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When legendary big wave surfer Gerry Lopez was a student at the University of Hawaii in 1968, he stumbled upon an outdoor yoga class. “I thought, if you could move like that on a surfboard, you could be a really good surfer,” says Lopez.
He threw himself into practicing yoga, expecting it to enhance his balance on the board, although Lopez understood it was critical for finding balance beyond the physical. “After getting into yoga, I was able to relax when getting tumbled underwater and not being able to breath,” recalls Lopez. “The meditative part of yoga was pretty much the exact same state of mind that you needed to relax in those situations and surf successfully.”
That poise helped him become one of the most fearless big wave pioneers of his era and one of the first surfers to tackle the massive swells of Hawaii’s infamous North Shore, where he took home the Pipeline Masters championship in 1972 and 1973, causing many to rename it the Gerry Lopez Pipeline Masters.
What’s lesser known is his role as early advocate for the pivotal role that yoga and its meditative qualities play in epic athletic undertakings. Despite Lopez’s proselytization, it took several more decades for yoga to become even marginally common in athletic training regimens.
Although sport psychology has long taught that mindset is essential to athletic performance, it wasn’t until research illustrated that yoga and mindfulness minimize injury recovery time and reduce stress and anxiety that the practice became increasingly commonplace among athletes at all levels, including the NFL, MLB, and NBA. Even then, it took considerable time for most pro, college, and casual athletes to understand firsthand how yoga’s benefits extend beyond flexibility and reduced soreness.
Now, the narrative around yoga and athletes is being rewritten by individuals who are landing in record books, including Olympic swimming medalists Michael Phelps and Cortney Jordan Truitt, all-time leading basketball scorer LeBron James, soccer player Alex Morgan and her past title of game-winning goals, tennis champion Novak Djokovic and his record 24 Grand Slam titles, and countless others who slide under the radar of front-page headlines yet manage epic feats of their own.
In so doing, these athletes are redefining not only the role of yoga in athletics but the very definition of success. Following are insights from longtime students of yoga and athletes who rely on the practice.
Yoga and Athletes Equal Epic Endeavors
Mental Resilience
“The biggest limiting factor in epic feats is the belief and mindset of athletes,” says Mike Aidala. A performance coach known for taking on extreme challenges, Aidala credits his mental resilience to his background as a yoga teacher. He has finished eight ultra-marathons and stand-up paddleboarded 82 miles from the Bahamas to Florida to raise money for cystic fibrosis.
He also set a world record in 2022 for total weight lifted in the Turkish Get Up, in which he navigated a series of postures while holding a kettlebell overhead in one hand, essentially transitioning from Savasana to Urdhva Hastasana and back down again 149 times. In an hour of resilience, Aidala had lifted 13,823, surpassing the previous world record by more than 800 pounds.
“The Turkish Get Up requires the most valuable resource that I have: presence. I’ve really been leaning into my mindfulness practices. I’ve been focusing on yoga, meditation, and spending a lot of time in nature,” he explains in a video documenting his training and attempt.
“On the mat, you’re constantly having a conversation with your mind. The more you can make friends with your mind, the better it will serve you,” says Aidala. “Not only in life but also in big endeavors, where you need to develop maximum focus and confidence.”
Overcoming Fear
Before Sasha Dingle was a renowned mountain biker and free skier turned meditation teacher, she was a student in elementary school tagging along to her dad’s yoga classes. Not long after, Dingle explains, she became aware that whenever fear or doubt would show up, she could anchor back into her body.
“I think being reflective and being so connected to my body came from that early exposure to yoga,” recalls Dingle. “My strength as an athlete was always my mind. My coaches were telling me the reason I was getting picked for training camps that fed onto the U.S. Ski Team was because I could just put fear away. Yoga laid a foundation for that.”
Throughout her experiences—including becoming the Freeskiing World Champion and competing in the Freeride World Tour and Enduro World Series—Dingle was able to handily navigate her uncomfortable emotions. Dingle eventually founded the Mountain Mind Project, an organization that provides mental training for athletes, high performers, and everyday folks looking to level up.
Her takeaways are not unlike Lopez’s countless experiences of being dragged underwater. “Panic was right there,” he says. “It was on your shoulder. You could easily go there, in which case you would’ve been in trouble.” Instead, he would come back to that stillness and sense of quiet and calm that yoga instilled in him.
Physical Training
Many athletes staunchly defend yoga in their circles, correcting the common misperception that yoga is easy or just stretching.
“Yoga can be very physical and intense,” says Aidala. “It increases strength, mobility, and range, which helps with injury prevention and force production.” Like the kind of force production that might help someone lift 13,823 pounds in an hour.
Similarly, Dingle explains that the powerlifting athletic training regimens never resonated with her. “It didn’t feel like it was making me a well-rounded athlete, which is what I needed to move in the mountains,” she explains of its resilience-building capacity. “Yoga allowed me to build strength in a way that was more holistic and supported my sports.”
For those who don’t see the value in yoga or can’t seem to look past common stereotypes associated with it, Dingle has some advice. “Look past the Instagram version of people in Spandex contorting themselves,” says Dingle. “That is a commercialized, limited view.” She explains that they don’t capture the “strength-building, mobility-building, focus, and self-awareness that are so beneficial for anyone pushing themselves to a higher level.”
Whatever that level is—whether a world record, an epic personal physical challenge, greater mental resilience, or all of the above.
