I didn鈥檛 fully appreciate the impact of practicing yoga on those who do resistance training until I encouraged my husband, an avid powerlifter, to try including it in his morning workout routine.

Mobility is more than just being bendy鈥攊t鈥檚 also having the strength and stability to use your range of motion functionally, which is critical for exercises such as squats and deadlifts.

At first, he was hesitant. Although he鈥檚 occasionally joined me for a class when we travelled or served as my practice student when I was creating a new class, he鈥檚 always preferred and barbells to a yoga mat. It鈥檚 like how I sometimes grumble about strength training, even though I know it鈥檚 good for me. That鈥檚 how I came to realize that many of us tend to shy away from the type of movement our bodies need most.

Mobility work is key for anyone who lifts, whether you鈥檙e a bodybuilder or the occasional gym-goer. Mobility is more than just being bendy鈥攊t鈥檚 also having the strength and stability to use your range of motion functionally, which is critical for exercises such as squats and deadlifts. In exercise, mobility is the active ability to move a joint through its full range of motion with control.

How Yoga Can Improve Your Mobility and Enhance Strength Training

Earlier this year, when my husband鈥檚 limited ankle and hip mobility started holding back his squat depth, I showed him a few simple yoga mobility moves he could do in under ten minutes. To his surprise, it worked.

Within a few weeks of practicing daily, his squat depth improved, his nagging hip pain faded, and he broke through plateaus that had been frustrating him for months.

Improving your mobility can pay off in even more ways.

Prevents Injuries

Practicing yoga for mobility allows you to move more fluidly under load and avoid muscle compensations that can affect form.

Maximizes Performance

Greater ankle and hip mobility allows you to squat below parallel (i.e., your hip crease goes lower than the top of your knees), which maximizes glute and quadriceps engagement. Similarly, less-tense hamstrings can better support a proper deadlift hip hinge.

Also, upper spine (thoracic) mobility creates a stronger bench press arch, which can enhance shoulder stability and chest muscle activation.

Improves Balance and Coordination

Practicing yoga for mobility wakes up the smaller stabilizer muscles that gym-goers often overlook. This helps reduce awkward missteps under load.

Combine that and all of the above with yoga鈥檚 ability to boost circulation and bust stress, and you鈥檝e got a recipe for enhanced recovery and fewer injuries. In a fitness culture that often encourages people to identify with one style of training, it鈥檚 worth remembering that a balanced approach pays off.

5 Yoga Poses to Boost Mobility and Performance

Below are yoga for mobility poses lifters can add to their routine to increase range of motion, prevent injuries, and hit new PRs鈥攏o hour-long class required. You can string these poses together for a sequence that you repeat two or three times before or after your workout, or you can add specific ones to your routine.

Focus on moving with your breath and being aware of where you鈥檙e tensing and releasing in each posture.

1. Squat

Why This Move Works: One of the biggest challenges lifters face is hitting depth in a squat, which requires ample dorsiflexion of the ankle and open hips. is one of the most effective postures for stretching the Achilles tendons, calves, and inner thighs while also activating and opening the hips.

How to Do It:

• Step your feet slightly wider than hip-width distance apart with your toes angled out.
• Inhale as you lift through the waist.
• Exhale as you bend your knees, sinking your hips as low as is comfortable while tracking your knees over your toes. Keep your chest lifted and spine long as you gaze forward.
• You have the option to press your palms together in front of your chest and use your elbows to assist your knees open gently.

(FYI: If you need to ease some calf tension and are struggling to keep your heels down on the mat, slide a blanket, folded towel, or even a weight plate underneath them.)

2. Cobra

Why This Move Works: Mobility in the thoracic spine and chest is crucial for lifts that require you to retract your shoulder blades, such as a bench press or low-bar back squat. strengthens spinal extensors while opening the chest in a safe, supported way.

How to Do It:聽

• Lie on your stomach with your palms underneath your shoulders.
• As you inhale, press your feet into the mat, draw your navel toward the spine, and lift your chest off the mat while drawing your shoulders back. Gaze forward.
• You should feel as if you鈥檙e pulling your chest forward between your palms.
• Exhale as you lower your forehead to the mat.
• Repeat once or twice.

3. Extended Puppy Pose

Why This Move Works: targets tight shoulders and opens the upper spine, which makes it an excellent stretch for anyone looking to improve their overhead press.

How to Do It:聽

• Come to hands and knees with your shoulders stacked over your wrists and hips stacked over your knees.
• Inhale as you walk, your palms forward while keeping your hips above your knees. Your arms will be extended with your palms facing down.
• Exhale as you lower your chest and forehead toward the mat, breathing into the stretch and drawing your shoulder blades back.
• Wrap your triceps down away from your chest and toward the mat to externally rotate your shoulders.

Pro-tip:聽place your elbows on blocks and bring your palms together overhead, drawing them toward the back of your head.

4. Downward-Facing Dog

Why This Move Works: Tight hamstrings can compromise deadlift form, forcing the lower back to work harder than it should and risking strain. helps release the hamstrings and calves while building shoulder stability.

How to Do It:聽

• From hands and knees, inhale as you press your palms into the mat and lift your hips up and back.
• You can pedal your feet by bending one knee at a time or keep both knees bent to release tension on your hamstrings and prioritize stretching the lower back.
• Stay here for several breaths, sending the tailbone high, gazing toward the navel, and pressing your heels gently toward the mat. (It鈥檚 OK if they don鈥檛 touch it.)

5. Low Lunge

Why This Move Works: Tight hip flexors are a common gripe among weight lifters as well as those who spend a good portion of their day sitting. Having open hip flexors can be helpful for moving through your full range of motion in lifts such as Bulgarian split squats and hip thrusts.

