Physical Education plays a crucial role in educating the children. It contributes directly to development of motor ability. It also helps individual to make informed choices and understand the value of leading a physically active lifestyle. Regular physical activity improves functional status and limits disability during the middle and later adult years. Physical activity contributes to quality of life, psychological health and the ability to meet physical work demands. According to Bucher (1983), ―Fitness is the ability of an individual lead a full and balanced life it involves physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual factors and a capacity for their wholesome expression.‖ Motor fitness is an important component for an athlete in order to obtain optimal performance in sports

The term motor fitness was developed to describe a broad concept than physical fitness. This extensive term means the ability to perform basic motor skills efficiently and effectively. Motor fitness is the conditional ability of an organism, which helps to attain high level of sports performance. The level of motor ability is the prime importance for learning various general activities and perfection of different skills in various sports and physical activities.  Speed : ―Speed is an ability to perform a movement or cover a distance in a short time.‖ (Corbin, 2007)  Agility : ―Agility is the ability to move and change direction and position of the body quickly and effectively while under control.‖ (Elizabeth, 2007)  Flexibility : ―A person's flexibility refers to the ability of his joints to move through a full range of motion.‖ (Paige, 2008)  Strength : ―Strength is the ability to overcome resistance or to act against resistance.‖ (Singh, 1991):  Cardiovascular endurance : ―Cardiovascular endurance is the ability of the heart to provide oxygen to muscles

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period of time.‖ (Johnson, 2010) Motor fitness is the combination of strength, speed, flexibility, agility and endurance. In any sport requires high levels of motor fitness. These are the games which demands not only speed, agility, strength, power and endurance. These players need a combination of technical, tactical and physical skills in order to succeed. Improving aerobic capacity and overall fitness boosts performance on the Sports field. Yogic exercises are also one of the physical activities.

Yoga is the art of science which helps in maintaining physical and mental wellbeing. It has its origin in India. Yoga is a very ancient discipline. It is recognized as one of the most important and valuable heritage of India. Today, the whole world is looking to yoga for the answer to various problems of modern man is facing. Yoga is the art of living and yoga asana is a scientific procedure and it develops the personality of an individual, physically, mentally, morally and intellectually. Yoga practice helps the individuals to maintain their mind, body, sprit and to promote health well being. Yoga is the time less pragmatic sciences evolved over thousands of years dealing with the physical, moral mental and spiritual well being of man as a whole.(Iyengar, 2000). Yoga is a systematic and methodological process to control and develop the mind and body to attain good health, balance of mind and self-realization. Thought yoga has the potential power to make healthy added to vigour, still most of the people lack the knowledge of systematic practice of yoga. Yogic exercises for a short period help to their health improves and fitness. Many research schools and psychologists are extensively studying the beneficial aspects of yoga which encourages attaining positive health and fitness through yoga.

 Flexibility: Stretching tight body in new ways will help it to become more flexible, bringing greater range of motion to muscles and joints.  Strength: Many yoga poses require to support the weight of our own body in new ways, including balancing on one leg or supporting with arms.  Muscle tone: As a by-product of getting stronger, one can expect to see increased muscle tone. Yoga helps shape long and lean muscles. strength can help prevent the causes of some types of back pain. Yoga improves alignment, which helps prevent various types of pain.  Better Breathing: Most of them breathe very shallowly into the lungs and don‘t give much thought to how we breathe. Yoga breathing exercises, called Pranayama, focus the attention on the breath and teach how to better use our lungs, which benefits the entire body.

Being derived from two Sanskrit words ‗prana‘ means life force and ‗ayama‘ means control. Pranayama means controlling the flow of life force. Pranayama is not just control of breath but a lot more than that. The goal of pranayama is said to be achieved when the quantum of life force (prana) is increased to the highest level. Prana is life force or energy is a universal concept. Apart of it is also present in the human body. Pranayama refers to the breathing technique in Yoga, which can work wonders in improving the overall health and the function of all the organs in the body. Physiological reduction in heart rate, increased flexibility, avoidance in weight gain & accumulation of fat; healthy respiratory status are the most benefits of pranayama. If one practices the asanas and pranayama regularly and systematically for long period, it is sure to find that they act as curatives of and preventives for various kinds of mental and physical ailments and also improve in static motor ability (Pradhan, 2008).

Yoga lengthens muscles, increases flexibility, gives service to bruised muscles, eliminates toxins, and also teaches how to breathe with less effort, less force, and more ease. A sound mind in a sound body is most precious possession of a person. Modern thinkers in education emphasis that best athlete is one who is physically fit, mentally sound, emotionally balanced and socially well adjusted. Yogasanas practices are the important tools in this regard. An attempt is made in this study to know the benefits of yogic exercises of an athlete on developing motor ability skills. Extensive research has been undertaken in several sports disciplines to identify yogic relationship with of an athlete which enables coaches to identify talented ability in their respective sports disciplines.

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Bucher, Charles A. (1983). Foundations of Physical Education and Sport (9 ed.), Saint Louis: The C.V. Mosbey Company. Corbin, (2007) ―Definition of Speed.‖ (Retrieved December 22, 2016, from http://sportsmedicine.about.com/glossary/Speed.def. Elizabeth, (2007). ―Definition of Agility‖. (Retrieved December 22, 2016, from http://sportsmedicine.about.com/glossary/Agility.def. Iyengar, B.K.S. (2001). Yoga-The Path to Holistic Health. Dorling Kindersley Limited, Great Britain. Johnson, D.A. ―Aquatic Fitness Professional Manual,‖ 6th editions, Human Kinetics, (2010). Paige, (2007). ―Definition of Flexibility‖. (Retrieved Dec 20, 2016, from http://sportsmedicine.about.com/glossary/Flexibility.def. Pradhan, P.K. (2008). Yogic Practices for Health and Sports Performance‖, Indian Journal of Yoga Exercises & Sports Science and Physical Education, Vol. II: 14. Singh Hardayal (1991), Science of Sports Training, New Delhi: D.V.S. Publications.

Research Scholar, Visvesvaraya Technological University, Jnana Sangama, Belgaum, Karnataka, India