RecoveryYoga for Athletes

This program is designed for athletes to enhance performance and prevent injuries. The power of a yoga practice for any athlete cannot be understated. With this practice comes a perfectly balanced way to overcome the limitations that repetitive movement causes in the body. RecoveryYoga increases the range of motion in the joints, the flexibility of muscles, and overall strength. In addition, yoga techniques teach the athlete how to begin to focus the mind and utilize the breath, to more readily achieve the state of “being in the zone”, that all competitive athletes strive for. 

RecoveryYoga for Athletes is tailored to address the specific needs of each individual sport. RecoveryYoga for Athletes is customized and created by Richard Villella, a former NFL running back with the New England Patriots (see bio). Richard has been teaching yoga and therapeutic yoga for over 35 years and has worked with many professional athletes. Athletes are taught a sport-specific regimen that they will practice and learn. Once the program is completed, the athletes will have the tools to duplicate the program on their own, and to draw from whenever needed. 

Each sport-specific session will follow the curriculum designed by Richard. Each session will include a one-hour physical practice designed to increase flexibility, strength, endurance and balance. Throughout the session, Richard shares knowledge to give the athlete a better understanding of how the body works and how the exercises will translate to a better performance on the field/court. The end of the session is spent learning tools that will help focus the mind and prolong the ability to concentrate.

RecoveryYoga Programs can be implemented on-site at the team’s, or individual athlete’s practice venue. Team programs run three times a year: late summer for fall sports, late fall for winter sports, and late winter for spring sports. Sports featured, but not limited to, are: football, soccer, swim, track and field, basketball, baseball, lacrosse and tennis. 

The Modern Athlete

What makes a person more athletic?

What characteristics make a person an exceptional athlete?

• Mobility

• Endurance

• Balance

• Fewer Injuries

• Training

Richard has had the distinct pleasure of teaching competitive high school, collegiate and professional athletes. What he is able to teach and  share with coaches and athletes will help prevent injuries. By making the athlete more flexible and stronger, with a wider range of movement, or what Richard calls increased mobility, the athlete will become more athletic. Richard’s program translates into excelling at any athletic endeavor.

1. Increased Range of Motion & Enhanced Athleticism

To be an exceptional athlete, it’s not enough to just lift weights and work the cardio system. The stereotypical “muscle bound” athlete is inflexible and therefore less graceful and more importantly, less athletic. The modern athlete has to be more athletic. In order to be athletic, we have to be flexible. We have to be able to move freely with ease and grace. Modern athletes are powerful and graceful! The very definition of grace is “the simple ease and refinement of movement.” Being more flexible creates this ease of movement, and makes one more athletic. Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Novak Djokovic, Jerry Rice, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar are just a few examples of exceptional athletes who had extended careers, and few injuries. Stretching was an important part of their training programs. In an interview, Michael Jordan shared that he stretched for an hour before and after each game and practice, and was injury free for 13 years of his NBA career. By increasing the range of what Richard calls “dynamic flexibility” or “usable flexibility”, you increase the athlete's ability to move more freely, instead of stiff, awkward or clumsy. 

2. Superior Endurance & Increased Energy

The tighter your muscles, the more “work” and the more effort it takes to move your body or specific body part, and the more energy you burn and expend. It’s like having therabands attached to your arms and legs. You’re not only expending energy in any given athletic movement to propel your body, i.e. to run, to jump, to bike, to throw etc., but when muscles are tight, you also expend more energy because there’s a resistance to that movement, inherent in restricted flexibility. With increased flexibility, there is less resistance and less effort needed in any movement; therefore, less energy is expended, and endurance is increased. For example, triathletes and runners that follow Richard’s program decrease their times significantly by lengthening their strides (increasing their stride angle) with increased flexibility; thereby, increasing stamina through less resistance.

3. Better Balance

Good balance is a necessity for the superior athlete, but it is not naturally practiced. What we don’t use, we lose, or vice versa, and what you use, improves. Practicing balancing exercises improves the neural systems, quickens and speeds up neural responses, and enhances the afferent and efferent nerve impulses; thereby, increasing one's ability to balance.

