¶ Exploring Yoga for Runners
So you're thinking about running , but not sure how to take the first step . My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help . Welcome to Brian's Rompod .
So , hey there , runners and wellness warriors , welcome back to another episode of Brian's Run Pod , where we dive into all things running , fitness and the holistic practices that keep us moving strong , week after week . I'm your host , brian Patterson , and today we've got a real treat for you .
Our guest today is someone who's been mastering the art of mindful movement for over two decades . She's a seasoned vinyasa yoga teacher with more than a thousand hours of training across a range of yoga styles , from Ashtanga to aerial yoga .
She studied under some of the most respected names in the yoga world , including David Swenson and Rodney Yee , and even spent time in Mysore , india , honing her craft under the guidance of Sharatha Rangaswamy I hope I've got that right .
Her name is Nikki Yazbek and she is here to share her incredible journey insights on the transformative power of yoga and how you yes , you can find your personal edge on the mat and in life . Whether you're a runner looking to enhance your flexibility , build strength or just breathe a little easier , this is the episode for you .
So lace up your running shoes and give a warm welcome and get ready for some inspiration and let's dive into and say welcome to Nikki . Welcome , hi , everyone .
I love that .
Someone wants to describe that as being quite cute . Anyway , how are you today , Nikki ? Have you had a good day ?
I'm doing great . Yeah , thank you . A different time zone for me than it is , are you today ? Nikki , have you had a good day ? I'm doing great . Yeah , thank you . A different time zone for me than it is for you today ?
yes , yes , yes , so it's just gone five past five , so I think five past ten for you , is that right ?
yeah yeah .
So as I do start say with every , with all my guests , I kind of would like to get a sense of what exercise relationship was . Your relationship with exercise was in terms of you growing up like at school or at high school and then sort of going into , you know , college or whatever .
Yeah , I had pretty athletic parents . Like they weren't athletes , but they would always go and exercise at the gym and so I was always tagging along from a really young age back in the day when they had like step aerobics , when we would wear little outfits .
And yeah , jane Fonda , yeah , totally not to age myself right no um and so I was going with my mom to the gym and doing all those floor classes and then eventually went into the machines and weights , and so I did that all through , I think , junior , high and high school , and then through college as well .
I think when I went to graduate school I dropped off the wagon for a couple of years just because I was so entrenched in school , and then since then I've just always been doing some form of exercise yoga , and then something else .
I started yoga in 1999 for my own personal practice , and yoga has been a part of my physical activity , and then also other things . So I still go to the gym , I still do other activities as well as yoga .
All right . Was there anything , a particular event that drew you to yoga ?
You know , my mom did yoga and so I went , initially because she did and I thought it would be something I would be interested in .
I went to the wrong type of yoga class for me because there's so many different styles and I got pretty turned off of it and then so I didn't go back for a few years and then eventually I went back on my own and found a style that I resonated with .
Okay , and what was that journey like ? I mean , how did you sort of find that style for you ? Because obviously maybe some of my listeners who haven't tried yoga , what advice would you give to them in terms of finding that right style , because there are just so many disciplines ?
Yeah , and that's the thing I think . People think yoga and they put it in one box and there's so many different forms of yoga , there's so many different styles and even one teacher that teaches a specific style .
If you go to 10 different teachers that teach that same style , you're going to have a different experience , and so I really think it's important to go and find a teacher that you resonate with , somebody that speaks your language , that you just feel good , you walk out of there and it matches your personality .
I do sometimes think that type A people tend to go for the type A kind of yoga and the type B people go for the type B yoga , which is not as active and more yin and more restorative , and I think it's really important to go for the style that we're not typically drawn to and go a little bit outside of the box .
Okay .
I think initially it's just like find someone that you love , that you jive with .
And do you think because I think I know you did say that you kind of had some runners who've or maybe the runner you trained who you've done yoga , but do they tend to gravitate to a particular style ?
or again , it can't sort of you know run , some runners will go to one particular style do ashtanga or do something else yeah , I think runners are type a personality and so they're going to resonate more with the vinyasa flow , the active ones , the ones that have a lot of movement , versus the ones that are a little bit slower .
