Wait, quit barking.

Poll the majority of elite, world-class athletes and even some fit weekend warriors, and you'll discover how yoga's image suffers from the "terrible too's."

It's either "too easy" or "too hard" or "too 'green'" or it's got too much, well ... tofu.

"The poses are aesthetically beautiful ... and completely unattainable," Chapel Hill's Sage Rountree laughed. "Yoga should complement what you're already doing. It doesn't need to be this huge peace-and-quiet-on-a-mat with incense burning and people chanting."

Yoga can be a tough sell to those espousing a more competitive nature, but Rountree is offering a practical, meat-and-potatoes approach to the practice. A local athlete, wife, mother and yogi is now the author of "The Athlete's Guide to Yoga: An Integrated Approach to Strength, Flexibility, and Focus" (Velo Press).

Rountree's classes at the Carrboro Yoga Company and UNC's Wellness Center at Meadowmont are more real than ethereal -- more spirit and grit than sprout and granola.

"For athletes, this is yoga triage," she said. "I have to get them comfortable with the idea of getting into yoga."

"I think the basketball coach Phil Jackson was (among) the first one to do this," said 1996 Olympic runner Joan Nesbit Mabe. "He was kind of a visionary. It's come into its own now, and it's here to stay."

A contributor of the forward in Rountree's book, Nesbit Mabe is also a proponent of yoga for the Olympic hopefuls on the Carrboro Athletic Club that she coaches.

"I stumbled onto yoga because my coach, Joan, had recommended it," said Jason Jabaut of the CAC. "Marc Jeuland who's also on the CAC and who qualified for the marathon Olympic trials swears by it."

You have to take it easy in order to be able to go hard, Rountree said on her web site (appropriately, www.sagerountree.com). But she admits traditional classes can be intimidating to newcomers.

"You've got Sanskrit coming at you, there's chanting perhaps ... incense," she said.

Rountree said that the practice of yoga's principles need not necessitate a formal class.

"You can be doing yoga during a run, just by being aware of your breath, you can add five or 10 minutes after your run, as long as you're paying attention, it's more than just stretching -- it's yoga," she said. "So I also like giving people short routines."

Rountree had simple advice for those put off by their first exposure to yoga: "Keep looking," she said. "There will be a certain teacher that strikes the right chord."

If promoting yoga is tough (if not contradictory to yoga's let-it-be mindset), selling competitive runners, cyclists and multi-sport athletes on a specifically non-competitive training regimen is even tougher.

"It's less about how you do versus other people and more about how did you do on your own," Rountree said. "You don't (win at yoga), and some people never get that. I'm always fond of saying that there's not going to be a report card at the end of class."

Still, some don't see the marriage of competitive sports and the non-competitive practice of yoga as being that much of a stretch.

"Yoga, by its nature, improves strength, flexibility, and balance which are common denominators in any sport," said Ann Archer, a fellow local yoga instructor who Rountree cites as one of her inspirations. "It also increases joint integrity, which reduces the risk of injury. Sage is able to present these benefits of yoga in a practical, straight-forward manner."

It doesn't hurt her credibility that Rountree's own credentials as an athlete are impressive. A personal best of 3:39 at the Kiawah Marathon in December 2007 qualified her to compete at this spring's Boston Marathon, and she is also on the Short-Course Worlds triathlon team.

"I'd just like to have these experiences as a teacher and a coach, so that I know what it feels like," Rountree said.

The philosophy carries over into her teaching and coaching style.

"I teach the kind of classes I like to take, and I coach in the way I like to be coached," she said.

Her own first experience with yoga was less than ideal.

"I was so intimidated, I didn't know if I was going to 'harsh the vibe' by walking out, going to the bathroom and coming back in," she said. "But if you're not comfortable in your body, no way can you do yoga."

Rountree hated the lack of physicality and traditional aerobic exercise in yoga, and the next class sprung on Rountree involved partner yoga.

"It was maybe a little earthy," she said. "I love doing partner yoga, but only when I'm expecting it. That was a little bit 'granola' for me."

Rountree's philosophy on yoga for athletes has now appeared in "Running Times" and "Yoga Journal Online." She contributes a monthly column for "Endurance Magazine," teaches numerous classes in yoga, cycling, multisport training and Pilates, and she competes, all the while carving out quality time with her husband Wes and two young daughters, Lily and Vivian.

And as her students continue to achieve, the notion of yoga for athletes is likely to grow more and more widely accepted.

Marc Jeuland runs six days a week and does a 90-minute yoga session one day a week after his longest run.

"When I started training this past fall in preparation for the Olympic year, I wanted to add more of what I thought to be stretching," Jabaut said. "I was looking for more of a dynamic approach, and Sage's classes offered that. When I go in, there's like this mental refocusing that takes place."

Local athletes simply aiming to improve their 5K time aren't immune from the benefits put forth in Rountree's book. (An accompanying DVD is due for an early Spring release.)

"Her approach fills a need in the competitive athlete's training, getting them to slow down, focus inward and pay attention to the body as a whole," Archer explained. "I think Sage has hit the bull's-eye with her book. I just wish I'd thought of it."