RB Leipzig brings in a yoga trainer – revolution in professional sports!

RB Leipzig brings in a yoga trainer – revolution in professional sports!

RB Leipzig is going into the new season with a breath of fresh air and has made significant changes to the support staff. An outstanding innovation is the hiring of Julia C. Woellner as “Performance Manager”. Loud Picture Woellner will mainly teach the professional players yoga. This is a strategic move based on the experience of last season, with the aim of preventing injuries through specific sports courses.

Woellner brings valuable experience, not only from her previous work at FC Schalke, but also from her work at the NRW/Rhine-Ruhr Olympic Training Center. In Leipzig, an area in the training center is being converted to create a special course room for yoga. This measure underlines the increasing importance of psychological and physical training approaches in professional sports.

Psychological aspects of sport

The integration of sports psychology and holistic training, which also includes yoga, is receiving increasing attention. The discipline of sports psychology has a long history spanning almost two centuries and aims to improve sports performance through psychological techniques. A recent study highlights that sport psychology interventions such as cohesion, self-confidence and mindfulness can show moderate positive effects on performance, while negative factors such as cognitive anxiety and depression have a small negative impact ( PubMed ).

RB Leipzig's decision to hire a performance manager with a focus on yoga could be seen as part of these trends in sports psychology. Woellner describes herself as a “mindset and yoga trainer in top-class sports”, which accompanies her holistic approach to supporting players.

Another step towards diversification

The signing of Woellner is not the only change. RB Leipzig has made further progress in its diversification strategy by hiring more female employees in key positions. Pia Malin Jensen works as a nutritionist, while Franziska Pietschmann has now taken on the role of “Head of Team Management and Organization”. In addition, the position of team psychologist has been filled internally: Efthymios Kompodietas is moving from women to men, which shows that the psychological aspect of sport is also being promoted in the club.

These comprehensive changes to the RB Leipzig team reflect the desire to both increase sporting performance and create a modern and inclusive environment. It remains to be seen how these developments will affect the coming season and whether the integration of yoga and sports psychology will bring the desired success.