But I think any yoga is better than no yoga so yeah , find someone that you like that's better than nothing and then maybe , once you've gone down the path and you understand the yoga language because it has its own language then branching out and exploring other types of teachers okay , okay , let's go sort of back to basics , because I'm total novice when it comes
to yoga .
I mean , I I haven't really experienced yoga at all , but are there any sort of core principles across all of them ?
yeah , I think yoga it's really important to just kind of get in touch with your body and go into your body and not be so focused as what's going to happen next and go into the next movement or , you know , comparing ourselves to others .
And so I think in the beginning everyone's just going to go to a yoga class and they're just going to try to figure out like where's my right and my left and what is happening and like what am I doing with my body , and just trying to organize our body in space , which takes a little bit of time to get used to the language and the movements .
And then , as you move further into your yoga practice , you're going to start focusing the movements along with the breath , and that's super important and that's not something that's going to come initially . That's going to come with a little bit of practice , but the breath and the movement together are key for the success in yoga .
And so I think that it's really just being present , being in your body and finding some joy with the movement in your body and because you're going to be moving things that you haven't moved before and you're going to be finding muscles that you haven't found in a long time and you're going to be doing things that are awkward and uncomfortable and it's just
moving through that uncomfortableness and that awkwardness Instead of doing the same pattern movement that we do over and over again , which running is very rhythmic and patterned .
It's kind of straightforward in that , in that frontal plane yeah , action yeah and it's really good to get outside of that box , for our body to be more whole , more complete , stronger , more flexible .
Yeah because I know . When I was , I had one of other guests who a triathlete and this is a little different . But he said that people who cycle tend to have very inflexible hips and people who run , because of the nature of their running , you know have and I know I suffer from it have very inflexible ankles .
So do you think you know we come , because you know we've been doing this repetitive exercise quite a lot . We come with all this package and it's hard to sort of uncoil ourselves in a way .
Yeah , definitely . I mean , runners have tight hips , tight hamstrings , tight calves , and so twisting and turning that kind of movement is really difficult . And so twisting and turning that kind of movement is really difficult .
And I think that the the the hurdle I think runners have to get over is that they're usually good at running , they're usually something that they're comfortable with , and so yoga is going to be something that they're going to struggle with in the beginning because because of those tight spots and so it's getting through that hurdle and like putting ourselves in a
position where we're not comfortable , but we know in the long term it's going to be something that's good for us . But in the beginning it's going to be really uncomfortable and they're not necessarily going to be like quote good at it .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . Are there any things that that , when we come into , let's say , yoga class , our first yoga class , or any things that we need to be , you know , as runners or haven't done it before , sort of any lessons that we sort of need to just sort of take on board ?
I'm just thinking like just to slow things down and just to take I like you said , not watch what other people are doing , like those kinds of things .
Yeah , I mean , I think the first thing is , if you have any injuries or anything like that , to let the teacher know . And then yoga is a quiet practice , so during the whole practice there's not a lot of talking , so just knowing that you're going to .
When you enter the room , it's typically quiet through the whole class and then , yeah , it's a really individual practice . So comparing yourselves to others is not going to put yourself in the good head space , but it really is interesting to think about what are those thoughts that are coming up during your practice and noticing them .
So notice if you are comparing yourselves to others , or notice if you are feeling like you want to give up quickly , noticing if you are struggling with the breath , and just noticing them without judgment . And knowing that props a lot of yoga classes have props , so they have belts , straps , blankets , things like that . And it's not a weakness to use a prop .
It's a strength , because sometimes putting your hand on a block is going to make something easier , but it's also going to put your body in better alignment and so it's better for your body . And so I think sometimes people have that thought that a prop is like a weakness and that a hundred percent is not .
Is there any one thing that people get wrong ?
