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Introducing Uphill Athlete Yoga
2k Plays3 years ago
In this installment of the Uphill Athlete Podcast co-founder Steve House talks to Yoga Instructor Bree Dillon about their new joint venture: A recovery-focused yoga practice for athletes.
The heart of the series is four classes that build into one another and allow you to progress on your own schedule. Level 1 starts at 30-minutes and Level 4 is 45 minutes in duration.
For athletes who need to work on a specific area, we built out four body-area-specific video-based yoga blocks:
- Neck and Shoulders in 19 minutes
- Hipflexors and Hamstrings in 19 minutes
- Back and Butt in 16 minutes
- Calves and Feet in 17 minutes
Bree worked hard on these classes and we're confident they'll be a great addition to every athletes routine.
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Transcript
Introduction and Resources Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. These programs are just one of several free services we provide to disseminate information about training for mountain sports. If you like what you hear and want more, please check out our website uphillathlete.com, where you'll find many articles and our extensive video library on all aspects of training for and accomplishing a variety of mountain goals.
00:00:23
Speaker
You'll also find our forum where you can ask questions of our experts and the community at large. Our email is coach at uphillathlete.com and we'd love to hear from you.
Introducing Yoga as a Recovery Tool
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello, everyone. My name is Steve House and welcome back to another uphill athlete podcast. I'm really excited today to have the opportunity to talk about something really new
00:00:45
Speaker
for us at Uphillah athlete in terms of helping our athletes. And that is yoga and specifically yoga to help athletes with their recovery. And today we're gonna be talking to yoga instructor extraordinaire, Bree Dylan. Bree, welcome to the Uphillah podcast. Thanks for having me, Steve. I'm really glad to be here.
Bree Dylan's Journey to Yoga
00:01:06
Speaker
Bree, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to yoga and being a yoga instructor.
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, I came to yoga a long time ago. I'm around in the corner to about 20 years ago now, and it was during my college career. I had turned down an athletic scholarship and decided to focus on academics for my college career. And I inherited a relationship to baseball through my dad. My dad was a professional baseball player. And so I had kind of devoted my, my athletic career to team sports.
00:01:42
Speaker
And so when I landed myself in college, I really felt a loss of the team and, um, was kind of flailing and looking, uh, searching for something that could help give me, uh, that feeling that you get from the team and stumbled on yoga. Not soon after really at the tail end of my, my college career.
00:02:07
Speaker
For me, it was a new way of relating to my body and a deeper kind of look at how to take ownership and responsibility for my health. I liked the learning, I guess, that comes with building that awareness as an athlete. I had
00:02:30
Speaker
really relied on, you know, we all know the sanity that comes with intense focused and concentrated movement and was really at a large loss for how to care for my body. I knew how to use it, but I didn't really know how to care for it. And I think so much of what's kept me with the yoga practice, kept me close to yoga is that deeper understanding of knowing how to care for my body now through the yoga practice.
Yoga in Injury Recovery
00:02:58
Speaker
Let me tell you a little bit of my story of how I came to yoga because it's a bit different, but I think there's some important parallels. I had a very bad climbing accident in 2010 and had many fractures and all kinds of
00:03:13
Speaker
physical problems. So I guess I should be more specific. I had hip bones fractured in two places. I had around 24 rib fractures on my right side. On my spinal column, about half of the little spinal processes on one side were broken off. I took a huge blow to one side. I collapsed lung. I had all these health issues. But long story short is I was
00:03:38
Speaker
I was going to physical therapy for months, but eventually, as we all know, your physical therapy runs out no matter how severe, at least in the States, no matter how severe your injury is. And my physical therapist at the time recommended I try yoga. And this is a point in which I could only get my knee about halfway between the floor and the
00:04:00
Speaker
you know, being straight and being fully flexed. Like I couldn't get my knee to my chest at all. Like it would go 90 degrees to my ankle. I was incredibly inflexible. I had massive tissue, you know, soft tissue damage and all the scar tissue in my body. And I was basically doing everything I could to try to get back to someone's form of like, take care of my body to
00:04:17
Speaker
not only climb and even just to walk or run or like something like like I was, I was at a walker for a while it was a wheelchair and that walker, I was really skeptical, and he did a little research, and he found that I am our teacher in Bend Oregon, or was living at a time.