4. Fewer Injuries

Most athletes don’t have balanced muscular systems. Athletes use their bodies in disproportionate ways. They are right or left arm dominant and right or left leg dominant. We swing bats, golf clubs and rackets one way or with one arm. We throw or kick with one arm or leg. Inevitably, one shoulder, one hip, one hamstring, one glute, or one side of the athlete’s back becomes tighter than the opposing side of her body. When muscles are tight, an athlete is more prone to soft tissue injuries like muscle strains, pulls, and spasms. Also, there are more joint injuries like tendonitis, bursitis, and rotator cuff tears when muscles are tight. Muscles have memory, or what science calls the physiological memory of muscles. That memory is adversely affected by repetitive physical activity and exercise accumulated over time. Any repetitive exercise-swimming, running, walking, tennis, weights, etc., tightens muscles.

In 2004 The New York Mets hired Richard to work with Jose Reyes during spring training. Jose Reyes, their star shortstop, suffered from three severe hamstring pulls in 18 months due to an extremely tight hamstring in his right leg. At spring training Richard observed that all the Mets players suffered from very different and specific tightnesses. For example, their pitcher Al Leiter had sciatica in the leg of the foot that he planted with, when he threw the ball. All the pitchers had tight hips, glutes and hamstrings on their extending legs. All the infielders had tight hamstrings, glutes, hips and back muscles on their right sides, from coiling and crouching on their right, while fielding. Unlike most of the other players, Richard observed a journeyman outfielder spending a great deal of time stretching, and it showed; he was very flexible. He told Richard his father taught him early in life the importance of stretching, and after 14 years in the Majors, he had never been injured. 

5. Training

First, most training methods are linear in movement; meaning, extending along a straight, or nearly straight line (one dimensional). Most athletic endeavors are anything but linear. Most athletic endeavors entail sudden, quick bursts of reaching, diving, twisting, turning, lunging and extending. Training with yoga incorporated into your program prepares the body for those unavoidable moments when you are pushing yourself outside the normal athletic movements.

Second, the very nature of training and preparing the body with cardio and strength training is repetitive exercise. Although the benefits of repetitive exercise can mean increased cardio stamina and or increased strength, there is a negative component to any repetitive exercise. With repetition, there is an insidious tightening of the muscles and a restricting reduction of movement. You can’t run for 45 minutes, entailing thousands of contracting muscular movements, and not have an impact on the muscles. When you add up the day to day, week to week, year to year accumulation, the effects are devastating. A regular practice of Recovery Yoga reverses or counters the accumulative harmful effects of daily training, and safeguards the body from athletic injuries.

Richard Villella

From an early age Richard excelled in sports. He grew up in Canton, Ohio and played multiple sports in high school including: baseball, basketball, track and football. Richard was a top athlete and was awarded All League & All County, and was voted into his High School Hall of Fame. Richard was recruited by 500 colleges for football and ultimately attended Brown University, majoring in economics and playing football. In college he set all the rushing records and his single season rushing record was held for 25 years at Brown.
After college, Richard was signed by the New England Patriots as a Running Back. He played for two years before a knee injury derailed his football career. Looking to trim down from his football playing weight, he tried many different types of exercise, but was never fully satisfied with the results. When he stumbled upon yoga, he quickly realized that he found the one discipline that gave him all the components he was looking for in a physical regimen. Yoga kept him in great cardiovascular shape, maintained strength by using his own body weight like a weight machine, created flexibility in his muscles and joints through stretching, and improved and enhanced his balance. In addition, a yoga practice gave him the tools to enhance his concentration, and focus his mind.
Richard’s life long study of the anatomy, his participation in numerous sports, and his in-depth knowledge of yoga, gives him a unique perspective to create healthier, balanced workout regimes for athletes. Also, having dealt with so many personal sports related injuries gives Richard the insight to create regimes to help avoid common injuries. Richard believes that if he had implemented yoga into his workouts when he was a young athlete, many of the injuries he suffered would have been avoidable, or at least not as severe. His Yoga for Athletes programs offer athletes what he didn’t have himself, and paves the way for athletes to reap the benefits of all yoga has to offer.