Usually is there a common thing when they come into it for the first time thing , I think , yeah . When they come into it first time , yeah , I think . I think a lot of people are surprised when they come into a yoga class how challenging it will be for them and that there's this misconception . When they look at yoga online that it looks really easy yeah or .
But then they get into the class and they realize really simple movements are actually really difficult .
I think I find the opposite , that I think it would be really hard , and I think the fact that I've taken that first step , I think even for I don't know if you agree with me here for men taking that first step into the room is kind of a bit of a leap forward , and the fact that they've taken that first step is it's 50% of the way there , as it were
. Do you agree ?
Yeah , I mean , I love working with men , and men come into classes all the time and it's really good , it's really humbling and it's a really good way to get our egos in check and it is it's like totally there's more and more men , men , coming , so there's not a stigma around that at all .
¶ Progress and Benefits of Yoga
And the one thing I would say is that yoga is different than a lot of other sports and activities , because I think a lot of sports , by the time you hit 30 , you're going to hit this downhill path , but yoga , if you start in your 30s , your 40s , your 50s , whatever age you begin , you're going to see progress and so it's really cool the tighter you are
when you come into that class , the more you're going to see that progress from . I couldn't touch my toes in the beginning of class and now I'm an inch or two further , and then weeks down the road , if you do it two to three times a week , even once a week , right After a couple of months you're going to notice that you could .
You might actually be able to touch your toes and you couldn't before . So you're going to actually be able to see that progress and there's not like an age cap on it which is unique .
I think that's a really vital point , because I know that . You know , as you get older I mean I'm 62 .
So , and as I , as you , as as you get older , then you're always thinking back oh well , I used to run 10k and so and so time , and whereas , with something like this type of exercise , you can see that progress and then you , you can see that improvement .
Um , whereas I know that when you are doing aerobic exercise , when you're younger , you can get faster or , you know , get fitter .
But then there comes a point where there comes diminishing returns , where it , you know , that doesn't happen , whereas you said , it's something that you're , it's a new , it's a new discipline , it's something new where you can see that progress .
It's a new discipline , it's something new where you can see that progress . Yeah , I also think that there's with men . They're surprised at how challenging it is , because you are challenging those muscles that you don't typically use every day , and so it is strength building .
So you're going to see your strength increase , you're going to see your flexibility increase . You're going to see your flexibility increase . You're going to see your range of motion increase and you'll be able to feel the benefits of it pretty quickly .
I would say that most people , when they come to a class , by the end of the class , they can feel different brilliant , and that's even after day one , is that right ? yeah , yeah are they ?
I know you talked about the breath work . Why is that um so so difficult initially ? Why ? Why do people get sort of sort of get anxiety about it , or do they get anxious ? Yeah ?
I think . I mean I remember my first yoga class . The teacher was going through this flow and I literally couldn't . I mean , we know which are right and our left side are , but when you get in yoga and they're like right foot forward , left foot back and it gets a little confusing . And so it does take some time to get used to the language .
It does take some time to get used to what the shapes are in the practice and how our body moves in space . And so in the beginning of yoga , we're in our head a lot , just trying to figure out we're looking around , are we doing this right ?
This is all new language , and so you're going to be comparing yourselves to others , but I don't think that's a negative . You're just trying to figure out if you're doing the right thing and if something feels horrible , there's a good chance that you're not doing the right thing .
If it feels good , you probably are , and then they always talk about the edge , whereas we want to push ourselves a little bit past our comfort zone , but never into pain , and that's where that growth happens .
So you know , as a runner , when you do a forward fold , you're going to feel some tension in the back of your legs and it's not going to hurt , it's not going to be painful , but it's definitely going to push you a little bit , and so you want to go into those states , but a little bit longer than you normally would , so that your muscles have time to
lengthen and stretch out , and so it does take the breath when you're in that . So if you're , if you're hyperventilating your body , your nervous system is like amped up , and that's not what we want .
So you're not breathing right . Yeah , you're not breathing right .
