Sports Specific Yoga

For many years now athletes of all levels have been using yoga as a valuable resource to increase flexibility and mobility, to improve balance and core stability, to help both prevent and recover from injury, and as an aid to developing focus and mindfulness.

However, for yoga to be truly effective for a player or athlete it must be both sport specific and  also athlete/player specific. To find out more, please read on….

I am an accredited Sports Yoga Coach, having trained five years ago with Sarah Ramsden, who worked with both Manchester City and Manchester Utd for many seasons. I now assist Sarah on her course ‘The  Body Athletic’.

I have created and delivered individual programmes for a range of  professional, semi-professional and keen amateur athletes in various sports, including marathon running, boxing and football. I have worked with athletes of all ages, from the weekend warriors who have been pounding their way through distance runs for years, to young footballers who are already signed to clubs and hoping to become full professionals.  I take each client through comprehensive  Range of  Movement (ROM) and stability tests to see where restrictions occur.  Working with the client, we look at how repetitive movement patterns have caused these restrictions and develop a programme to mitigate this, developing efficient functional movement, thus enabling optimal performance.

“I wanted to get myself back in shape in my early forties, and in order to do that I restarted martial arts training (after a 15-year break) as well weight training and running. Almost immediately, I started accumulating injuries from out of condition muscles and joints. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend Karen’s sports yoga class at work, and it has been a fantastic addition to my fitness regime. It has improved my resilience through improved mobility and flexibility, coupled with some great core activation. I would highly recommend her classes, especially for sporty types.”

— Ashley Ball – Martial Arts Practitioner