Real Men Do Yoga

Excerpted from
Real Men Do Yoga: 21 Star Athletes Reveal Their Secrets for Strength, Flexibility and Peak Performance
By John Capouya

No, you won't have to stand on your head. There will be no strange and painful contortions here. No chanting, no incense, no gurus. And, no, it isn't a chick thing.

These are probably the biggest misconceptions that some men still have about yoga. In the last few years, yoga has exploded in popularity in this country-some 15 million people do it. But because so many women practice yoga, and it's had a "fringe" or New Age image, lots of guys haven't tried yoga yet, and they think it really isn't for them.

Wrong! You see, none of these stereotypes need apply. Doing yoga doesn't require freak-show flexibility. Yoga's not some weird Eastern religion. In fact, it's not a religion at all. And-let me say this again- it's not just practiced by women. There are roughly 3.5 million men in the United States doing yoga right now, including some of the top athletes in professional sports.

So what is yoga, then?

At its heart, yoga is an amazing exercise system with 5,000 years of road-testing behind it. That long history, a growing body of medical evidence and the reports of men practicing yoga right now all tell us this: If you're a guy who wants to get in great shape-maybe the best shape of your life-yoga is the workout for you. It's fun, it's different, and it's a terrific complement to any other activities you currently enjoy.

That's why so many of America's top pro athletes are doing yoga, and why they were among the first American men to get with the program. In this book you'll hear directly from more than twenty of these sports stars-the guys you see on TV every Sunday. They'll tell you how yoga's taken their skills to a higher level and prolonged their careers. And you'll see some of these great athletes doing yoga, including legendary quarterback Dan Marino-turns out he was a yoga jock, too!

Throughout this book, I'll explain how this ingenious exercise system works, laying out the physiology of it, citing studies and other medical evidence. But I don't think anyone has a complete scientific explanation for the overall feeling of well-being you get after a yoga workout-call it the yoga glow.

Jerry Grossman, a 43-year-old technical consultant who lives in New York City, says that his first class four years ago "had a magical effect on me, it was so reviving. It was the day after I had played some hoops and I was sore, but afterward I was a new man. For a day or so after I felt like a million bucks, but I wasn't really clued in yet to what was happening. Then I realized: 4 It's the yoga.'"

As Jerry's example shows, it's not just pro athletes who have gotten wise to the wisdom of yoga. In this book you'll hear from men of all ages, all over the country, who've made yoga part of their lives. Here's the thing: These are not just the guys whom the stereotypes tell us do yoga. You know, sensitive New Age guys looking for enlightenment. Far from it.

In my research for this book, I've talked to, among others, firemen, architects, contractors, real estate developers, journalists, lawyers, restaurant owners, entrepreneurs, a truck driver in Nebraska and a bass player with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. All they have in common is yoga. That's the point, as well as the title, of this book: Real Men Do Yoga.

Same as the pro athletes, these guys will tell you how yoga's gotten them in fantastic shape, taken away their back pain-and improved their golf! Some of these men laughingly call themselves yoga addicts, and swear they'll practice it for the rest of their lives. That's another yoga advantage: You're never too old to do it, enjoy it and benefit from it.

More good news: You can start to see all these results in just two hours a week. In this book I'll teach you how, coaching you through the yoga stretches one at a time, with easy-to-follow instructions and how-to pictures. We'll learn which positions are the best at producing each of yoga's many benefits: flexibility, strength, balance, etc.

Chapter 9 tells you how to prevent injuries with yoga and in chapter 11 you'll see which exercises help prepare you to excel in different sports, starting with golf. After all the physical moves, we'll get into yoga's mental benefits-better focus and relaxation-and learn how to meditate.