00:04:34
Speaker
And he called her up on my behalf and sort of explained what was going on. And they decided to put me in the Iyengar introductory Iyengar class for seniors. So I was in this class with a bunch of like 70 and 80 year olds. But for my body point of view, I fit right in because I
00:04:58
Speaker
move. But it was a perfect thing that I needed and I did that for a year. And the progress was incredible because it was consistent and it was intentional. And I think that those are two of the themes that we harp on a lot with uphill athletes, the consistency and the intention and understanding why you do things. And for me, it was really life changing.
Uphill Athlete Yoga Program Overview
00:05:21
Speaker
And then I practiced quiet frequently until
00:05:24
Speaker
told my children came along and it seems like that kind of fell off but that's that's on me but I think it's really exciting to have uh this so for those of you listening what we have now is we have a program we're introducing called uphill athlete yoga Bri is our instructor and these are video yoga courses that are sort of let's say follow along Bri leads you through
00:05:48
Speaker
And I've done level one and level three. Of course, I had to skip level two, maybe I'm a little too type A. And they're fantastic. I really loved the programming. It was really great. Do you want to tell us about how you came up with these different, the whole structure?
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, a little, I'll rewind just a little bit, you know, as, as a progression to the story of, you know, how I came to yoga and then that leap from, from being a student of yoga to being a teacher of yoga for me was a progression, almost a, um, an accidental one. Really. I was looking for opportunities just to build out my understanding of, um, of the practice.
00:06:34
Speaker
and wound up in a teacher training as a means to do that had no intention to teach yoga.
00:06:41
Speaker
And in fact had really for many years in the beginning of my teaching career, a fear of being in front of people and speaking in front of groups. And so had to work for a long time through that.
Bree's Transition to Teaching Yoga
00:06:53
Speaker
When I made kind of the decision after I went through this, this initial teacher training made the decision to pursue teaching so much of what motivated me was to spend time with athletes and, and.
00:07:06
Speaker
Athletes like yourself who had often recovered from big injuries and were rehabbing and looking for outlets to move their bodies in ways that felt healing and, and, um, and supportive of that, like.
00:07:22
Speaker
that big journey back to the movement that they really wanted. So, you know, my initial years teaching yoga, which was in Seattle, was working with athletes of all kinds, you know, recreational athletes, but also professional. And that I think compelled me to, you know, continue to look at how this practice can be adapted to people based on where they are in life.
00:07:48
Speaker
um, and their specific needs. And, um, what's one of the best things about yoga is it's timeless, it's classic, and, um, it kind of meets you wherever you are. And so what I love about this program that we've created you and I, Steve is that, uh, you know, we really have the athlete in mind. And so I think so many of, um, people's experience with yoga is like.
00:08:10
Speaker
You know, yoga, when we talk about yoga, it's almost like talking about beer, right? It's like, well, I like yoga or I don't like yoga. Well, it's really like, well, what kind, I mean, what was your experience? What kind of yoga, what kind of beer, right? Um, and if you didn't like that one, maybe you should try this one. This program that we've created is really designed for.
00:08:30
Speaker
in support of a person who moves their bodies outside and uphill and downhill and over and over again. And so the practice is really about parsing apart those elements of breath and movement and concentration and focus that are really in support of an athlete's endeavor.
Yoga Video Series for Athletes
00:08:52
Speaker
And so it feels really accessible, right? We're not trying to create a yoga workout. We're not trying to create another training program. We're trying to create something that can be integrated into someone's training, but feels like it's a way of offsetting, balancing, and maybe creating more deliberate moments in which you really allow yourself recovery. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's great to you.
00:09:20
Speaker
Again, to sort of rewind a little bit is, you know, I came to you with my version of this idea and it was a true collaboration. I mean, I think we quickly, very quickly understood what each other were talking about, you know, in terms of like what we were looking for. And for me, it was both my experience personally, how I came into yoga, but then also as a coach,
00:09:41
Speaker
wanting to have a recovery-based yoga practice that I could assign to my athletes at different stages or after different workouts of different sort of lengths and intensity levels and targeting different areas of their bodies and so forth that I could that was attainable. I didn't want that wasn't to work out as you said that was you know more of a yin sort of gentle recovery practice.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think you nailed it. And, and just to like endorse what you're saying about that idea of consistency. You know, we, we use that as a guiding principle when we created this program, right? It's like, I, I so often get asked by students who, you know, they show up to a yoga class and they're, they're.
