For a growing number of athletes, on all levels of skill and performance, yoga is rapidly becoming a routine addition to their workout regimen. Confronting the long-held principle that yoga holds no advantage for performers involved in hardy sports such as football, basketball, hockey and even boxing, many institutions are including yoga into their training programs, while some of todays leading sports stars separately have made yoga part of their off-season training as well.

For years, athletes have relied on weight training and extensive cardio routines to help them stay in peak condition to meet the demands of their sport. The relaxed movements of yoga (possibly their only knowledge of the philosophy) apparently lacked the strenuous exertion they feel their bodies needed to get them in game-ready condition.

But that misconception has been altered as teams and sports performers have began investigating yoga more closely and have realized the discipline of body and mind that is required to perform some of the more difficult yoga positions.

Numerous famous sports stars have used yoga to help in their conditioning, from NBA legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Robert Parris, Maurice Lucas and Bill Walton; tennis greats Guillermo Vilas, Yannick Noah and John McEnroe; ex-NFL star Dan Marino and golf legend Gary Player were among the first to practice yoga in the '70s and '80s. That interest in the discipline of yoga among athletes continued today as sports celebs such as pro football s Shannon Sharp and Jon Kitna, tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, boxing legend Evander Holyfield, and teams such as the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Lakers have sought the expertise of yoga instructors to add a new twist to their workout routine.

So what is the benefit of adding yoga to your workout?

Most likely of most interest to athletes is the evidence that yoga can improve overall strength. For a lot of athletes, increasing strength and power is the key to performing better at their sports, regardless of whether it's baseball, swimming, track and field or football. But weight training, which many athletes put their faith in, only trains one or two muscle groups at a time, demanding long hours in the training room to achieve the results they think they need. Yoga and its connected poses incorporate all of the muscles in the body to attain stability and strengthen the relationship between the muscles as well. The benefit of this newfound agility? A body that is stronger and works as one cohesive unit.

Next, yoga helps strengthen the bodys core, the area from which almost all of the explosive energy needed in sports originates. In games such as tennis and baseball, the core is where the hitting and throwing power originates. In a sport such as football, the core of the body is responsible for the rapid turns in direction that are necessary to succeed in the sport. Getting this section of the body in condition is one of the main advantages to adding yoga to your athletic routine. With exercises and positions that help enhance posture, yoga supports proper body arrangement and refines how the body operates, making the athlete speedier, better conditioned and more powerful.

By adding muscle and balance, yoga also helps increase responsiveness in athletes, another major point. By combining enhanced strength, mobility and balance, yoga can increase agility that can be useful in virtually all sports. And as an added benefit, athletes who improve their mobility through yoga can reduce the possibility of injury by conditioning the body to the repetitive motions that can have harmful effects (think carpal tunnel syndrome).

And finally, yoga can enhance the relationship between the mind and the body. For many sports performers, there are "head games" involved in athletics: psyching out an opponent, visualizing success, predicting an opponent's moves before he or she makes them. These frequently split-second choices require the clarity of thought that can be acquired through yoga. With breathing exercises, meditation sessions and the centered poses of yoga, sports performers can discover what is required to get their mind and body to work as one cohesive unit, even during the most stressful periods of a game, when muscles can tighten up, become inflexible and lower performance.

Thanks to their discovery of the benefit of yoga, it has now become a welcome part of the training program of many athletes on all skill levels. By doing a bit of research into the many forms and styles of yoga, along with examining their unique features, athletes can discover the yoga practice and workout that can provide benefits to their particular sport.