Now entering its final bye week of the season, the ISU volleyball team will be approaching the time off in a way it hasn’t done much of in the past.

The No. 20 Cyclones (15-7, 8-3 Big 12) are preparing to travel to Norman, Okla., to take on Oklahoma at noon Saturday.

“We’re going to take a break and do some hot yoga; we’ve never done that before,” said ISU setter Alison Landwehr. “I think we’ll take a couple rest days practicing wise, then gear up for Saturday, a big match.”

Iowa State, which is currently on a five-match winning streak, did hot yoga as a team Monday afternoon.

ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch said she had the team try it a couple years ago in the spring and has now taken the team to a studio after hearing of the help it has been for the ISU men’s and women’s basketball teams.

“They’re pretty fired up about that,” Johnson-Lynch said about the team doing hot yoga. “And then tomorrow we’ll just do small group practices and go light. Then Wednesday, we’ll kind of get back into team play.”

ISU women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly said his team began doing hot yoga last year and that it gave them a new experience and a different kind of workout.

Fennelly even did the program a few times with them and seemed to enjoy it.

“It’s hard,” Fennelly said. “It’s different than the normal conditioning stuff but I think they really did enjoy it and for the most part they got something out of it. It’s interesting to see some of us are not real flexible. Anything you can do to break up the monotony of conditioning of running and lifting is a good thing.”

While some of the players seemed to respond well to the difference in environment from the court to the yoga room itself, some did not enjoy it as much. Fennelly said the point of going, however, was more than just doing the yoga — it was about team bonding.

“I think the ones who went into it with the right approach enjoyed it, but it is different,” Fennelly said of players responding differently. “Basketball players are in a highly motivated, high-octane kind of thing and all of a sudden, you’ve got to be quiet, you’ve got to relax. It’s kind of counter intuitive to what they do everyday on the court.”

ISU center Anna Prins was one of the players who responded well to the hot yoga and enjoyed the environment. Prins felt it was nice to get out of the normal routine of running and lifting.

“I even felt improvements in my body,” Prins said. “I just felt better and not as sore and so it’s kind of interesting sweating a lot. It’s a different kind of exercise, but I definitely felt a more positive difference.”

For the ISU volleyball team, Johnson-Lynch hopes the team will get physically re-energized for the final stretch of matches leading into the NCAA tournament.

“This week is going to give us a chance to rest, which is really important right now,” Johnson-Lynch said. “We’ve got some people that are a little beat up, nothing bad, just tired. This will give us a chance to rest our legs a little bit.”