Irish rugby player John Muldoon is not a typical yogi. At 6ft 3in and weighing nearly 17 stone, he is about as far from the image of the lithe, leggy, slightly dippy yoga girl often associated with this ancient Indian discipline.

But Muldoon, who plays for Connacht and recently toured New Zealand with the Irish rugby team, is one of a host of sports stars who have taken up yoga to improve their mobility and performance on the pitch. No one is more surprised by this than Muldoon himself.

When he, along with several of his fellow Connacht team players, were first sent to a yoga class, he admits now his reaction was fairly predictable.

"Yep, I thought yoga was for girls. I mean, the size I am, I just don't think I'm built for hand-stands and head-stands. Anyway we went along and thought it would be a nice relaxing stretch.

"Within about 20 minutes we were asking for the windows to be opened and the air conditioning to be turned on we were sweating that much," he says.

Intense

Like a lot of men who venture into a yoga class, Muldoon quickly discovered that yoga is an intense physical discipline. The relaxation only comes after an hour-and-a-half of sometimes gruelling postures.

It's tough, even for those who believe themselves to be physically fit, perhaps especially for those who believe themselves to be physically fit. Because the difference between yoga and other forms of exercise is that yoga focuses on working and stretching all the muscle groups.

"A lot of men when they work out think about lifting weights and building big muscles," says Muldoon's teacher David Cunningham of the Yoga Shala (www.theyogashala.net) in Galway. "But that doesn't help with agility and mobility. Often it can create problems, with strain on other areas of the body," he says.

Yoga poses encourage the muscles to work in harmony which is why it is of such benefit to sportsmen.

"You'll find that with sportsmen some of the muscle groups are very well developed and others less so. The front thighs are bulky and the hamstrings are tight. This puts pressure on the knees.

"Yoga helps correct these imbalances and improves mobility. It also reduces the risk of injury," he explains.

Muldoon quickly found yoga improved his physical condition. He suffers from occasional back pain. "Yoga helped me improve the flexibility in my hips. The range of movement increased and that meant my back area was way better," he says.

It also helped with injuries. "I find when I'm not going regularly to yoga I start to get niggling injuries.

"Rugby is a contact sport so there's always the possibility of over-extending. Muscles become stiff when you're tired and that makes them vulnerable to tears. Yoga builds strength in those vulnerable areas," he says.

In addition to the Connacht rugby players, Cunningham teaches Galway GAA players.

"I like to think the stigma men felt about doing yoga is gone now. There are so many big sports stars who talk openly about how they practise yoga and the benefits they find," he says.

It's true that more men are taking to the yoga mat, encouraged by high-profile stars extolling the benefits. Soccer players Roy Keane and Ryan Giggs have practiced it in order to improve their performance. Movie stars Mathew McConaughey and Tobey Maguire use it to tone their physiques.

Still, Cunningham is used to a certain reluctance among new male students. "The really big guys hate it at first but actually it's exactly what they need.

"None of them wants to be sitting on the side lines with an injury and as soon as they discover yoga helps reduce the risk of that they get a lot more motivated," he says.

Performance

"Ultimately yoga makes for better athletes. They move more easily and their performance on the pitch is greatly improved."

Cunningham runs men-only classes. "It helps reassure the reluctant in their macho-ness," he laughs. "Having the big sports guys there encourages other men. We get all sorts. Business men, older guys -- they all benefit."

It is ironic that men in the west believe yoga to be a female thing since there is nothing inherently female about yoga. In fact, for centuries in India it was practiced almost exclusively by men.

Most of the main Indian yoga gurus are male, trained at male yoga schools.

For whatever reason, when yoga became popular in the west, it was women who became its biggest fans. Western men steered clear of what they believed to be incense-fuelled, chanting girl-fests.

Perhaps yoga's popularity with women is because women's bodies tend to be more flexible, which means some yoga poses come easier to them.

Perform

The type of physical activities that men engage in from a young age tend to emphasise strength over flexibility which could explain why men struggle to perform the same poses.

According to Greg Walshe, who teaches yoga at Samadhi (www.samadhi.ie) in Temple Bar, Dublin, it's an issue that male students can get over pretty quickly.

"It's just a given for me that women will be more flexible. I don't get threatened by it. I suppose it's the first step in understanding that yoga is not a competitive sport," he says.

He understands the difficulties men face in beginning yoga. "Before I did yoga I thought I was pretty fit," he says. "I cycled and swam a lot. I was travelling in Asia when my girlfriend suggested we do a yoga week.

"I definitely saw it as a woman's pursuit and thought, well, it will be nice and relaxing. I couldn't walk for days afterwards," he remembers.

That one week changed Walshe's entire attitude to his understanding of physical health.

"It was tough going. I'd never really thought about flexibility. I suppose I didn't think I needed it. I didn't look at the whole picture -- what I was eating, drinking, everything. Even in my head, I started to look at my thinking," he says.

At his classes, between 30pc and 50pc of the students are male. "I tried running men-only classes but I like that balance between male and female.

"For a man to make that leap and walk into a yoga studio, he's gotten over the mental stigma about it.

Benefits

"After that I find that men get very committed. They start to move into the advanced classes. Maybe they feel the benefits more and enjoy the challenge, although that's true of a lot of women too."

There are some poses where men have a natural advantage -- those requiring upper body strength such as hand-stands. "Men tend to shine at those," says Walshe. "They enjoy that. Yoga is really about understanding your body and accepting where it's at."

People, whether male or female, who take up yoga, often speak of finding a sense of inner well-being. Muldoon, for example, says he feels calmer and more relaxed after a yoga session.

There is an increasing body of research that shows yoga helps improve a range of physical and mental ailments. It's known to reduce stress levels and stress-related illness such as blood pressure, anxiety problems and depression.

"Yoga definitely makes us more aware of our bodies so we have a much better sense of when we're stressed and are more likely to take steps to reduce that stress," says Walshe.

"Again, I think that's of huge benefit to men."

- Carissa Casey

Irish Independent