Yoga for Lacrosse: Best Poses to Improve Your Performance

Leave a Comment / By Dean Pohlman

The blog below lists the 5 best yoga postures to help lacrosse players improve their athletic performance.

Did you know that the best lacrosse players in the world are doing yoga?

Yup, even Paul Rabil does yoga. So if the best lacrosse players are doing yoga to improve their athletic performance as laxers… shouldn’t you?

I started doing yoga as a Senior lacrosse player for the University of Wisconsin. I was shocked at how much it helped improve my athletic performance as a lacrosse player. It made me stronger, more powerful, I recovered more quickly, and I FELT better! Shortly after graduating, I started Man Flow Yoga to help spread the benefits of yoga to people that don’t normally do yoga, namely, guys and athletes.

Here are the main benefits of these postures:

1. Improved Muscle Activation

This means you have more muscles working when you exercise or are playing lacrosse. Yoga helps to turn on, or activate, muscles that take more work to turn on, and this means that you have more active muscle engaged for faster shots, quicker change of direction, and even more powerful hits.

2. Injury Prevention

One of the biggest causes of injury is not warming up, but standing still on the field and touching your toes isn’t going to help you. You want to be doing exercises or postures that help you activate your muscles, instead of lazily stretching while watching the geese fly by. These postures help to prevent injury by making your body ready to go!

3. Improved Focus

By starting off your practice or game with exercises where you have to concentrate on your body and focus on correct form, you are preparing your mind to perform. Lacrosse requires a high level of physical fitness to play well, but it also requires your brain to be turned on and working, too.

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I’ve added my favorite poses to the list below.

Try them out and see how they feel for yourself!

Standing side & back bend

1. Standing side & back bend

Shoulder injuries are one of the most common setbacks that lacrosse players experience. Most of us do very little to work on the mobility of our shoulders, which is essential not only to having faster shots, but also to keeping your shoulders injury-free. This stretch opens your shoulders, chests, and improves your overall upper-body mobility for faster shots, more fluid upper-body movement, and reduced risk of injury.

High Lunge with eagle arms

2. High Lunge with eagle arms

This is a combination of two postures designed specifically for lacrosse players. The high lunge works on your hip mobility and balance, to help you be more powerful and move better with your lower-body. The eagle arms up top stretches your upper-back and help to keep your shoulders and upper-body healthy, while improving mobility for improved power in shots.

3. Warrior Two

Warrior Two is an extremely effective posture for strengthening your lower-body and your core. This posture improves hip mobility, strengthens your glutes (the power source of your body for jumps, checks, sprinting, and more!), and even strengthens your abs. It helps you prevent injury, makes your hips and abs stronger, and easily makes you a better athlete for lacrosse.

4. Airplane

This posture is awesome because it simultaneously improves mobility while developing balance. Relieve pressure on your spine by improving the mobility of your hamstrings, which makes you more resistant to injury. In addition, the balance aspect of the poses helps to strengthen your ankles, your abs, and your entire lower-body.

5. Standing Bow

Standing Bow is an awesome pose for lacrosse players because it directly mimics the motion that lacrosse players make for shooting. This balancing posture helps to open your chest while simultaneously developing strength and stability in your lower-body and core. This potent combo leads to faster shots, more fluid movement, and even reduces your risk of injury.

Try these stretches out before your next practice, game, or workout!

5 Best Yoga Postures to Improve Athletic Performance for Lacrosse Players

Don’t forget the Cooldown!

Here are the 5 best stretches to do as lacrosse players to help prevent injury, recover more quickly, and play injury-free!

What’s my personal experience with yoga?

I started doing yoga as a Senior lacrosse player for the University of Wisconsin. I was shocked at how much it helped improve my athletic performance as a lacrosse player. It made me stronger, more powerful, I recovered more quickly, and I FELT better! I led yoga workouts for my team beginning that year, and it turned out that they liked yoga, too. Shortly after graduating, I started Man Flow Yoga to help spread the benefits of yoga to people that don’t normally do yoga, namely, guys and athletes.

Additional Resources

Yoga Vs Weight Training: Which is Better?

Yoga for Weightloss

How to Workout from Home

About the author, Dean Pohlman, Founder & CEO of Man Flow Yoga, Author of Yoga Fitness for Men, Expert on Yoga Fitness for Men.

Dean Pohlman is an E-RYT 200 certified yoga instructor and the founder of Man Flow Yoga. Dean is widely considered to be an authority on Yoga for Men. He has worked with physical therapists to create yoga programs for back health and spinal recovery. His workouts and programs have been used by professional and collegiate athletes, athletic trainers, and personal trainers; and have been recommended by physical therapists, doctors, chiropractors, and other medical professionals.

Dean is a successfully published author through DK Publishing (Yoga Fitness for Men), selling 35,000 copies worldwide in English, French, and German; in addition to being a co-producer of the Body by Yoga DVD Series, which has sold over 40,000 copies on Amazon since its release in 2016.

Man Flow Yoga has been featured in Muscle & Fitness Magazine, Mens’ Health, The Chicago Sun, New York Magazine, and many more major news media outlets.

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