Global Research Trends in Yoga for Sports Performance: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The intersection of yoga and sports performance has attracted growing scholarly attention over the past two decades, yet no dedicated bibliometric mapping of this research domain has been reported. This study undertook a bibliometric analysis of publications on yoga and sports performance retrieved from the Scopus database for the period 2000 to 2025. A total of 508 documents met the inclusion criteria and were analysed using VOSviewer and the Bibliometrix R package. The analysis examined annual publication trends, contributing countries and institutions, productive journals, highly cited publications, and keyword co-occurrence patterns. Annual output rose from 3 publications in 2000 to 98 in 2024, with marked acceleration after 2014. India and the United States were the leading contributors, together accounting for more than 59 percent of the total output. Five thematic clusters were identified through keyword analysis, centred on flexibility and motor control, psychological regulation, recovery and injury prevention, physiological markers, and cardiorespiratory fitness. The results reveal an expanding and increasingly interdisciplinary field. The analysis highlights underexplored areas including sport-specific yoga protocols, doseresponse relationships and longitudinal tracking of performance outcomes that warrant sustained scholarly attention in the coming decade.