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Roxy Outdoor Fitness: Prep your body for your next outdoor adventure |
As fitness and adventure fiends, Roxy girls continue to push boundaries and exceed limits. But it’s important to find a balance, listen to our bodies, and honor it without pushing it over the edge. Whether it’s trailblazing through the woods or taking on beach bootcamps, our muscles experience a tremendous amount of pounding, shortening, and tightening. When we do not restore, elongate, and stretch these muscles, imbalances and injuries occur. Yoga is a powerful tool that will not only help us develop better body awareness and balance, but it’s the best way to prevent muscle overuse and injury.
Roxy professional surfer and athlete Amy Murphree has had scoliosis most of her life, which has challenged her throughout her surfing and training career. Her tools for surfing success and injury prevention include yoga and stretching on a daily basis.
Checkout Amy’s Roxy Outdoor Fitness tips for yoga success:
Just breathe.
Breathing is one of the most important parts of yoga. Remember to consciously breathe into your muscles as you stretch into each pose. Try the four-count breathing- four counts breathe in, hold for four counts, four counts breathe out. Feel your belly rise and fill your lungs at the same time for a deeper breath. If you can, set aside 30 minutes a day to be calm, find your center and clear your mind.
Anyone can do it.
Yoga isn’t a chore as some people think. You don’t have to be Gumby to get a good stretch in. Downward dog is an easy pose that is great for lengthening your hamstrings and extending your vertebrae. Simply plant your hands on the ground while pressing your hips high and yearning your heels for the mat.
You can add lifting one leg high up behind you keeping your hips squared to the mat for three-legged dog. Breathe in to lift, and out to lengthen while releasing your shoulders down from your ears. This will deepen the stretch and sets you up to move into half pigeon or runners lunge, which are great hip-openers.
Once you start making yoga or even just a few quick stretches a habitual part of your day you will notice an increasingly heightened state of awareness as well as a nice reward for all the hard work you put into your outdoor workouts.
Not only does my practice elongate my muscles and strengthen my core, but I also find inspiration and peace, which puts a positive spin on my day. Practicing in great gear makes it even better. Roxy’s new Outdoor Fitness line allows us as athletes to have the best equipment available to perform in with style and ease.
May 3, 2013
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