00:10:23
Speaker
ready and stoked to make change on whatever level and ask me really, what do I need to do in order to dot, dot, dot? And I always end up circling back to the idea of whatever it is you do, do it for an accessible amount of time as frequently as you can, rather than, you know, this large chunk of time that you might do once a week or something. So I say all that.
00:10:50
Speaker
Just to reference that the program that we've created is, you know, a series of small kind of short videos that people can do frequently in order to create a habit of recovery, a habit of, of sort of down-regulating and lengthening muscle, supporting tissue pliability and range of motion and all of these things. But to do that on a frequent.
00:11:14
Speaker
and consistent basis with a little less time demand and really see change, right? Versus trying to make it to a 90 minute yoga class once a week or maybe once every other week is great. It's a great endeavor, but I think less supportive of the kind of change that a lot of us want to see from, from a yoga practice.
00:11:39
Speaker
So I'm hearing from you that your general recommendation is attainable small bites. Yeah. Consistency. Yeah. And that's like baked into the program that we've created. And so I think as people consider whether they want to
00:11:55
Speaker
you know, show up and try a little bit of yoga. Know that it's like less about how much time you do, do it in a given day and more about how frequently you do it throughout your week. I think our shortest video is like 12 minutes maybe. And our longest one is 45. It's I think works really well with all of our modern lives are busy. How do you expect people to interface with the different videos? Can you explain what the different lengths are and what the different focuses are?
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, so this is a package of videos where there are eight videos, yoga videos. Four of them live within a family of sort of modules that are intended to be a progression. And so you work your way through module one through four.
00:12:42
Speaker
And the progression isn't so much about a physical challenge, but more about slowing down. And the challenge is really around time and increased time. So the first like module one, I think is a 30 minute video. And then each module then graduates up by five minutes. And that doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're moving slowly and you're really trying to focus on the quality of your breath and
00:13:09
Speaker
the length of a stretch, five minutes can feel like a long time. And so module one, 30 minutes, module four, 45 minutes. And there are a series of movement patterns and breathing exercises that build on each other.
00:13:27
Speaker
When you move through them sequentially, you really get the benefits of building that familiarity within your body. And by the time you arrive at module four, I think you're going to really have some of the poses, the pacing and kind of that, that mental focus that you want really dialed in. And I think that's a.
00:13:47
Speaker
really we're trying to build a level of proficiency and skillfulness with switching the nervous system over from a sympathetic state, which is your, your go mode game time to kind of rest and digest, relax, recoup and heal. And the more proficient you can get at that,
00:14:07
Speaker
which is what we're trying to support through these modules, the faster you can recover. And so those are the four videos there. And then we have
Integrating Recovery into Training
00:14:17
Speaker
kind of an additional sort of bonus for videos that are really anatomically based. And those are 12 to 20 minutes each.
00:14:26
Speaker
And you can select those based on part of the body that you want to kind of dial in, right? So there's a video that's neck and shoulders. Uh, there's a video that's a back and butt. And then we have a video that's addresses hip flexors and hamstrings. And then a video that is, um, lower body focus. So cat lower leg focus, calves and feet. Those are really designed to address the health of, um, each of those individual parts. So looking at range of motion and.
00:14:56
Speaker
healthy mobility. Great. Yeah. No, I think it's a brilliant tool for, for all athletes. And, you know, as, as we brought the kind of coaching perspective, you know, we said, Hey, yeah, I have athletes, they need, you know, the calf and feet, for example. And, and they're really busy and that's, that's all they can do. But if they have 12 minutes, it makes such a huge difference. And it also really, it's a bit of a, a,
00:15:22
Speaker
cliche or tongue-in-cheek saying, but there's a saying that goes around that says there's no such thing as over-training, just under recovery. Don't take these things too literally, of course, but this is certainly true. We can help people's fitness a lot.
00:15:39
Speaker
when we can help them recover properly and make sure they have time and space for that and tools for that. And we talked about that quite a bit on the uphill athlete platform around sort of foam rolling and nutrition and these kinds of things. But having a
00:15:57
Speaker
Yoga, as you pointed out, is such a big, big tent that we really didn't want to just say, hey, do yoga for recovery, because that could mean Iyengar, some power yoga or something, not Iyengar. What's power yoga? What's that? What's ashtanga, ashtanga yoga, which is more of a very powerful practice. It's definitely not going to be recovery focused. So we wanted to really kind of dial in on this
00:16:21
Speaker
recovery focus of this type of yoga practice, this type of beer, if you will. Which I think has so much relevancy for athletes, but for all of us, you know, we spend so much of our time in Go Mode, doing, you know, hard work and whether that's in our home lives and or in our workplace,
00:16:48
Speaker
or in our goals and dreams and objectives, I think so much of modern life is wired towards productivity. Just to circle back to building that skillfulness at being relaxed. What is that even like? Can we feel that as a necessity to health?
