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BY ANDREW GREENBLATT

In print | Published December 3, 2009

When I think of alternate training methods, the first person who comes to mind is Rocky Balboa. While his opponent Ivan Drago was preparing in a typical boxing gym, Rocky was in the unforgiving tundra running miles carrying tree trunks on his back and doing sit ups in abandoned barns in the middle of nowhere.

Or maybe it’s Chicago Bull’s forward Luol Deng, who digs his hands into a giant bag of rice, performing the tedious repetitive motions to increase forearm strength.

No, wait. It has to be New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada who urinates on his hands to prevent callouses. High five, anyone?

But why stop with your hands? Mixed martial artist Lyota Machida drinks his own urine every day. Why? He claims it helps filter his body and that people have been engaging in the odd behavior for centuries. Real benefits: unproven and unknown.

On a side note, if you ever get a chance, check out any interview with Machida. When asked about his urine devouring habit, his attempts to come up with a reasonable answer tip-toe the line between funny and pathetic. He looks more lost than Mark Madsen on a dance floor. I’d feel bad for the guy, but he could probably break me.

Translation: Athletes will do almost anything if they think it’s going to help them be better.

Because athletes are the way they are, at some point, things become normal, things become widely accepted as beneficial, and everyone starts doing them in fear of falling behind. NBA players are already taking the hint. Baron Davis, Dirk Nowitzki, Andre Iguodala, LeBron James, Antawn Jamison and Chauncey Billups are all yogis, just to name a few.

But why do yoga? Yoga has reached a certain point of familiarity among athletes, but what’s the point? If I were to tell an athlete that hundreds of professionals are doing a certain weight training program, we’d be in the weight room the next day trying some of the stuff out, but there’s this strange resistance when it comes to doing yoga.

The thing that makes yoga so beneficial is the same thing that will always condemn it to the “untraditional” and “alternate” label: There are zero measurable results.

But there are results. “Yoga is somewhat hard to quantify in terms of benefits because you see them in all the injuries you don’t get,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has been doing yoga since 1976, told USA Today.

Given its main benefit of longevity and sustained health, its no surprise that yoga has caught on with the pros. “If you can get through to a player that you could extend your career even by a year by staying healthy and reducing injury, that one year could make $5 million for you,” said NBA yoga coach Kent Katich, currently employed by the Los Angeles Clippers. If an athlete can stretch his career by even a couple of seasons, he can earn himself some serious money.
According to a survey conducted by the NBA, in 2008-2009, the average amount of experience was only 4.71 seasons. It can be a revolving door league.

The longevity comes from listening to the body and developing an increased awareness. Katich makes his players verbalize how they’re feeling in every aspect of their life. From how their diet is, to how much sleep they are getting, to what body parts feel tight to how much sex they’re having. “Once they verbalize, they become more aware of it, and it all applies to their stress level,” Katich said.

It sounds like a tired age-old adage, but it rings true especially in professional athletics: Your body is your vehicle. Athletes can only go as far as their bodies can take them.

But it’s not entirely true, because the mind is a muscle too. Yoga is largely about developing the mind and becoming strong mentally.

Yoga resides under the radar, in the realm of the unseen. It lives in the “90 percent mental” that Yogi Berra was talking about when he proudly proclaimed, “Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical.”

“Yoga helps with controlling your thoughts and developing concentration,” Katich said. Right, but how?

Well, contorting your body into some of these poses is no easy task. Putting yourself into these difficult positions requires discipline. You must be aware of every part of your body to ensure the pose is absolutely impeccable. Combine that focus with an intense concentration on taking deep, slow, and controlled breaths for an hour. What you get is a surprisingly involved workout for both the body and mind.

I can’t explain it exactly, but by the end of the workout you feel centered. Things seem clearer, stress melts away and life is just better.

Controlling your thoughts is a big part of that. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that thinking too much has gotten me into trouble as an athlete. I start with one negative thought then it spirals into complete self-doubt, and my confidence is shot. It’s a slippery slope. Yoga can reverse that process. Control your body, control your breath, and control your thoughts. It’s all one and the same. Yoga shows you that.

Yoga is an opportunity to break the mental mold that athletes get stuck in. We’ve been trained to ignore our bodies. Push yourself to the point of exhaustion then push yourself some more. Showing fatigue is showing weakness right? We’ve been told to keep going forever. But yoga isn’t about that. Yoga invites you to stop and slow down.

I’ve found it pretty cool actually – listening to my body for once. It’s allowed me to be more honest with myself as to when I can push and when I should relax. It’s given me a mental escape – an area where I can forget about the stresses of school and of the season.

I invite you to try it out, but for those members of GreenyNation not feeling too adventurous, you’re actually in luck. You can still get into the yoga world!

There’s so much on yoga that I haven’t even mentioned. There’s a whole world out there of athletes taking on the new challenge of yoga, and I’m diving in headfirst with a new blog.

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