A recent email exchange with some parents and coaches from a youth team that I worked with in the past inspired me to write this.
I was originally told by a parent that a person suggested that the team should participate in a 20-30 minute yoga session for a pre-practice/game warm up. The parent was concerned and asked- isn’t yoga a “static” exercise and shouldn’t they be doing something to help warm up their bodies properly instead of a cooldown?
The reality is that I like yoga for hockey players- just not right before they start practice or a game. I like yoga from a perspective of using it to help athletes recover. For example, during the off-season we may strength train and condition on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. I would certainly recommend yoga on Wednesdays and Saturdays to help them recover from the previous workouts and recharge before the next one.
The yoga mentioned above is what most would consider yoga to be- a class like setting where they are doing yoga poses for an hour or so. That is something I wouldn’t recommend before practice. However, I don’t think it is a bad thing to utilize some yoga poses for a few minutes prior to performing a dynamic warm up before practices/games. Yoga poses such as Upward-Facing Dog and TableTop are good poses that can be looked at positively since they are opposite of the position that hockey players are always in. These could be performed prior to the dynamic warm up.
