Should You Do Yoga Before Running Or After Running?

Yoga is definitely beneficial for runners of all categories, entry level to elite. It helps to build muscles, boost focus, and strengthen and loosen your muscles to prevent injuries, among other benefits. Adding yoga to your exercises as a runner also helps to give your body the recovery it needs. However, there has been confusion over the right sequence for these different exercises. Should you do yoga before running or after? How often should runners do yoga? In this article, we will answer these questions and others that people frequently ask.

So, should you do yoga before running or after running?

Many people wonder if they should do yoga before running or after. The truth is, performing yoga before running has its advantages, as does after running. Despite having benefits before or after running, you should do yoga after running. To explain the reason behind this answer, let’s look at what yoga does to a runner’s body.

Yoga reduces muscle tension, relaxes the heart rate and body, stretches the muscles and joints, and kick-starts recovery. Yoga puts your body in a rest mode. Due to these reasons, it is recommended that runners perform yoga after running.

What Can You Do Before Running?

Warm-ups. Warm-ups are a series of movements that prepares people for a particular activity. A runner’s warm-up routine typically involves a series of stretches. But what is the importance of stretching, and how do they beat performing yoga in the morning?

]It is important to note that your body is completely resting before running. Your muscles are relaxed (or contracted), and so is your heartbeat. When you run, your pulse quickens, your heart pumps harder, and you sweat more. So before you begin running, it is important to prepare your body beforehand for the series of changes it will undergo from that resting stage to running.

One importance of warm-ups before running is to stretch the muscles in your body from being contracted to prevent injury. Stretches also get the heart pumping more, which is why you should warm up rather than doing yoga before running. Since the benefits of stretching before running are immense, you should do it every time before you run.

There are two types of stretches; dynamic and static stretches. Dynamic stretching is a process that allows the muscles to reach their full range of motion (which they will need to prevent injury from occurring while running). This type of stretch uses movements to prepare the muscles for more intense physical activity.

Benefits of dynamic stretches include increasing blood flow to the muscles, increasing running performance, reducing injury, increasing flexibility, boosting the range of motion, etc.

Static stretches involve you holding a particular position for some seconds. When performing this kind of a stretch, you focus on a single muscle group before moving to another. Its benefits include reducing stiffness, increasing blood flow, minimizing muscle pain, improving performance, etc.

You should perform dynamic stretches as warm-ups before running because it promotes movement of all the muscles and prepares them for running. Examples of dynamic stretches include side lunge, walking glute stretch, arm swings, bent knee forward swing, leg swings, etc. You can also perform stretches after running, preferably static stretches.

How Does Yoga Help Runners?

1. Boosts Recovery

There are specific yoga poses that will target muscles in your body and loosen them up after running. Yoga activates the parasympathetic nerves in your body which allows you to relax. Resting is one of the important aspects of a runner’s life, and it shouldn’t be overlooked.

2. Improves Flexibility

Yoga stretches your muscles and increases your range of motion. A thirty-minute session for a couple of weeks will make you feel more flexible. Flexibility can allow runners to stretch their legs wider and cover more ground while they run. It also loosens up muscles and makes them more elastic, reducing the risk of injury.

3. Builds Strength

Unlike other forms of strength training (weight lifting, for example), yoga uses your body weight to build strength. It can involve holding your body against the wall or floor in a particular pose for a while. It will give you lean and toned muscle and increase strength over time.

4. Yoga Improves A Runner's Performance

The strength, flexibility, and other benefits yoga provides make runners better. It’s not just the physical elements yoga can affect; it also improves a runner’s mental awareness and wellbeing. Many yoga practices involve posture that allows a person to relax and get rid of tension all around them, including the mind.

Yoga has the ability to enable runners to get rid of their anxiety. Since some of the poses require focus and being present, it teaches people to tune focus to certain areas of their body, like their minds, to increase awareness.

5. Improves Posture

Posture is an important element for runners. Good posture is necessary to be efficient at running. Also, maintaining a posture that doesn’t put stress on the spine or build up tension in the back and shoulders is essential. Through yoga practices, you can improve your posture.

Do Professional Runners Do Yoga?

Yes, many of your favorite athletes who run marathons, hurdles, or sprints, find yoga a healthy way to recover and improve strength, flexibility, and overall performance.

How Often Should Runners Do Yoga?

The answer to this depends on your use of yoga and how often you run. You can use yoga to build strength, increase flexibility, or recover from running. If it’s for strength training, three times a week should be enough because, unlike other forms of strength training, you see results from yoga more quickly.

For flexibility, five times a week or every day should be enough. This is because yoga for flexibility doesn’t require you to use a lot of energy, and each session can last for about 15-20 minutes.

If you’re using yoga to recover, you should do it after each run but make sure you’re not doing any strength or flexibility training. The yoga session should involve you relaxing your muscles.

Note that if you run every day of the week, you should have a yoga routine that fits your run’s demands.

Conclusion

Yoga is one of the recovery tips for athletes that experts recommend to help prevent injuries and improve performance. Runners have a lot of benefits to enjoy from adding yoga to their routine. How often that happens depends on how frequently you run and the general condition of your health after.

Thanks for reading along!

In some articles, In some of our articles, especially product-based stories you may see that they contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through my link. The goal with this passion project site has always been to educate and assist people using the in depth knowledge I have amassed through my career. If you do purchase through an affiliate link, I appreciate and thank you for your support!