PITTSFORD It’s 90-plus degrees. Groans emanate from several Rochester Rhinos players and sweat pours off their bodies.
That’s not a glimpse of one of their practices this humid summer beneath the scorching sun at Marina Auto Stadium. That scene came from the heated room in which the first-place Rhinos have regularly done hour-long sessions at breathe yoga studio in downtown Pittsford.
“Normally as athletes we’re supposed to be pretty limber, but because of training you can get stiff. This definitely helps,” says midfielder Tyler Rosenlund, 23.
“I feel a lot more flexible and I think it definitely has helped on the field.”
No one is arguing with the results.
So far this season somewhere, coach Bob Lilley is about to knock on wood only one player has missed time with a muscle/tendon strain, and that kept 23-year-old midfielder Jamie Franks (groin) sidelined just one game. Of course, this is one of the Rhinos’ youngest squads in their 15-year history (average age 24.8) and that has helped, but assistant coach Bill Sedgewick won’t diminish the benefit of yoga.
One of the Rhinos’ more popular players from 1999-2005, now in his first season as an assistant coach, the 39-year-old has been a “yogi” for years. Sedgewick started at breathe shortly after Cyndi Weis opened the studio, at 19 South Main St., in 2002. It has expanded to include a juice bar, kitchen/café and gift shop.
“I played a lot of minutes and I was never injured. I felt fresh,” adds Sedgewick, who started yoga in the late 1990s.
“I felt it was the best way for me to be flexible, strong and focused rather than do the gym thing.”
An ancient meditation art whose beginnings trace back 5,000 years to India, yoga and the “power vinyasa” workout the Rhinos do puts players through a series of different and challenging physical poses, stretches and breathing techniques.
The Rhinos (14-5-6), who take a six-game winning streak their longest since 1999 into Friday’s match at rival Montreal, usually go to breathe the day after a match or a long travel day after playing a road game.
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They use their session as a way to recover, working with instructors Carly Weis, the owner’s daughter, and Mary Eggers, a triathlete who knows about pushing the limits of the body.
But that athlete’s mentality, to push so hard in every workout, was something Carly Weis quickly realized she needed to try to modify in the Rhinos.
“They’re so used to ‘I’ve got to do it faster,’ and that’s different from what we do,” says Weis, 26, a 2001 graduate of Pittsford Sutherland High School. “So I tell them if they feel something pulling too much, take a break. In the beginning, none of them would do that.”
“That’s because they’re so competitive,” Sedgewick adds.
But yoga is about body awareness, Carly says, “so if they feel it hurt somewhere, I tell them to back out of it.”
In Sedgewick, the Rhinos have a perfect leader. He and defender Frankie Sanfilippo perform the poses to perfection and on cue with Weis’ direction.
For others, it’s a struggle (hence the groans).
“It’s like sweating all your toxins out,” says Sanfilippo, 28, in his first year as team captain. “After I’m done, my body feels like a million dollars.”
He and midfielder Darren Spicer, 26, did a form of yoga with the Charleston (S.C.) Battery last year, but breathe sessions are different. They said even some of the Rhinos’ younger players who’ve never tried yoga didn’t roll their eyes before the first session.
“No one was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to do yoga?’” Sanfilippo says.
“Once you’re finished you feel refreshed,” defender Troy Roberts, 26, says.
Dave DiPasquale, in his seventh year as the Rhinos’ head trainer, says some players are sore after yoga, but “it’s worked well for some guys and helped them with their overall conditioning.”
Weis focuses on the Rhinos’ hips, hamstrings and calves trying to create “functional flexibility,” as soccer players.
“Their tendons and muscles have increased flexibility,” DiPasquale says, “so when they do get put in that awkward situation (on the field), they’re not tearing anything.”
DiPasquale says players developed a good muscle base and core strength early in the spring working with Mike Barone of Dynamic Function in Rochester, and that Lilley’s practices are more specific than recent years.
“He gives them more time off and that recovery is key,” DiPasquale says.
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