Too Much Yoga Can Hurt
Yoga is praised for its ability to strengthen, energize, cure, calm, lower blood pressure, and help with depression and it’s popularity has expanded five fold from 2001 to 2011.
The problem is that underlying physical weaknesses can make serious injury all but inevitable over time, compounded with the observation that some yoga instructors seem to push people too hard.
Most reported problems associated with yoga involve lower back injuries, followed by shoulder injuries, knee injuries, neck injuries, and stroke.
Discs, ligaments, muscles, cartilage, and joints may be over stressed or injured causing sprains, strains, disc tears and herniations, and facet syndrome.
With time degenerative joint disease, degenerative disc disease, degenerative facet disease, and spinal stenosis is thought to worsen in some individuals. Excessive extensions or rotations of the neck can be risky and cause injuries similar as occur with whiplash.
Arching the neck as far back as possible (hyperextension) with the cobra pose or flexing the neck as far forward as possible (hyperflexion) with a shoulder stand may cause tearing, blood clots, swelling and constriction of blood flow in arteries reducing blood flow to the brain, producing a stroke resulting in temporary or permanent problems with language, conscious thinking, respiration, vision, swallowing, muscle control, vision, balance, and fine movements.
A yoga headstand may also lead to compression of nerves and blood vessels within the thoracic outlet, known as thoracic outlet syndrome, causing numbness, weakness or tingling in the arms or hands.
Reported injuries include torn achilles tendons, foot drop from excessive compression on the sciatic nerve, and eye damage due to retinal tears due to increased eye pressure associated with certain yoga positions.
Especially with middle aged and older individuals caution is advised and along with expert yoga instructors, I feel that some people should avoid or give up yoga and instead practice specific range of motion stretches.
Traditionally, Indian practitioners of yoga sat cross-legged and squatted on a daily basis, but the vast majority of Americans are not accustomed to sitting and squatting in this manner and should not expect to be able to do so as they may see certain yoga instructors demonstrate. Very slow and gradual progress, at most, should be expected. And finally, weight should never be put on the neck (cervical) vertebrae with any type of headstand.
Yoga is not a cure-all or panacea and may cause problems and yoga practitioners who have needed rehabilitation following yoga injuries having lost their naïve believe that yoga was a source of only benefit and never harm.
We at Sinner Chiropractic Pain Center have treated individuals with moderate-to-severe cervical spine injuries as well hip joint injuries, directly attributable to the practice of yoga positions.
We find that almost always with customization of physical fitness endeavors, the benefit vastly outshines the risk, reducing the chanc of injury and maximizing the likely hood that individuals will be able to continue to do the things they love to do for years to come.
We would like to hear about your yoga experiences or if you would like to arrange a consultation, call us today at 253-848-3300.
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Filed under: Sinner Chiropractic
