Katie Barton|staff writer

The lights in the gym are turned off, the gym is only illuminated by the light of a yoga video, as the baseball team goes through their usual Friday afternoon yoga routine. 

“We started eight years ago,”  baseball coach Gordon Gesell said. “ We’ve been going since the beginning of the school.” 

The baseball team has been incorporating yoga into their weekly routine since the school was formed. Even the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t stopped them from doing their routine yoga workout. 

“So as soon as the kids got back on campus, we do it about once a week,” Gesell said. 

Doing yoga can have a lot of benefits for Baseball players such stretching out their muscles and improving their playing ability.

“We use it as a way to make sure that we maximize our performance efforts by making sure that muscles and tendons aren’t pulled,” senior Ethan Blanchette said. 

Arm care is very important for baseball players especially because a lot of their sport depends on their arms.

“We make sure that we have good arm care,“ Blanchette said. “In baseball obviously your elbows and your shoulders become really sensitive.” 

 The idea to have their players do yoga came from watching other college coaches using the same technique.

 “A lot of people that have college programs, they have been going to yoga for flexibility and things,” Gesell said. “So it’s just something we picked up on.”

 Not only is yoga good for relaxing muscles, it also helps the players to get more relaxed as well.

 “There’s something a little bit relaxing about it because when we do it we usually turn out the light so we can see the screen,” Blanchette said. “ We enjoy the light-hearted moodiness of quietly stretching.” 

Their weekly yoga stretch also helps baseball player prepare for their games and sometimes gives them the extra push they need to win a game. 

“Being able to loosen up and throw the best you can, that’s what really gives us the edge,” Blanchette said.