Yoga is fast becoming an alternative for athletes who want to be more flexible and as a result, improve their sports performance.
Curtis Taylor, 19, business major, is currently a linebacker for the Saddleback Gauchos football team. Taylor swears that yoga makes him “more flexible. And the more flexible you are … the faster you can move and stop.” He also believes that stretching muscles with yoga helps prevent injury and creates more lean muscle.
Orange County residents don’t have to travel far to find a master teacher of both yoga and tai chi because there is one right at Saddleback College.
Vincent McCullough started out as a football coach and then began teaching yoga and tai chi at Saddleback College in the 1970s and it would be hard to find a more beloved teacher.
McCullough who is constantly smiling remembers that “in the 70s people weren’t so interested in this hippie thing called yoga.”
He maintains that it wasn't easy to sell the idea of teaching yoga to students at that time.But sell he did and hundreds of students including athletes, those interested in fitness, and even emeritus students in need of healing, have benefited from his deep understanding, wisdom and compassion.
Regina Shiroma has studied yoga with McCullough for four years and believes he is a master and says that he has taught her “balance of body, mind and spirit. What he teaches us is what it means to live in the moment.”
How did a football coach become interested in yoga? According to McCullough, “In 1970, I took this tight forty-year-old, football-coach body, used to weight training and jogging, into my first yoga class.
Stretching and mental stillness had not been part of my normal fitness program. The class was painful and embarrassing, and I thought of dropping it many times.
”McCullough isn’t the only ex-football guy to incorporate yoga into their routine. ESPN reported on Jan. 8, 2009 that some heavy hitters also practice yoga including Tom Brady, Tony Romo and LaDainian Tomlinson to name just a few.
Forty years later, McCullough is still teaching yoga techniques that include safe stretching, breathing, and muscle conditioning, or joint flexibility, to increase tone and core training.
McCullough also teaches Tai Chi classes, after tutelage from a trip to China, where he includes an introduction of basic movements with an emphasis on developing balance, harmony and physical strength.
Also offered is a class that provides sport-specific practices in developing physical fitness.Preston Wares, 19, and a sports medicine major, used to play Volleyball for Irvine Valley College and believes that yoga helped him with the “more mental relaxation aspects” of playing a sport.
Wares used yoga to “get his mind right” if he is experiencing a bad attitude about a game or dealing with stress and intense training. Training, coaching and teaching sports performance is what Certified Physical Education Instructor Brad Davie uses his degree in Kinesiology and Physical Education to do in fulfilling his life-long desire to help people live optimal, healthy lives.
He believes that the philosophies behind both yoga and tai chi are integral to the principles he uses in his business. “The health-conscious individuals I work with who practice these activities [yoga and/or tai chi] report improvements in strength, balance, coordination, flexibility and symmetry,” Davie said.
“In my [own] practice I find inspiration from tai chi and yoga as they address the core principles I teach — strong and stable control in the spine from the neck to the hips, with optimal range of motion in the arms and legs. I emphasize the strength of the feet and hands with all of my Vitality Sports clients and this is also fundamental in yoga as they [feet] form the base of many flows and good posture.”
The Origins of Yoga
Yoga postures, commonly referred to as asanas, originated with ancient Hindu Rishis who wanted to sit straight and for long periods of time in meditation.
Some yogis claim this wisdom is over 2,000 years old. In developing the asanas, they created a way to release tension from the body and just as important, turbulence from the mind.
McCullough agrees that releasing tension from the body is what Hatha Yoga postures are all about. Knowledgeable teachers of this form of yoga, never push a student past their point of tension.
The idea behind beneficial asanas is to become aware of the area of tension by moving slowly into it, and then release the energy surrounding that limitation.
Calming turbulence of the mind proves to be more challenging for most beginning yoga students; but is as critical to improved health and sports performance.What worked for McCullough to calm the mind were his studies of Patanjali’s eightfold system of Yoga.
McCullough also favors a practice called “Ahimsa,” a term used for non-violence. Relating this to postures he says, “I give up the competitive struggle; I don’t push through my exercise. If I encounter a block, I set my mind’s intention to open it.”
At 82 years old, learning new things to help the body remains an on-going process for McCullough. He says that he is currently studying “more about fascia” these days and incorporating new practices based on this new knowledge into both his yoga and tai chi classes to stimulate the fascia system.
Yoga and the Fascia Connection
In 2007 researchers along with practitioners looking into the fascia system of the body initiated the Fascia Research Congress based in New Jersey where world-wide health practitioners share new discoveries.
What they now believe is that what we have learned about our muscles in the past is wrong: muscles don’t attach to the bone, fascia does. This distinction is important in understanding how to best release tension from the body and achieve maximum flexibility.
This Congress describes fascia as “a live, biological fabric that directs forces around your body,” some think similar to what the Chinese refer to as Chi flowing through your neural network. It is now believed that the fascia network corresponds to the network of acupuncture meridians in the body.
When fascia becomes tight or hardened, it loses flexibility sometimes because of age or injury, stress, and even emotional trauma. Proponents believe that this disruption could very likely be the source of chronic pain issues like migraines and fibromyalgia.
Brad Davie also believes that the condition of a person’s fascia system not only affects their overall health, but is also an integral part of their fitness level including the ability for ease of movement.
“Myofascia specifically influences the movement of muscles, bones and joints. It is the loose, connective tissue that holds our organs in place and is affected by movement or, more importantly, lack of movement,” Davie said.
According to Jon Burras a Yoga Therapist writing for Bikramyoganashua.com who specializes in connective tissue body work, people can change their fascia by “the application of heat and stretching. Heat applied …. in hatha yoga practice will liquefy the fascia.
“Not only is the skeletal muscular system affected, but our internal organs as well. Yoga poses stress lengthening of the body … not just our muscles, but our entire network of fascia. Over time, we do not end up shortened and compacted as we age.”
Burras also claims that illnesses such as scoliosis and arthritis can be relieved by enhancing the fascia system with yoga.
Bill Steele who has been taking tai chi and yoga classes with McCullough since 2008 because of debilitating arthritis agrees, “Tai chi was the only movement I could do that didn’t cause me extreme pain. My body was so stiff that in order to get into bed, I would have to fall backward.” Since then, Steele describes himself as “95% healed ... now Tai Chi is my passion.”
What are the Benefits of Tai Chi?
Practicing this Chinese martial art provides defense training and at the same time, has numerous health benefits, according to McCullough.
In 2001, McCullough studied at a Shaolin Temple in China where he witnessed monks practicing “dynamic and elegant physical actions” that he later learned was a form of tai chi referred to as “Spiral energy.”
These movements involve moving the joints of the body in a three-dimensional figure eight that move around the core or center of the body.
What McCullough teaches students in tai chi classes now is how to learn to release this natural force within the body and allow it to express. Proponents of Tai Chi claim their practice is also very effective at relieving stress and can improve cardiovascular and immune system function.
According to an article on the American College of Sports Medicine website, “… [tai chi] teaches structural awareness and relaxation … restoratively relaxes the core musculature.
These practices work synergistically with moving qigong and [tai chi] form to promote flexibility and dynamic balance by improving the quality of the mind/body relationship.
”For anyone from athletes, to people sitting at a desk all day, understanding how to stretch your body and work with the fascia through yoga and Tai Chai can result in better performance, flexibility and improved health.
