REPORTING. At RC Lens, a weekly yoga session to release tension

One afternoon in December at La Gaillette, the RC Lens training center. At the bend of a corridor, a voice whispers, punctuated by snaps of fingers: “One two three, one two three.” Since the summer of 2020, Thursdays, it’s a yoga session for the players of the Lensoise professional team. Sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, the executives let themselves be guided by Anne Lejot, their teacher.

A few minutes earlier, however, the spectacle was quite different. Throwing balls, blaring music on the phones and laughing out loud: the player installation felt like a summer camp animation. The day after the 16th day of Ligue 1, which ended in a draw in Clermont-Ferrand (2-2), the Sang et Or, returned during the night, seemed exhausted. “” Annette “, I only slept three hours, please be with us today”, released Captain Seko Fofana with a smirk. “I have heavy eyes, added Gaël Kakuta in the back of the room. Can we turn off the light? “ However, over the coach’s instructions, calm gradually gained the weight room, converted into a yoga studio for three quarters of an hour.

Practiced for a long time by many sportsmen, in particular the world number 1 in tennis, Novak Djokovic, yoga is more and more popular with the supervising teams of collective sports. The Lorient club got started in December 2020 a few weeks after the MHSC training center. The Three Lions (the English football team) had for their part fully integrated a type of yoga in their preparation for Euro 2020, on the advice of XV de la Rose, who had tested it for the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

For Anne Lejot, the benefits of this practice on footballers are real, especially in psychological matters. With the Blood and Gold, she works on recovery as well as physical and mental regeneration. “I put the emphasis in priority on the psycho-mental dimension, she explains. I try to put their brains to rest to withstand the whole season and all the pressure there is around their job. The point is really for them to relax psychologically. “

#Yoga

Namaste,
The pros did a yoga session yesterday at #LaGaillette yesterday.
All photos https://t.co/ANq0aC9Eg6#rclens pic.twitter.com/xXHSBl0X0v

– Racing Club de Lens (@RCLens) July 2, 2020

And the techniques of the professor, who started the sessions at RCL in 2017 with the U17 team, are working. “It’s crazy because you focus on something and at one point you forget the rest”, confides right-back Jonathan Clauss. He appreciates this moment of relaxation, during which the pressure drops. “The exercises, the music, the whispers: everything is designed to optimize relaxation and relaxation. And it works. I really feel like I’m completely elsewhere, disconnected and very calm.”

The management team also sees the difference in the workforce. “The goalkeepers are always super happy to go to the Thursday session, indicates the coach of the goalkeepers, Thierry Malaspina. It regenerates them and on top of that, it compensates for the work I made them do earlier in the afternoon. “ According to him, yoga brings something more to the physical preparation of the players. “It’s a very interesting and different approach, which goes through the brain. At the end of the day, they don’t have to come into the hands of a physiotherapist.” Coach Franck Haise told him Parisian that this moment of physical recovery and refocusing was “important for the players to feel good and to be relaxed enough to be daring on the pitch.”

Yet, like many, Thierry Malaspina was skeptical of taking up yoga: “At first I was going backwards, but now I know it will help me recover: I feel like my muscles are completely strained, that all my toxins are gone. After the session, I feel a certain well-being. “ A well-being also felt by Franck Haise, who appreciates this moment of “brain disconnection. “” It’s good to have those moments where you just listen to your body and how it feels. “

Half of the executive staff attend sessions every week, which are compulsory once a month for players and staff. “There are executives who have not missed a single session, some have discovered a passion for relaxation”, smiles Anne Lejot. This is the case of Jonathan Clauss, who takes advantage of the exercises at bedtime. “I am a hyperactive nervous system. Before, I needed to exhaust my eyes in front of screens, to watch television or to play on the console until no time. For a year and a half, I have been more relaxed, I think about my three breaths, and I fall asleep much easier “, says the 28-year-old.

If yoga has easily found its place in the physical and technical preparation of players, it is because the sessions complement the work of the rest of the staff. “You have to respect everyone’s work. My role, like the rest of the management team, is to optimize performance so that they go as high and as far as possible”, specifies Anne Lejot, who exchanges regularly with the other members of the staff.

The sessions require substantial work from the yoga teacher, also responsible for the physical preparation sector at STAPS d’Artois. “The RCL audience is very different from everyone. There are a lot of issues. since their body is their working tool “, indicates Anne Lejot, who devotes two hours to the preparation of each session. “Certain postures can be beneficial for gymnasts, but dangerous for footballers, two sports categories with very different muscular qualities and levels of flexibility.”

If the postures have to be adapted to the person, the coach also adapts the sessions to the schedule and to the results. “After the 4-0 against Brest, I organized a ‘turn the page and bounce back’ session. Before the derby at the start of the season, it was the theme of ‘preparing for a high-stakes match'”, explains Anne Lejot. There is no doubt that a special session took place after the stunning round of 16 of the Coupe de France, won after the suspense by the Lensois against their Lille neighbors.