For years, my good friend and performance kinesiologist Brian Dorfman recommended that I start doing yoga. Like a lot of competitive athletes and people interested to staying in shape as they get older, I was looking for that little extra something to improve my athleticism. Fearing I wasn’t flexible enough for yoga, I avoided it like the H1N1 virus. Finally, about 10 years ago, I took Brian’s advice and started doing yoga on a regular basis.

While the benefits of yoga are far too great to cover in a single blog post, I can tell you that my regular Tuesday evening yoga class — which I’ve been working into my schedule for 10 years now — has dramatically improved my life.

Trust me when I share with you this simple fact: You do not need to be flexible to do yoga. The majority of my classmates, some of whom would tell you they’re THE most inflexible people (no pen intended) on the planet, are using yoga to successfully increase their strength and flexibility just like me.

My first yoga instructor was John Childers, who still teaches here in Orange County, California (mostly around Newport Beach, Irvine, and Costa Mesa). John began studying yoga as an extension of his meditation practice in the late 1980s, and in the early-90s was one of the original teachers at Yoga Works. Later, he created the first 200-hour Yoga Alliance Certified Teacher-Training Program for my part of the country. I strongly recommend you check out John Childers yoga classes if you ever get a chance.

Over the last year or so, I have stuck to my regular routine of doing yoga every Tuesday evening at Triad Yoga & Pilates, an award-winning studio where the owners and instructors really practice what they preach. I’ve taken Mark Devenpeck’s yoga classes and can personally vouch for their “excellentness” (yes, I just made up a word). I haven’t had the pleasure of taking a class with Newton Campbell, but he did take a class with us recently, and I can tell you that he possesses a combination of strength and flexibility we should all aim for.

My regular instructor at Triad Yoga & Pilates is Peter Karpiuk, and he too is a most excellent instructor. Peter plays music in the background as we stretch, and while I’m yet to hear Bon Jovi, I’m pretty sure it’s coming!

For more information on Triad Yoga, visit http://www.TriadYogaCA.com. And for those of you who live outside of the Orange County, California, area, I strongly encourage you to check out a beginner’s yoga class at a yoga studio in your local area. At first, the experience may seem uncomfortable and taxing, but like anything that’s worthwhile and difficult to do at first, yoga, as time goes on, becomes increasingly beneficial and easier to perform.

I am often asked how Brian Dorfman and I become friends, and ultimately, how PureFit become the exclusive supplier of Brian’s “Flexibility Training” and “Lower Back Basics” DVDs and travel books.

Brian and I met in a spin workout class in 1993, which was right around the time I found myself immersed in the sport of Duathlon. Despite being total opposites, we quickly realized that we shared at least one common interest: helping people get into shape and maintain healthier lifestyles. That very familiar characteristic propelled us to quickly appreciate and respect one another.

Around that same time, Brian taught what was probably the first “yoga for athletes” class in the nation. He called it “Stretching for Athletes,” and boy, did the athletes show up. Steve Scott and Paula Newby-Fraser were regulars, as were other nationally ranked runners, triathletes and others. What Brian was teaching was really yoga, but in 1993, people thought yoga was for weird guys from India. Personally, I hated every class… I thought it was a wasted workout. Why stretch when I could be out running or cycling? Even though I didn’t know it at the time, the answer was simple: Life in general is hard on the body. Regardless if you are a marathon runner or a soccer mom who is always on the go, life tightens the body. Yoga opens the body so it can move freely, without pain or injury.

I’ve never met anyone who has done more than four or five yoga classes and now hates it. It might take a couple of classes to find an instructor you like, but I strongly doubt it. Most yoga instructors are the nicest people you’ll ever met. They seriously care about your well being. For that hour to an hour-and-a half, they want you to escape from your crazy life and get in touch with your body and your very reason for being.

When Brian approached me several years ago to help him distribute his Flexibility DVD, I was flattered. Brian Dorfman is the nation’s leading authority on flexibility for athletes, and when he told me that he wanted to take stretching and flexibility to the masses, I said “Let’s do it!” To date, PureFit has sold thousands of Brian’s DVD’s and travel books, and with the launch of our new website and online store just days away, we’re excited to sell thousands more in the years to come.

If you’ve never watched one of Brain’s videos, check out a sample at BrianDorfman.com.