Publications

Om on the Range: Let’s get physical

AMC Outdoors, May 2003

Kathy Gorham, a Catskills workshop attendee, has been hiking and practicing yoga for more than 40 years. “I would never call myself an expert, and I had never formally combined hiking and yoga,” she told me afterward, “but I often end a hike with certain postures. Yoga and anything else physical is a good mix.”

Though the ultimate aims of yoga tend more toward the spiritual, it’s by moving the body — or, at times, keeping it entirely still — that those aims are achieved. For a beginner, the physical side of yoga, which can be modified for any ability level, is often the easiest entry into the practice.

Both yoga and hiking require — and build — strength, balance, and flexibility. In a story on the combination in Yoga Journal in 2001, Dimity McDowell wrote that “the same sense of grounded equilibrium you use to root [some poses] cements your foot to an uneven or unstable surface [while hiking]. Similarly, the muscles that stretch you a little farther in a forward bend increase your stride length and power uphill.”

In yoga, asanas, or postures, are the first step toward health and eventual enlightenment. But they also happen to make great pre- and post-hike stretches, increasing flexibility and helping to prevent injury. Before we hiked, Russell led us through lunges to warm up our hamstrings; balance poses and stretches to prepare our hard-working feet; and ankle rotations “for pliability, so they’ll be responsive to the contours of the land.” She also chose hip rotations, lateral stretches, shoulder rolls, and neck stretches — “so your neck is loose, ready to look around.”

After a hike, inversions — head-, shoulder-, or handstands — return the blood from your feet back toward your head (be sure to learn these from someone who knows the proper technique). And it doesn’t hurt to stretch the hamstrings and hips again, the feet, the back, all the body parts that have worked so hard during your hike.

And then there are the breathing techniques. Pranayama is vital to, and incorporated in, every move in yoga. And as any hiker who has ever paused to gasp for air on a rocky trail knows, it is key to that activity as well. Focusing on proper breathing requires careful concentration. As Sadasiva says, “The breath becomes the bridge between the body and the mind.”

Russell refers to her workshops as “a full-body experience.” But, as she and others point out, the physical aspect is just the beginning. Yoga is often misunderstood, Sadasiva feels, especially now that it has become more mainstream. “People have a proclivity toward the physical,” he says. “But yoga affects more subtle aspects of the self. It is a philosophy and a way of life that embraces all people.”