How hot yoga saved Nitro Circus star Harry Bink from a wheelchair

His career was left hanging in the balance after he snapped his neck in a chilling accident. This is what saved him.

Gold Coast Suns players John Noble and Tom Berry watch Nitro Circus rider Harry Bink rehearsing at People First Stadium. Picture Glenn Hampson

Hot yoga is the reason Gold Coaster Harry Bink was able to soar through the air at People First Stadium on Friday night instead of watching the Nitro Circus event from a wheelchair.

It has been just 10 months since the freestyle motocross star broke his neck attempting a double backflip at an X Games competition in Japan.

Bink’s bike landed on top of him as he launched off the safety airbag face first and skidded across the concrete on his helmet.

The chilling accident should have forced Bink into a wheelchair for the rest of his life with a broken C6 vertebrae.

His saving grace came through the form of hot yoga - opening the door to a remarkable homecoming performance before a sold-out Gold Coast Suns crowd against Collingwood.

“My surgeon asked me, ‘how is your spinal cord so flexible and strong and what do you do, because we haven’t seen those breaks without someone being in a wheelchair’,” Bink recalled.

“I told him I’d been doing five years of consistent hot yoga.”

Hot yoga is a form of yoga where participants take part in classes in a heated room.

Bink had been a hot yoga practitioner for five years, which not only saved his spinal cord, but also his Nitro Circus career.

Bink suffered several injuries throughout his career and turned to hot yoga as a new form of recovery from his gruelling work.

“I was having a lot of injuries and I was spending a lot of money on physio and I just felt like it wasn’t doing much,” he said.

“Then when I went to yoga hot rooms I found that it was better physio and I just pay for a yoga class instead of $200 for a physio session.

“It would condition my whole body and I was getting mental benefits just as much as I was getting physical benefits.

“It sent me on a self-love spiritual journey and taught me to connect with myself more.

“It’s controlling the mind and teaching the mind to be calm in a panicked situation and little tools like that.

“Then that allows your body to be safe and not to be all jacked up and with an injury, fear can make you stressed and then there’s a big domino effect.

“So it’s super important to know all the one percenters within your body to be able to do the job correctly.”

Bink said the initial moments after the accident when he received medical attention were some of the scariest moments in his life as he feared he may never walk again.

“I didn’t know what the situation was, all the ambulance people, all the track crew, they were all holding me down to a stretcher and I was told not to move,” he said.

“All that I wanted to do was move to do my tests to see how serious it was.

“Then about halfway through the ambulance ride, I started moving my feet and then I knew I had feeling in my feet.

Gold Coast Suns players John Noble and Tom Berry watch Nitro Circus rider Harry Bink rehearsing at People First Stadium. Picture Glenn Hampson

“That was a great feeling and I knew that I was going to be able to walk at that point.

“That was the biggest turning point and then it was just a recovery game from there.”

Bink on Friday performed alongside several Nitro Circus stars at the Gold Coast Suns clash with the Collingwood Magpies at People First Stadium.

The performance was a sneak preview as to what to expect from the Nitro Circus stars who will tour the country later this year.

“I’m super keen to get into it, I’m just coming back from the injury hungrier than ever,” he said.

“We (Nitro Circus) haven’t been back to Australia in a couple of years now and Australian tours are always the best tours that we’ve done.

“We’re bringing the A-team and looking forward to putting on a big show and hopefully create the same atmosphere as the football will.”

Originally published as How hot yoga saved Nitro Circus star Harry Bink from a wheelchair