But in the beginning I wouldn't worry about the breath , I would just worry about like going , showing up , getting yourself in that space and getting used to the language and the movements , and then , once that has become a little bit of second nature and you don't have to think so much , then you can dive into the breath piece .
So if I let's say I've moved on from day one to day two and I've come back you've convinced me , I'm coming back Is it going to take the same format ?
Yes and no . So if you go , say the same teacher , there's going to be some threads that are common and then there's going to be some new things . So a lot of times there's a lot of new shapes getting thrown in . But most yoga classes have sun salutations .
But I would say if you go to 10 different teachers the sun salutations are going to be a little bit different . So if you keep going to that teacher , you're not going to have to think so much about some of the basic things that come up over and over again going to have to think so much about some of the basic things that come up over and over again .
I just thought , because it's something that you kind of get used to , you know , you think , oh well , I know what's coming up , that kind of thing .
But then maybe , like you said , it's not always going to be uniformly the same thing . Yeah , every class is going to be pretty different , even with the the same teacher .
The same teacher might have a similar class , but every week they might be adding on or each class might be vastly different depending on the teacher that you go to all right , but there will be like common language and common threads that if you went to 10 classes , you would start to recognize those shapes everyone knows about downward facing dog .
Oh , yeah , that inverted v , those shapes everyone knows about downward facing dog oh yeah , inverted v pose right .
Everyone knows about the warrior poses , and so there's some basics that are in every class child's pose , things like that yeah but you will be getting thrown new language from class to class I just want to go back to the back , to the basics again . How does yoga complement I know it's a very basic question improve your flexibility , balance and strength .
How does it .
Well , balance is something that's really interesting because as we get older , we start to lose our balance and our center , and yoga is something that can give that back to us pretty quickly .
So if you think about yoga , as opposed to other activities , we're doing a lot of things on one foot and we're working with our center of gravity and our balance and our stabilizing muscles .
And so if you are older and you take a misstep and you trip , if you're doing yoga you're more likely to be able to catch that trip than if you're not doing this , because and then balance is something that can improve really quickly over time as well with practice .
And I feel like we don't connect our feet to the ground much because we're always in shoes , but in yoga you're barefoot and so your foot is touching the ground and you're activating the muscles in your feet and you'll start to notice how your feet work with your stabilizing and your balancing .
So that's pretty interesting and you'll notice shifts in your balance pretty quickly With flexibility . Again , you're holding stretches , you're lengthening the muscles , you're holding them longer , and so with runners , we're shortening our muscles all of the time .
Yes , that's true .
And I would say 99% of the people that I know that are runners they don't stretch or they do a token stretch but they don't really stretch .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , I'm guilty as charged .
Yeah , all the runners I talked to have this have this pattern , um , and so we're going to increase our range of motion . I've had runners come to me , athletes , and say their coaches have said they need to come to a yoga teacher to improve their performance .
And it has , because their muscles are lengthening and their strides were they were able to take longer strides , which was cool , they could see how it was benefiting them . And runners , don't stretch . And runners don't stretch , yeah .
So if we could stretch before practicing to warm up those muscles , or after , then that's going to aid in our recovery and your recovery time will be shorter .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , and also injury prevention as well .
Yeah , yeah .
I was just interested in what you said about being in contact with the ground barefoot . Do you think people who are in don't know third world , so-called third world countries who who don't wear shoes , do you think they have an an advantage that they are more in in tune or , more , you know , connected ?
Because maybe us in the western world in this , in that in the first we , although we have so many luxuries and we wear these clothes and shoes , I'll become less and less stiffened up , as it were , sort of thing yeah , I spent a lot of time in developing countries and if you look at especially women , it's more noticeable with women .
If you look at their feet , they are so much bigger and wider interesting and because they're not squashing shoes all the time .
Yeah , and there's been tons of studies about grounding or they call it grounding or earthing where actually our body has so much energy and putting our feet on the earth and on the ground , it lets us discharge some of the energy and so often . Often in in developed countries , we're in shoes all day long .