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, just as a personal experience, I think the last two years have been incredibly, you know, discombobulated for so many of us. And that can, that can be a limiting element to performance. When you find yourself in a state of sort of chronic stress, what are the tools that you have? We're limited in our ability to control circumstances.
00:17:41
Speaker
and situations, but we can learn the tools to kind of control how we feel within them and how we manage our stress level and so much of the breathing techniques, the movement techniques that kind of
00:17:57
Speaker
that paying attention, that awareness helps us to tip the scales back towards a more, a calm state, which just allows for that repair and that recharging so that we can turn around and perform again. There's a certain, I sort of chucked all at myself and ourselves a little bit when we start to frame this as like, it's yoga for recovery, but that's so we can perform even more.
00:18:27
Speaker
There's a certain iron age for that, right? But I think it is, it is important. And for me, I know that I get trapped in a little bit in that, in that mindset and just got to remember to pride that the yoga practice is valuable just in and of its own sake. Yeah. I mean, I guess another way of looking at it too is almost like delineating our experience a little bit more where rather than feeling like you're living or moving
00:18:54
Speaker
in a constant state of sort of half tension, you're delineating that experience of like being able to fully perform and then fully rest. And so that you're optimizing both experiences more. I talked to so many people who try to turn down the volume on whatever it is that they feel is loud in their lives.
00:19:19
Speaker
and can't quite get there. And so it's like, yeah, they're relaxing, but not really. Yeah, they're performing, but they're distracted. You know, it's those kinds of things. And so we're trying to kind of build the, the, it's almost like a light switch, right? On off humans just don't function like that. We can in the nervous system. And I think that's a really powerful ability to be able to, to create. So, so tell me who, who this is for then.
Yoga for All and Personal Limits
00:19:43
Speaker
Let's let's, who, who do you welcome into this, this series is the
00:19:49
Speaker
created an athlete is a really broad, I guess, identifier because we, you know, some of us are hesitant to call ourselves athletes, athletes, because, you know, we have this sort of, we need a certain level of proficiency to be able to fully own that. Um, but, uh, you know, I feel like it's, uh,
00:20:10
Speaker
I've always felt like yoga is for everyone who is interested in learning more about the body that they're in and the experience that they can create for themselves within that body and within their mind, right? And so as you apply that to sort of like the uphill athlete audience, right? It's encompassing of people who are in their top performing years, people who are injured, women pre and post needle,
00:20:40
Speaker
I mean, yoga is historically maybe, or, or even just reputationally can be seen as something that has prerequisites. Like, Oh, I got to be able to do this in order to, to, to do yoga. And I'd say scrap that idea. Yoga is the most adaptable practice. There is a, you just come with what you've got and you respect your limitations.
00:21:06
Speaker
and work with what you have and hopefully improve your state of being by taking that kind of that ownership. And I'd say that's what you and I have kind of targeted this really generous sort of practice that allows anybody to come with whatever they have.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think we try to define as coaches when we talk about who is an epilepsy. We talk about anyone who moves their body outside. Of course, that encompasses super top professional openness and encompasses anyone else that is moving their body outside that wants to see it get better. If I may,
00:21:45
Speaker
kind of go off on a little bit of a tangent. I think one of the key words that I've always appreciated that is used in yoga is this word of practice.
Yoga in Daily and Athletic Life
00:21:55
Speaker
And I've really personally adapted that to my own view of my outdoor sports as I age.
00:22:03
Speaker
I'm not a professional alpinist anymore, but I'm still a practicing alpinist. I've never been a professional skier or a high level skier, but I'm a practicing skier. I love to ski, I go out and I practice and I try to be the best I can that day.
00:22:21
Speaker
winning sense, but just in the sense of being, showing up for myself as the, you know, the best skier I can be on that day. And I think that this is one of, for me, this is why yoga fits so well with outdoor sports is because of the sports we target within the playoff athlete community, but not target the sports we address, the sports we participate in. They're mostly not competitive. I mean, sure there are running races and sure there are awards for the best alpine climbing of the year or so on and so forth.