Most of all, hip flexor stretches can help improve your overall form, reducing issues including lower back and knee pain. can do all of that while also helping improve your posture.

How to Do It:聽

• From Downward-Facing Dog, exhale as you step your right foot forward and lower your left knee to the mat.
• Inhale your arms overhead, keeping your shoulders relaxed as you gaze forward or up toward your thumbs.
• Square your hips to the wall in front of you.
• To intensify the stretch, let your hips sink a little lower toward the mat. (Feel free to place your hands on two blocks, one on either side of your hips, for support, or keep your hands on your front thigh.)
• Stay for several breaths before repeating on the left side.

Want more聽国产吃瓜黑料聽health stories?聽. Ready to push yourself? Enter MapMyRun鈥檚聽聽running challenge.

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Improving your running game might actually include running games. Sure鈥攖he standard, tried-and-true programming and drills are your best bet for advancing as a runner. But if you feel like you鈥檙e in a rut with your training or need a break from the usual running workouts, why not try something different? Whether it鈥檚 a game learned in high school track or a creative drill introduced by a fellow athlete, there are plenty of fun ways to shake up the routine and introduce a change of pace.

We asked three accomplished run coaches to share some of their favorite out-of-the-box (and effective) exercises that benefit athletes鈥� running form, endurance, and mental fortitude. Their suggestions include games and circuits that incorporate speed work and pacing, as well as other essential skills that runners need to practice.

Here are five fun and untraditional workouts to get your heart pumping and improve your running.

1. Group Run Pace Game

Ben Rosario is the CEO of as well as the former head coach of the HOKA NAZ Elite professional distance running team in Flagstaff, Arizona. Having coached athletes for over 20 years, he鈥檚 a big advocate for injecting creative running workouts in training (alongside standard programming). 鈥淭he mind needs to be stimulated as well, not just the body,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 expect athletes to do the same thing week in and week out and not get bored.鈥� Rosario likes to play a pacing game in group runs.

How to Do It

1. If you鈥檙e in a group of eight people, for example, you start by placing scraps of paper numbered one through eight in a bowl or hat.
2. Mix them up, and have each runner draw one, keeping their number to themselves.
3. During the run, each person picks a moment to increase the pace for the same number of minutes as the number they drew鈥攁nd everyone else has to keep up for that amount of time. This continues throughout the run with each person changing the pace for their allotted number of minutes, and everyone matching their pace.

鈥淣one of your running buddies know when the surge is coming, but they have to keep up,鈥� Rosario says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 this fun way to accomplish some pace change without it being so monotonous.鈥�

An alternative take on the game is to have a designated person call out a number. The person who drew that number would then choose the pace for the same number of minutes (so if you draw an eight, you’ll lead for eight minutes). The pace could be fast or slow鈥攂asically a follow-the-leader .

2. Hill Circuits

As Olympic distance runner Frank Shorter once said, . Rosario finds that doing hill circuits, or building a training run around varied terrain, is a great way to mix things up.

How to Do It

1. First, find an area that has hills of varying lengths as well as some flat surfaces鈥攖his could be at a park, in a neighborhood, on roads, etc.鈥攁nd create a loop of your preferred distance.
2. From there, you鈥檙e basically playing the hand that nature has dealt. You might be popping up a short hill at a 5K effort, then steadily climbing up a long hill at marathon effort, then running a 200-meter flat stride at your mile effort, and so on.

鈥淭he beauty of hill circuits is that they can be done anywhere, and because you鈥檝e run up and down varying grades at different zones, you鈥檝e gotten a really complete workout,鈥� Rosario says.

3. Pursuit

, a running coach,聽likes to insert some fun into running workouts with a game called Pursuit. To play, runners start on opposite ends of the track and try to catch a designated runner. There鈥檚 no set distance in this game, just the objective to not get caught. 鈥淭his is deceivingly hard and requires a lot of strategy,鈥� Browning says.

How to Do It

1. Get a running buddy of similar ability and speed. Start on opposite sides of the track.
2. Both athletes start running in the same direction.
3. The interval ends when one runner catches the other.

Browning allows runners to rest about two to three minutes between rounds and repeats the game three to five times, rotating the pairs if there are more than two runners present.

4. Fox and Hound

Another workout that Browning uses with his athletes is essentially a reverse game of tag, where the whole group of runners tries to tag just one person. 鈥淥ne runner is the fox, the others are the hounds,鈥� Browning explains. 鈥淭he fox tries to keep from getting caught for a predetermined amount of time; if they鈥檙e caught, the interval ends and the game resets.鈥� This chase-based interval workout uses a looped path in a park rather than the track so that runners can spread out.

How to Do It

1. Choose a 400鈥�800m loop in a park.
2. One runner (the Fox) gets a ten- to 30-second head start.
3. The others (Hounds) start the chase.
4. If the Hounds catch the Fox before the loop ends, they win. If not, the Fox wins.

Runners are permitted to rest for 60 to 90 seconds between rounds while aiming to repeat the game four to six times, rotating roles each time.

5. Long Run and Cross-Training Combo

It can be a struggle to recover after long runs; , a Virginia-based certified run coach, encourages runners to give tired feet a rest by swapping some miles for cross-training exercises. 鈥淚n this way, they get the total duration of the workout to achieve their goals without spending so much time on their feet,鈥� Scott says.

How to Do It

An example of this hybrid running workout could look like:

1. Start with two hours of running
2. Hop on a bike for a 30-minute ride
3. Next, hit the pool and get in some laps for 30 minutes

Breaking up the run into a more manageable timeframe while supplementing other types of workouts will allow you to build up your strength and avoid injury at the same time. Plus, it adds some variety to keep your mind and body engaged.

Want more聽国产吃瓜黑料聽health stories?聽. Ready to push yourself? Enter MapMyRun鈥檚聽聽running challenge.

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