We come home we might put slippers on , and we're never barefoot .
Um and so the really cool thing about yoga is and I'll talk , I could spend a whole class just talking about our feet and spreading our toes wide and contacting the earth with all four corners of our feet equally , and just noticing , do you put your weight on your heels , do you put it on your toes and really evening that weight distribution on our feet and
grounding our feet into the earth and almost like if you were going to pick up the earth with your toes . So you're that engaged .
And so when you do that , when you're that engaged , and so when you do that , when you do that foot engagement on the ground in yoga , you will feel your muscles lengthen up and tighten up through your calves and all the way through your quads yeah , yeah , and so I think , we forget about our feet , our feet
are super important yeah , I mean I just getting over an injury , um what they call policeman's heel , you know plantar fallacy .
Fallacy , I think yeah .
And I think that's either due to either incorrect running shoes or I don't know . Just you know all around , because it's kind of like a repetitive strain injury type of thing within the heel injury type of . Thing within the , within the heel , and I suppose , with all these things , there's a chain , isn't there , and it kind of all travels up to .
But yes , I know , I know , talking about the developing countries , I mean , I'm , I'm half nicaraguan and I know , when we used to spend time in nicaragua , we , in the morning , we used to we're not I'm not going off on a tangent . There is a point to this , though .
But um , you'd , you'd hear the ladies selling bread and they would have bread on their head yeah and it'd be like and then like ramrod straight , sort of thing , and they'd be walking in barefoot but , that's something you notice .
They must be so sort of like in tune with their body and everything so I mean , that's another thing that yoga definitely helps with our posture , um , and if your posture is not correct when you're running , it's definitely going to affect your body long term and your run time .
Yeah , and so , because yoga is so much having to do with body awareness , it can correct some postural deficiencies .
Yeah , oh , good Great .
Or imbalances , postural imbalances yeah .
So you are a vinyasa . Did I get that Vinyasa flow ? Yep , vinyasa flow . So what is vinyasa flow ?
Vinyasa flow is a style of yoga where there's a lot of movement and so , if you think of it like rhythmic movement and it's paired with the breath Right and so it's pretty fast paced . It would be pretty much for a type A kind of person .
Yeah .
Where it's constantly moving , constantly
¶ Comparing Hatha and Vinyasa Yoga
flowing . So some yoga . If you look at Hatha yoga , it's more stagnant , where they'll do a pose , they'll hold it for a while , Then they'll come out of that pose and they'll do another pose and hold it for a while If you go to a vinyasa flow class .
There's lots of movement with not a lot of stops or long pauses , right ? So is it more for someone who has done yoga for an intermediary , or could someone who is a complete beginner go into that ?
Yeah , a complete beginner could go into it . They might get a little lost in the beginning . I think once I think it's better to go to a big beginner's class or even a hatha class and learn all the shapes and then , once you feel comfortable , you don't have to think so much . Then a flow class would be a better option so is there a difference with the ?
because you said you talk about hatha yoga . Is there a difference in the type of positions and sequences between the two styles of yoga ?
yeah , hatha is just more . They'll do a shape for a while , they'll hold it , then they'll change into another shape and they'll hold it and then they'll do another one where vinyasa flow it's just moving , moving , moving , moving and constantly moving from one to the other , to the other , to the other .
So it's really rhythmic right , okay , so it's a bit like a dance is that kind of thing yeah yeah , and your , your heart rate will get a lot , or kind of your average heart rate will get a lot . Yeah , yeah .
It's a good workout .
If you're going to look at like I want to go to yoga and get a good workout and I want to sweat and get my heart rate up and I want to get stronger and more flexible , then vinyasa flow is a great option , where there is benefit from holding poses for a long time too , and those can be incredibly challenging and strength building as well .
It's just a different style .
Okay , so would you describe it as the more aerobic , whereas the the half would be more sort of anaerobic ? Yeah , Mm-hmm .