00:22:50
Speaker
I've been running, for example, my whole life and I've only done, since I've been an adult, I think I've done two races in the last 35 years, quote unquote, races. And those were just for fun, right? So I think that whole idea of practice is such a great perspective to bring to training, to recovery,
00:23:16
Speaker
to your sport. And we all work through all these different phases all the time. We've all been injured, for example. Being injured is, frankly, whether you like it or not, it's part of being an athlete. Sometimes you get injured, whether it's an overused injury or a traumatic injury or whatever. And you have to then switch into a rehab boat and you rehab the injury. It's all a practice. And it's all just kind of this continuous daily showing up for yourself
00:23:45
Speaker
And I think that that's philosophically fit so well for me.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. The notion of every day kind of being a new one, right? Like we are dynamic. You and I individually humans are and are on a cellular level changing all the time. And so to show up to a practice, it almost implies like, okay, well I'm ready just to see what today holds, right? And I think that
00:24:15
Speaker
you know, it lends itself to a lot of exploration and ongoing growth. I think it's a really, I think expansive kind of way of thinking about a devotion, right? Something that you put yourself to a discipline within the frame of making progress in a sort of generous way. Yeah, I agree more. I mean, that's, that's how I see
00:24:40
Speaker
You know, I've got a good decade or more on you. And I mean, it's certainly how I see my progress as a, as an athlete personally, but also how I see the community generally as, as this, the biggest tent possible outdoor, uphill athlete tent. Um, it's, it's, yeah, this, this process and everybody's got their own little journey to take and that's all.
00:25:03
Speaker
It's interesting for all of us individually and collectively we can share a lot of knowledge and support for each other. I think that that's gets to the heart of what we're doing here at Pell athlete and what we're accomplishing with these videos. I think it's great. A lot of great synergy here.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah.
Yoga as a Real-Life Movement Simulation
00:25:20
Speaker
I think the only thing I had, the only other thing I'd add there to next to the word practice, I'd add simulation, you know, so much of what I think about doing on a yoga mat is really a simulation of what we want to do in the mountains or in life. And so you are practicing ways of breathing in support of really how you want to breathe.
00:25:44
Speaker
Um, when you're on your skis or how you want to breathe, when you're cutting an onion or how you want to breathe, when you're standing in the checkout line, same for moving. And so you're, you know, deliberately placing a foot here or moving an arm there. And it's a really low risk environment with, you know, you're taking a lot of your attention into this specific move, simulating something that you're going to do in real life with a lot more, um, care.
00:26:12
Speaker
So you kind of create this pattern and this default and almost an automation that becomes a lot more accessible when you're out doing something where your full attention isn't devoted to it, but it's automated now and it's healthy and it's strong. So yeah, I think the practice and simulation are two words that really resonate for me when I think about how I show up on my yoga mat as an athlete.
00:26:42
Speaker
That's great. Having done these two of your courses, the longer ones, the one and the three, it certainly got me motivated to start being regular again and showing up for myself again in this way.
00:27:01
Speaker
to get back into it. It's great. And it's so accessible. It's so easy because it's not my time with these videos. It's great. It's familiar. Yeah. And it feels good, right? It feels good. It feels good. Yeah. Well, great. I think that I'm really excited to start to
Conclusion and Feedback Encouragement
00:27:20
Speaker
get
00:27:20
Speaker
these videos and your courses out to the world of uphill athlete and get the feedback. And I'm sure the coaches are going to be using these tools a lot with their individual athletes, both the long form and the specific kind of anatomically focused classes, courses. And I'm really excited to see how it all evolves. And as you, as the audience,
00:27:46
Speaker
do get into these and practice them. And if there's things that you love or don't like or whatever, we always want to evolve and improve and we'll continue to iterate on these over the coming years and things. So please reach out to, to, you know, whatever coach at uphill athlete or Steven uphill athlete, and we'll make sure that we integrate that with breathe the next, next go around. Thanks for having me, Steve.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, thank you Bri and really look forward to getting this out and thank you for all your great work on this project. It really came out beautifully. It's been a lot of fun on this. Yeah, happy to put it out in the world. Yeah, me too. All right. Thank you. Yeah, take care. Bye everyone. Thanks for joining us today. For more information about what we do, please go to our website uphillathlete.com.