Yoga and Swimming: A Competitive Swimmer Talks Yoga for Athletes

By Kimberly Fowler

American swimmer Keri Hehn placed second in the 200m breaststroke at the 2009 World Championship Swimming Trials, earning a berth at the 2009 World Championships in Rome. Originally from Fargo, ND, Keri now lives in Los Angeles, swims for the Trojan Swim Club and is a dedicated YAS Venice student. She recently became an instructor at YAS.

You began taking my Yoga for Athletes® class around two years ago. What drew you to it initially?

While training for the Pan American Games (one year out from Olympic Trials), I needed to incorporate an additional component in my swimming routine. At first, one of my teammates and I went to a spin class for cardio (as a cross-trainer). The teacher offered to let us take the yoga class afterwards for free. We’d been training so hard and were so sore, we figured, why not?

At first I was not a fan of yoga. It moved too slowly and it was hard not to be competitive in class. (You know: I can stretch further, get into the pose faster and deeper.) But after coming a few times, I started to notice how fast I would swim the following day. It really helped me focus on stretching, which was an important piece of my training that I kept overlooking.

How exactly does yoga help your swimming?

It works on flexibility and strength. Since most of us spend two-to-four hours each day in the pool six days-a-week, we do not spend a lot of time focusing on stretching and working on flexibility. Yoga makes you really focus on holding the poses, and most importantly, becoming aware of your body.

So yoga helps with your conditioning for swimming?

Yes. I think yoga has helped with my core strength, which is extremely important in swimming. Everything comes from your core—every stroke you take is initiated by your core muscles. I also think that balance is really important to swimming, because you have to maintain a streamlined position in the water, and that means you have to have amazing body position and alignment.

The core strength and balance from yoga directly applies to your swimming.

Core stability is important to improve posture that will make you float higher in the water, which ultimately makes you more aerodynamic. Every stroke you take should be driven from your core. The core strength you build in yoga makes it easier to maintain this balance in the water. And body position is the key factor in swimming. By maintaining core strength and learning to balance while you float in the water, you can become as streamlined and efficient as possible to maximize your speed. Making the least effort possible, but covering the furthest distance, is our goal. Maintaining balance and core strength makes this possible.

Does the breath work in yoga help with your breathing in the pool?

Yes, we use our breath work to lower our heart rates, and to also push through pain. Being a swimmer and not being able to breathe at all times makes it very important that when we are breathing we use your breath as efficiently as possible.

Talk a little more about how improved flexibility impacts your swimming.

Flexibility is important to swimmers because it lengthens our muscles, which makes them stronger and healthier. And stretching is a great way to recover after a hard workout. Flexibility maximizes your range of motion, which is extremely important in any sport, but especially swimming.

So yoga helps swimmers with recovery.

Personally, I use yoga to recover. It allows me to take the time to stretch my muscles so that the next day I push myself harder than the day before. You’d be surprised how tight you get after a swimming workout, and how yoga allows you to stretch and recover. I always swim fast the next morning if I’ve done yoga the previous day. Also, after I fly to a competition, I usually do yoga in the hotel room because it reduces the stiffness from the flight.

Stretch also helps lessen sports-related injuries, particularly when recurring motion is involved.

Swimmers overuse their shoulders and knees, causing weakness. Yoga allows you to stretch and strengthen without putting too much stress on the joints. If more swimmers were to use yoga, I truly believe they would see less injury, because they would not be as tight in their shoulders and would have a larger range of motion.

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