Cambria Keefer is a Southern California-based sport-specific yoga instructor and former Division I softball player who brings a firsthand athletic perspective to every session she leads. Below, Cambria talks about why yoga might be the one thing missing from your training, and how to use it across every phase of your season.
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As a former Division I softball player, when did you first realize yoga could meaningfully impact athletic performance?
I struggled greatly with sports performance anxiety. It wasn't until I hit a mental roadblock myself that I realized the mental aspect of the game is almost more important than the physical. Yoga helped me tap into breath and mindfulness as a way to battle anxiety in my sport.
What are the most common physical and mental patterns you see in competitive athletes, and how does yoga help address them?
Each sport presents their own physical patterns in regard to injury, almost all of which can be addressed with mobility, which helps in preventing injuries. I see a lot of overuse; most sports involve repetition of the same movements, thus causing wear and tear on the same body parts repeatedly. Yoga helps address this by restoring joint range of motion as well as strengthening surrounding muscle groups.
Regarding the mental aspect, competitive athletes often live in a state of high cortisol and an overactive nervous system. Yoga aims to downshift them back to neutral. Breathwork stimulates the vagus nerve, teaching athletes to take themselves out of fight or flight.
Besides stress level reduction, yoga also reminds us that training our brain is just as important as training our bodies. Skill work is repetition oriented so that when athletes need to perform, their muscle memory kicks in and it feels like second nature. However, if they do not train their mind, nerves can easily take over. Practicing being in the moment is just as important as practicing skill work.
I see that even in recovery, athletes like to push. Their time on their yoga mat is a reminder to listen to their bodies rather than instruction, and a reminder that not everything is achievement based. Our practice is awareness based.
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How does breathwork influence performance, both in high-pressure moments and during recovery?
Breathwork takes us out of fight or flight. In competition, an athlete's body can tense, the heart rate spikes, breathing becomes shallow and fast. This is survival mode. Practicing breathwork in yoga isn't about being perfectly calm, it's about learning how to self-regulate. This is a tool we practice that is implemented in competition. Athletes will describe this as slowing the game down.
For sports that involve high cardio, we also want to increase their lung capacity, which in turn helps with their endurance for end-of-game fatigue. In our sessions, breathwork influences the athletes to slow down and get deeper into postures. I encourage them to allow their muscles to relax with each exhale they take, which in turn strengthens their mind-body connection as well.
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How should yoga shift across the different phases of the season?
Yoga is beautiful because it can assist training through season, pre-season, and off-season. In the off-season, I like to work more strengthening and balancing postures. This is the time we can push and get the muscles and joints a little stronger before heading into pre-season. In pre-season, athletes are usually training hard. Their bodies are sore, and they need more mobility and deep stretching sessions to avoid being too tense.
In season, we shift into a lot of mindfulness and meditation. The mental practice is complemented with a gentle stretch asana practice. This is the time to visualize success, and to allow the practice to exist more in their mind than their body.
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For athletes who think yoga is just stretching, what are they missing?
This is my favorite misconception to prove wrong. So many athletes think this, but yoga is usually their one missing piece. It bridges the gap between themselves and success in their sport. Stretching is great for our bodies, but yoga is so much more in the mind than it is in the body. The dharma talks we have are applied to their sport, their lives out of their sport, and even what they may be going through as a team.
If they believe in the benefits of yoga, they often realize that it is just as important as taking reps in practice or the weight room. Training the mind to be calm under pressure isn't something most people are born with. It's something they work on so that when the pressure is on, they are at ease.
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About the Teacher
Cambria Keefer is a yoga instructor based in Southern California who draws on her own athletic experience as a former Division I softball player in her classes. As a 200-hour RYT and 40-hour sport-specific yoga instructor, she focuses on connecting breath to movement to lower stress and calm the nervous system, tailoring each session to the athlete, team, or sport, and adapting her programming to the time of season.
Instagram: @cambam09
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