Then at the end of the book we put it all together in two routines: a

30-minute workout for beginners or rookies and a 45-minute workout for veterans (that's you, once you've been practicing for a few months). Michael Lechonczak, an absolutely superb yoga teacher in New York City, helped me with the instruction. He's trained in Ashtanga, Iyengar and Anusara yoga, all of which are derived from the Hatha yoga tradition, and he's been teaching for ten years. Best of all, Michael, who's a big, muscular guy himself, has put together yoga workouts specially designed with mens' bodies-and our sometimes macho attitudes-in mind.

Now consider this: Yoga's basically free. After you plunk down a few bucks for this book and buy a mat to work out on (I'll tell you what you need in the next chapter), yoga is available to you gratis, any time you want it. You don't need any fancy equipment, so you can do yoga anywhere, including in a hotel room on the road, which is great for business travelers.

We've already demolished the idea that yoga is a chick thing. As for yoga being a spiritual thing, that's entirely up to you. Some students and many teachers want to emphasize yoga's more metaphysical and spiritual aspects. And that's fine, if that's what you're after.

But we're just going to keep the focus on yoga's fantastic physical and mental benefits, without getting into the more cosmic stuff. So we'll be learning a twenty-first-century American kind of yoga, one that's fun, results-oriented and practical. The way men like things. That's the kind of yoga Tommy Bernard, a 55-year-old liquor wholesaler down in Nashville, likes to do. He started yoga to help him compete in the martial arts (and keep up with much younger guys). He's not looking for a religious experience, and hasn't found one. "You don't have to sit around and say 4Om' to do yoga," he says. "It doesn't have to be all Eastern and mystical. To me, it's just the best workout, bar none."

For us, yoga will be a tool for success, a way of reaching our goals, and a competitive edge. Like they used to say about the U.S. Army - now there's a comparison you never thought you'd hear-yoga helps you be all you can be. One small component of this new Guy Yoga approach: I'm figuring you don't know Sanskrit. Am I right? So we won't be using all the exotic terminology that yoga folks sometimes love to throw around. What's the point of talking about two of the basic starting positions as 'Tadasana" or "Shavasana," when you already know those two as Standing Up and Lying Down?

Before we hit the mats and get started, though, let me clear up one more thing. When you see yoga depicted on magazine covers or what-have-you, it's often some woman in a leotard looking really serene and contemplative. And it will relax your body and calm your mind.

Believe me, though, yoga can be hard. You're in for a demanding, athletically challenging workout here. Not bed-of-nails painful, just tough. Paul Hewitt, the men's basketball coach at Georgia Tech, started his players doing yoga a couple of seasons back. One thing he and his hoopsters found out, pronto: "This is not some passive, sit-around-and-contemplate kind of thing," the coach says. "It's very difficult, especially at first. It really stretches my guys to their limits."

But hey, hard is good, right? Real Men eat hard for breakfast. We know there's no free lunch; if you want to see results, you've gotta do the work.

Different is good, too. Before I started doing yoga a few years back, I'd been working out and playing sports my whole life, and my exercise routines had pretty much become ruts. (With the occasional knee or rotator cuff injury thrown in, just to keep things interesting.) So it's really been great to break out of the same-old same-old and put my body and concentration to new tests by doing yoga. And when I started to see myself getting better at it, I was proud: I really felt like I grew and that I accomplished something. You will too.

That reminds me-About that standing on-your-head thing I mentioned a while back: As I promised, you won't have to do that in this book, or the Shoulderstand or the Handstand. They're great, but kind of tricky; if you don't do them right, you can screw up your neck. So I'm going to skip them, and you can learn them with some hands-on instruction if you ever go to a yoga class.

If you do end up standing on your head one day, though, you know what? You just might like it. I learned to do it, and it's pretty cool. It's challenging and fun to look at the world a little differently-literally, since you're upside-down. And that holds true for yoga overall. Doing something new and getting a new perspective on your body and its capabilities are some of the best things a Real Man can get out of trying yoga.

All told, yoga offers physical and mental benefits that can make you a better athlete, a better worker, a better lover-in short, a healthier and happier dude. And yoga is something you can enjoy for the rest of your life. So what are you waiting for? Let's get started.