A New Look at Yoga Postures; Are Some Postures Causing Us Permanent Damage?

I recently read an article by Bill Broad on hip injuries. He is the author of the a great book called The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards. In the article he talks about the hidden dangers of yoga, specifically the damage yoga is doing to our joints. He referenced a yogi named Michaelle Edwards, the yoga teacher that created YogAlign. I was fascinated as I read her website and her view on yoga. She contradicts a lot of what I’ve been taught over the years, however what she has to say makes sense.

The main difference between her style of yoga and that of the traditional practices, is that she believes that when stretching, you should maintain the proper alignment of the spine and the skeletal structure as a whole. She believes that when we fold into a forward fold (you'll hear the teacher say, lengthen and stretch the spine), that by straightening out the spine, we're doing damage to our hips.

Bill Broads book The Science of Yoga explores how yoga injuries have been on the rise with the growing popularity of yoga. One of the most reported injuries is pain in the hips. In some yogi’s the pain is so bad that it requires surgery. When we think of hip surgery we think of our grandmas, but these surgeries and and complaints of chronic pain are happening in 30-40 year olds. 

Michaelle Edwards was like any yogi, she had a vigorous practice that she loved, until she got hurt when she tore a ligament in her knee trying to get deeper into a pose. While she was healing she began to ask questions. Questions about how the practice of yoga was really making her body feel. Was she seeing the results she was hoping for? Was yoga just a physical practice or was there more to it? 

She eventually resumed her practice but the focus of it had shifted. She became more interested in anatomy and physiology, how the body moved and what stretches and exercises worked best for it, what helped the body maintain its natural functional posture. She noticed that advanced yogi’s postures, despite the wonderful claims of yoga, where still stooped over. Rounded shoulders and sore low backs from sitting at a desk all day didn’t perk up with a regular yoga practice. There were lots of complaints of SI joint and hip pain. I am one of these yogi’s, so my interest was heightened. I wanted to know why, with all my years of yoga, I was in pain and had to repeatedly remind my body to sit up straight.

 

With her research Michaelle made an interesting discovery. The position that some of the traditional poses put us in aren’t stretching our muscles, but our connective tissue. They weren’t balancing out our muscles groups so that our bodies could stand upright with ease, but were adding to the problem. The poses stretched and weakened muscles that were supposed to support us.

Our bodies are strung, from head to toe, with connective tissue, like the lines of a pulley system. The photo below is a picture from Michaelle's website. It shows the front line of connective tissue and the back line. If these tissues are in balance we can stand upright with ease, but in general, the front line is tight pulling us forward. This is due to our bodies sitting for long periods of time, hunched over computers.

When we feel tight in one area, we stretch it without much thought to all the other muscles and tissues connected to it. Michaelle's method teaches us to stretch an area of the body, not just a small section. She shows us how to stretch just the muscles, not the connective tissue and to maintain a healthy spine and hip alignment. Her approach is a new way of looking at yoga. I'm excited to do more reading and have already ordered her book, YogAlign, Pain-free Yoga from Your Inner Core (Book with DVD). In the next blog I'll talk about her thoughts on the forward fold and the damage we're doing to our hips. I encourage you to check out her website, it's an eye opener, especially if you're a yogi dealing with chronic pain. 

Yoga is ever evolving and what we've done in the past isn't necessarily the right thing. The popularity of yoga is initiating more studies. Studies showing the benefits and dangers or a regular practice. Change isn't always easy, especially to traditions that are thousands of years old. However, the advantage of science is that it can help us to improve. I feel that blending the philosophical traditions of yoga along with the new findings in anatomy and physiology that we can create a practice that is truly healthy. I'm excited about the future of yoga.