ended up going backwards and hitting my head. It was a nasty blow, but I believe it could have been worse had I not been able to take some of the impact through my core. So in my opinion, core strength helps with some falls and yoga helps develop core strength.

Preventing falls with core strength

Being able to engage your core in some figure skating elements may save you from a fall. For example a leg swing. When you swing your leg forward, your body naturally wants to go backwards in an equal and opposite direction. Good positioning and tightening of the core at the time of the swing can help to reduce the body’s urge to rock back away from the swing.

There are of course many more elements in figure skating that require core strength. Many of which good core strength can help prevent a fall.

Rehabilitation

After a fall, you are generally under the guidance of doctors and coaches and of course you should always follow professional medical advice before any other.

Getting back into skating and exercise after the healing period can be tricky. This is where I have used yoga many times. Yoga is as hard or as easy as you want to make it, especially if you are following online yoga classes, no one can see how hard, or not, you are working. This allows you to gently get back into exercising and stretching those tight spots out in a gentle way. Yoga seems sometimes insignificant, but with regular practice and very little effort, you can start to get back to what you love.

When I say with very little effort, you do have to put some effort in, but its surprising what strength and flexibility you get out for how much you put in. A little goes a long way when you practice yoga regularly.

A little word of warning

When you do go back to yoga after injury, like I did a few weeks ago, you may think that you are totally better, but the unusual shapes in yoga can find areas that are still sore and make them worse if you are not careful, so go easy. Better to gentle than to worsen an injury.

Remember, I am neither a doctor, yoga teacher nor figure skating coach. Listen to your body and always get a professional opinion from a competent medical practitioner before returning to yoga or figure skating after an injury. If you are undertaking physio therapy for an injury, always speak to them first before going back to skating or yoga.

Always seek medical advice before taking up a new type of exercise.

Is yoga good for the mental health of figure skaters?

In a word…….. Yes, I think so. Infact I would go as far to say as yoga is good for anyone’s mental health, whether you are a figure skater or not. Here are three good reasons why yoga can help the mental health of figure skaters (and most other people for that matter)

#1. Yoga can help with breathing patterns

Yep, breath exercise is woven into the very fabric of yoga. Its always “whilst breathing in do this” and “whilst breathing out do that”. This gets you used to breathing whilst doing tricky things. It also gets you used to slowing down and controlling your breath. There are loads of breathing techniques in yoga, I’m not going to list them here, but suffice to say that they are useful to anyone, especially figure skaters. They can be useful when you want to wind down, warm up or chill out before a big event. Its just a handy trick to have under your belt.

#2. Yoga can help you to relax

In general yoga chills you out, after the yoga session and beyond. When figure skaters face tough work outs, stressful competitions or general stresses of life, yoga can be of assistance.

Be mindful – Being aware of yourself, your body and thoughts and emotions without being judgemental of them can calm your mind and give you space to chill.

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Yoga shows you what stress feels like in body and mind. If you can identify it sooner, you can nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. Maybe with yoga, or maybe with something else like listening to music. The point is that you notice stress more when you have had it taken away. You learn a lot about your body with yoga. The more you notice the more you can act with actions of self love to deal with it. Whilst we are talking about self love, check out #3.

#3. Yoga is good for body image – a hot topic in figure skating

Yes there has been a lot of bad press lately regarding how figure skating can adversely affect body image. There have been some high profile skaters who have disclosed eating disorders and the pressure of the sport on body image. Much needs to be done in the sport to promote body image, mental health and support for those with eating disorders. Yoga is not the the entire solution, but it has some wonderful teachings with regards to body image.

Yoga teaches us that, we are not trying to change our bodies. Not to suit ourselves or others, but rather that, we are already perfect. Yoga does transform our bodies, but that is certainly not its intent. The intent is to listen to and see our bodies for the utterly beautiful gift that they are and to be ever grateful.

Grateful, yes gratitude, for what we have, to care for and love our bodies. The transformative power of yoga is not just the one that occurs visually, aesthetically, but rather the epiphany, that we all already complete.

Yoga will give you more strength and there may well be external changes as your body tones, but the real strength gain in strength of mind. The knowledge that what we need, we already poses and the person we want to be, we already are. The movement (Asana) is just one of the eight limbs of yoga, the teachings that accompany it are as, if not more important. That is why yoga is good for figure skaters and promotes good body image.

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