Texan Mosaic

By Landon Smith

Every Monday and Wednesday morning at 11 a.m., room 1022 at the Lubbock Downtown Center remains dark.  But there are at least a dozen students in the room attending class.  It’s KINE 1106-601, otherwise known as Yoga. 

Sean Bingham is usually at the front of the room teaching the class.  He says it’s a popular class and fills up quickly.  Students are enrolled in six sections of Yoga offered this semester at SPC, with one section online.

“Some of them take it just to get their activity credit,” Bingham says.

That’s what Lily Ming did.  In her fifth semester at SPC, she’s enrolled in Bingham’s class.  She says she’s done some basic yoga before, but this class is not what she expected it to be.

“This class is a little bit harder than I thought,” Ming confesses. “I thought it would be more stretching, but it’s a lot more core exercises.”

Third-semester student Niria Villa took the same class last semester as a what she calls “blow-off” class.  It was nothing like she thought it would be either. She says she thought it would be meditating and relaxing.  Instead, she says there was a lot of stretching.

As it turns out, yoga may be more challenging than it looks for a number of reasons.

Many people may not realize that yoga is a powerful tool that is quietly gaining traction in the world of athletic training.  The integration of yoga into athletic training represents a shift towards comprehensive athlete care.  It focuses on injury prevention and rehabilitation.

“We use yoga exercises in a number of our rehab programs,” Andy Reyes, SPC’s head athletic trainer, says. “We also encourage athletes to use yoga to increase their mobility, which can help with injury prevention.”

Track coaches, he says, are very heavy into implementing yoga with their athletes.

“As a matter of fact,” Reyes says, “one of our track coaches here at SPC is a yoga teacher.”

Basketball coaches too, he says, are heavy on yoga for recovery.

“The next day after a basketball game there is usually a lift and a yoga session with their groups,” Reyes notes.

Reyes has been at SPC for five years. He says there’s some “hesitancy” from athletes when they are introduced to yoga.  He says male athletes usually say, “I don’t need yoga, that’s a girl thing.”  Or they say, “I just don’t want to do that, I don’t have time for it.”

Reyes admits that if yoga is incorporated into a 10–15-minute session the players tend to be more “receptive” to it.

“We don’t really call it yoga,” Reyes says.  “It’s just a ‘rehab exercise.’”

The way Reyes explains it, yoga involves a lot of stretching.  Stretching, he says, helps lengthen the muscle.  While lengthening the muscle, you’re also strengthening it, he says.

“If you stretch a rubber band it gives it better elasticity,” Reyes illustrates.  “It’s more resilient and able to handle the load on it better versus if you don’t stretch the rubber band and you put a lot of force on it.  It  could potentially snap the rubber band.”

In addition to strengthening, Reyes says balancing is also a key yoga component instilled in athletes at SPC.

“We don’t say, ‘Hey this is a yoga exercise,’” Reyes says.  “We just say, ‘Do this position.’ But it stems from yoga training.”

Recently, the athletic spotlight turned to rookie Victor Wembanyama of the San

Antonio Spurs, who attributed his injury-free performance to yoga stretches.

“It’s inspiring to see professional athletes embrace yoga,” Reyes acknowledges.

Bingham says, in his class, he wants to prepare his students and make sure they understand what they’re doing.  He also says he wants to help his students be flexible and build a strong core.

“Eighteen to 22 years old is when you really start to lose flexibility,” he says.

Ming confesses, “The stretching is fun, but the core parts of it are hard.”

Despite the challenges, Ming says she has noticed improvements in her strength.

“I can hold a plank longer than I used to,” she proudly states.

Villa says she hurt herself outside of school while she was enrolled in Yoga 1106, and while she wanted to take the day off from class, going to class actually helped her.

“I dislocated my foot,” Villa shares. “Stretching it out hurt, but it definitely helped with the process.”

According to yogaearth.com, a new online site dedicated to yoga, 36 million Americans practice yoga regularly.

With so many reasons why yoga could help you, why not join the crowd and try it?

Villa says she misses the class.

“I’m taking the running and jogging class right now,” she says, “and I wish I could take the yoga class again just because I do have shoulder problems as well, and it helped a lot.”

When it comes to injury prevention and rehabilitation, the integration of yoga into the athlete training field doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.

“I think it’s grown a lot and it’s become a lot more popular,” Reyes says. “We are a lot more open to it than we were 10 to 15 years ago. We are always looking to the newest trends.”