High school football players improve with UT Extension yoga classes
Moses McEwen plays both offensive and defensive line for the Adamsville, Tennessee, Cardinals. When it comes to football, you might say he’s flexible. “It kind of helps me calm down and just kind of relax and helps me get stretched out more,” he says.
Moses is talking about yoga. The ancient art does not seem like it would go together with spread offenses and blitzing defenses, yet the combination works for some Tennessee high schools. Moses and his teammates are in a class taught by UT Extension in McNairy County as part of their spring practice.
“With yoga, you’ve got the flexibility. You’ve got the endurance. You’ve got the strength,” says Schancey Chapman, director of McNairy County Extension, who instructs the class using the Yoga for Kids curriculum taught by the UT Extension Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. Chapman’s husband also is the offensive coordinator for the team.
Flexibility: The Secret Weapon in Football
Chapman says yoga stretches the body and leads to better coordination, footwork, and agility, making it a natural complement to football. “Yoga is hitting muscles the players are probably not going to hit in their everyday stretching,” she says. “We do tree pose and warrior pose, but we also get on the floor and do some stretching with our legs, with our hips.”
Young people are already quite flexible. However, even for teenagers, yoga can really make a difference in how they bend and move, and perhaps even how their bodies absorb contact during play. Coaches with the Cardinals believe strongly that greater flexibility can mean fewer injuries from blocking, tackling, and hard hits.
“We’re always on them about the importance of stretching. We keep on them to get warmed up and get loose,” says head coach Brandon Gray.
The best arm on the team belongs to quarterback Ben Hill. Ben believes yoga makes him a better passer. “I’d say so. We do a few poses that definitely challenge my shoulders and stuff like that. So it helps me a lot,” he says.
UT Extension teaches the yoga class to the team during the spring, with players encouraged to continue yoga on their own later.
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