Yoga for Mountain Biking Bunnies

What do mountain biking and yoga have in common?

Mountain biking requires that you to be on your game, physically and mentally.  From a physical perspective, the sport requires strength, flexibility, balance, and proprioception (body awareness).  From a mental perspective, the sport demands your focus, intuition, mental fortitude and awareness.  All of these traits can be trained through yoga, proving it as a perfect addition to the serious mountain biker’s training regime!

Nara Henderson owns Mindful Motion, and is a yoga instructor and therapist educating small groups and private clients on the beautiful North Shore.  “I noticed a serious demand on the North Shore for small-group yoga and private yoga therapy catering to the unique biomechanics of individual participants,” Nara says.  “I was hearing the same thing from people in our community, people from all walks of athletic ability.  From weekend warriors to professional athletes, they were all saying the same thing: ‘I know yoga is good for me, but I just feel lost in a large group class!’  I began to realize that teaching yoga to the masses is great, but making sure the individual knows how to perform the poses, sequences, and breathwork properly for their own unique body and biomechanics is the key to making sure they can participate successfully and safely in a yoga class.  The only way to foster this is through small-group and private instruction.”

Nara recently joined Dr. Carla Cupido at Baseline Health™, a health clinic opening July 5^th 2011 in seaside Dundarave, West Vancouver. “A combination of passion, creativity and medical science has produced Baseline Health™,” says Dr. Carla Cupido. “We are an imaginative group providing manual medicine, rehabilitation, preventive movement prescription, health education workshops, movement based programming, and online health resources.  We believe that education is the key to health.  Without understanding how your body works, how can you properly care for it?  At Baseline Health, our goal is to equip you with the tools required to live healthy and strong.  Operating on the leading edge of health research, we strive to offer the most current approaches and information available.”

Nara will be the resident Yoga Instructor and Therapist at the clinic, providing specialized yoga classes to small groups and yoga therapy to private clients.  One of the classes Nara is offering at Baseline Health^TM is Yoga for Mountain Bikers, an educated cycling movement class that targets core strength, riding posture and alignment, joint mobility and stability, leg strength and upper body strength, as well as techniques you can use to amp up your confidence, awareness, and mental focus on the trails or at your races. The class size is very small (max 6), which provides exceptional teacher to student ratios to enhance learning, feedback, and experience.  The first class starts July 5^th and will continue to run as a 4-class series every Tuesday evening from 8-9pm for the rest of the riding season.

Muddbunnie Aimee Dunn says this about her recent set of semi-private yoga sessions with Nara: “As a newbie to yoga, I find Nara’s instruction very fluid and easy to follow. She presents the class with ease, yet clearly and concisely with strength in her knowledge and guidance. I like the gentle yet no nonsense approach.  Plus, as a mountain biker she understands what a demanding and dynamic sport it is and can help create greater fluidity and movement in your body which is so crucial to your progression as a rider.”

So, Muddbunnies, curious how yoga can help you hit your lines harder, ride and race faster, prevent injuries, and have more juice left for your next ride?  Join Nara’s Yoga for Mountain Bikers to find out, or book your private or semi-private appointment with her at the clinic to benefit from a private, progressive yoga series designed to make you a stronger, more flexible, injury-free, and overall better rider!