Yoga

Payydro, I'll not presume to lecture you on yoga, because from the sounds of it you've been doing it longer than I have. However, I will tell you not only can you do both, I have found yoga is very beneficial to swimming. I started with yoga because a couple of swimmers I respect, including Tall Paul Smith who responded earlier in this thread, recommended it to me. (Just to review the bidding. Paul Smith has been one of the top Masters swimmers in the world for about a decade, if not longer. He holds several USMS records and is regularly ranked in the top ten in the world in his age group for numerous free and fly events.) I have found their advice was right on point. First, flexibility is a major issue for older athletes. Second, yoga is a far superior method for working on flexibility than any other program I have used. I did talk to Paul at the time about if he found any particular form of yoga beneficial. My understanding of his advice (which I only dimly remember, please feel free to jump in here Paul) is that I should stick with less advanced forms of the practice. At some point the more advances poses and practices carry a higher risk of injury than the lower impact stuff. At the same time, there may not be substantial added benefit to swimming from the specific improvement in strength and flexibility that an advanced practice provides. If anyone else has any thoughts please pitch in. To sum up, if you stop doing yoga, I can pretty much guarantee you that your flexibility will decline, and you will be at greater risk of injury and less able to perform efficient swimming motions. You might want to talk to someone who is knowledgable in both sports to determine if modifying your yoga routine would better help you in the pool. Matt P.S. I am planning to get back to you in your other discussion thread. I've been a little busy, and I wanted to respond with some detail.

Payydro, I'll not presume to lecture you on yoga, because from the sounds of it you've been doing it longer than I have. However, I will tell you not only can you do both, I have found yoga is very beneficial to swimming. I started with yoga because a couple of swimmers I respect, including Tall Paul Smith who responded earlier in this thread, recommended it to me. (Just to review the bidding. Paul Smith has been one of the top Masters swimmers in the world for about a decade, if not longer. He holds several USMS records and is regularly ranked in the top ten in the world in his age group for numerous free and fly events.) I have found their advice was right on point. First, flexibility is a major issue for older athletes. Second, yoga is a far superior method for working on flexibility than any other program I have used. I did talk to Paul at the time about if he found any particular form of yoga beneficial. My understanding of his advice (which I only dimly remember, please feel free to jump in here Paul) is that I should stick with less advanced forms of the practice. At some point the more advances poses and practices carry a higher risk of injury than the lower impact stuff. At the same time, there may not be substantial added benefit to swimming from the specific improvement in strength and flexibility that an advanced practice provides. If anyone else has any thoughts please pitch in. To sum up, if you stop doing yoga, I can pretty much guarantee you that your flexibility will decline, and you will be at greater risk of injury and less able to perform efficient swimming motions. You might want to talk to someone who is knowledgable in both sports to determine if modifying your yoga routine would better help you in the pool. Matt P.S. I am planning to get back to you in your other discussion thread. I've been a little busy, and I wanted to respond with some detail.