Study Notes on Sports, Science and Yoga, Read Here

What is Sports? 

An activity involving physical exertion and skill where a person or team competes for entertainment against each other. Now the next question that arises is why is there a need for sports? Sports has more than just physical benefits, it builds your core and helps in regularizing the body tone. Let's have a look at all the possible healthy aspects of sports.

Sport’s Physical Benefits

• First of all, Sports are strengthening the spirit.
• Of course, daily sports make your heart stronger.
• Sport thus provides an outstanding preventive measure against heart disease.
• This certainly increases people's life expectancy. A healthy heart always requires sound blood pressure.

Sports involve physical body activity.

• Because of this physical activity, vessels in the blood remain clean.
• Sports reduce cholesterol and fat content in the body. 
• This is because the lining of the blood vessels is increasingly flexible.
• Flexibility improves because of physical exertion, which is the product of Sports.

Other Benefits of sport is definitely

• An excellent tool for building self-confidence.
• Playing sports builds confidence to speak properly.
• A sport definitely improves communication skills with others.
• In addition, the person experiences confidence to sit, stand, and walk properly.
• Therefore, Sports enriches an individual's social life.

Yoga

Yoga is a community of disciplines or practices that originated in ancient India. Yoga is one of six Hindu philosophical traditions. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism have a broad variety of yoga schools, practices, and goals. In the Western world, the term "Yoga" often denotes a modern form of hatha yoga and yoga as exercise, which consists largely of the postures called asanas.

• The origins of yoga were thought to date back to pre-Vedic Indian traditions; probably in the culture of the Indus Valley around 3000 BCE.
• It is described in the Rigveda, but most likely yoga evolved as a systematic study in the ascetic movements of ancient India and śramaa around the 5th and 6th centuries BCE. 
• The chronology of the earliest texts describing yoga-practices is unclear, and Upanishads are variously credited.
• Patanjali's Yoga Sutras dated from the 2nd century BCE and gained prominence in the west in the 20th century after Swami Vivekananda first introduced them.
• Hatha yoga texts with origins in tantra sometimes emerged between the 9th and 11th centuries with origins in tantra. 

Yoga gurus from India later introduced yoga into the West, following Swami Vivekananda's popularity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with his translation of yoga practice, excluding asanas.

Within India, it has developed into physical fitness, stress management and relaxation techniques based on posture. Yoga, however, is more than physical exercise in Indian traditions; it has a centre of meditation and spirituality. One of the six major orthodox Hindu schools is also called Yoga, which has its own epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics, and is closely associated with the philosophy of Hindu Samkhya.

The science behind yoga

Yoga has been practised for about five thousand years. Over time numerous yoga schools and organizations have arisen.

At first, it can be overwhelming to find a yoga style that will resonate with you.

• If you are a competitive athlete, it is best to tailor your yoga practice to your training schedule because certain muscle groups can be developed by a particular sport while ignoring others.
• Over time this cycle induces muscle and joint imbalances, leading to unnecessary injury.
• Yoga helps the muscles, tendons, and ligaments work through a full range of motion, promoting flexibility and core strength which is a huge benefit for athletes in their chosen sport.

Heidi Resiert, a tri-athlete from San Diego, said, "I am glad that I found yoga and added it to my weekly workout routine. Not only do I feel stronger, but I also feel more confident that I will continue to be free of injury." 

Another essential element in yoga is breathing work (pranayama).

• Breathing attention during yoga can be considered one of the most important benefits for athletes.
• Learning to stay focused and centred through uncomfortable poses by focusing on even inhalations and exhalations establishes the athlete. 

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