Yoga Hurts: Your Flexibility Can Cause Pain
I've known for years that yoga can cause flexible people more pain than relief. Now, it appears that our popular media is finally catching up.
When I originally wrote this article in 2012, excerpts (you can read one here and here) from William Broad’s important book, The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards, seemed to be the lone well-written expose' of the damage yoga asana and extreme stretching can do to unprepared bodies in general, and women's hips, in particular.
The research Broad cites in the 2012 NY Times articles, along with my own experience as a hyper-flexible person, led me to seriously back off physical yoga practice years ago, and only encourage my pain-free students to go to yoga classes at all.
(A personal, well designed yoga practice with appropriate static and strength-based asanas can be OK in certain cases. But yoga classes (in which other students are present) are not tailored to you and should be avoided if you have any current injury or pain.)
When I originally wrote this article in 2012, excerpts (you can read one here and here) from William Broad’s important book, The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards, seemed to be the lone well-written expose' of the damage yoga asana and extreme stretching can do to unprepared bodies in general, and women's hips, in particular.
The research Broad cites in the 2012 NY Times articles, along with my own experience as a hyper-flexible person, led me to seriously back off physical yoga practice years ago, and only encourage my pain-free students to go to yoga classes at all.
(A personal, well designed yoga practice with appropriate static and strength-based asanas can be OK in certain cases. But yoga classes (in which other students are present) are not tailored to you and should be avoided if you have any current injury or pain.)
Since I first wrote this piece, things have only gotten worse. This newer article from the BBC demonstrates that pushing too far--just stretching, stretching, and stretching beyond what’s right or good for your body--is still a huge problem. It’s a problem that has been sending yoga students and teachers my way for years already, mostly from joint injury and pain.
The reasons for that are clear:
What most yoga lacks is strength training for the hip joint, the core, and the back. Instead, teachers emphasize, as Broad's article so rightly explains, "pushing to your edge," going beyond where your body's joints and soft tissues might feel comfortable going.
The reasons for that are clear:
What most yoga lacks is strength training for the hip joint, the core, and the back. Instead, teachers emphasize, as Broad's article so rightly explains, "pushing to your edge," going beyond where your body's joints and soft tissues might feel comfortable going.
I’m all for broadening your horizons and trying something new. And challenging yourself can be a very good thing. But not when you don't understand the consequences or know what your own limits actually are.
In yoga classes, with 10 to 20 other students, the teacher simply cannot advocate for what’s best for you. And if a yoga teacher physically pushes you “deeper” into a pose, he or she should simply not be teaching. One major reason I developed the Hauber Method™ is that an average person knows nothing about how to keep his or her body healthy. The average person is not ever taught the important relationship between muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, and pain or lack of pain. |
The average person is not well versed in how flexible, or how stable, joints should actually be.
Sadly, neither is the average yoga teacher.
So when yoga became all the rage a decade or so ago, I actually got mad. I knew people would start getting hurt.
I saw (and still see) yoga teachers getting hurt (as evidenced in this disturbing article about how Instagram is contributing to such injuries). And yet, the popular media and physicians all over the place continue recommending yoga for people with back pain and other joint issues--regardless of the fact that yoga simply can hurt people who already lack deep core strength and joint stability.
Sadly, neither is the average yoga teacher.
So when yoga became all the rage a decade or so ago, I actually got mad. I knew people would start getting hurt.
I saw (and still see) yoga teachers getting hurt (as evidenced in this disturbing article about how Instagram is contributing to such injuries). And yet, the popular media and physicians all over the place continue recommending yoga for people with back pain and other joint issues--regardless of the fact that yoga simply can hurt people who already lack deep core strength and joint stability.
Yoga was not designed to heal people's backs or any other body parts in isolation or get people to stretch beyond what is healthy and right for their joints.
It was developed as a physical practice that should be practiced in conjunction with a much more involved spiritual practice--and the truly advanced physical poses were initially practiced only by teenage boys. In India. Not young women. And not older women. And no one who was sitting in a chair and typing away at a computer all day.
So it's no surprise at all that vigorous, sometimes quite competitive, yoga asana practice can and will hurt many, many women, especially those of us who already have more flexibility in the hips than we need.
If you're going to practice yoga, great, I applaud your dedication to something that can advance your emotional and spiritual growth.
But also do proper strength training for your deep and superficial gluteus, your deep abdominals, your spinal erectors, your hip flexors, your shoulder joint, and the muscles of your upper and middle back--all of which I teach, in careful detail, in the Hauber Method™ series.
I want you to be able to partake in yoga asana practice on occasion. But not at the expense of your body’s wellbeing.
Bottom line: No one should be injured by yoga.
My work is about keeping you out of pain, out of the doctor's office, and definitely out of the surgical suite.
If you have questions about how to balance a yoga practice with your strength training, I answer them in the Hauber Method™ Series A workshops and, of course, in private online sessions that you can begin today.
It was developed as a physical practice that should be practiced in conjunction with a much more involved spiritual practice--and the truly advanced physical poses were initially practiced only by teenage boys. In India. Not young women. And not older women. And no one who was sitting in a chair and typing away at a computer all day.
So it's no surprise at all that vigorous, sometimes quite competitive, yoga asana practice can and will hurt many, many women, especially those of us who already have more flexibility in the hips than we need.
If you're going to practice yoga, great, I applaud your dedication to something that can advance your emotional and spiritual growth.
But also do proper strength training for your deep and superficial gluteus, your deep abdominals, your spinal erectors, your hip flexors, your shoulder joint, and the muscles of your upper and middle back--all of which I teach, in careful detail, in the Hauber Method™ series.
I want you to be able to partake in yoga asana practice on occasion. But not at the expense of your body’s wellbeing.
Bottom line: No one should be injured by yoga.
My work is about keeping you out of pain, out of the doctor's office, and definitely out of the surgical suite.
If you have questions about how to balance a yoga practice with your strength training, I answer them in the Hauber Method™ Series A workshops and, of course, in private online sessions that you can begin today.
"Yoga Hurts: Your Flexibility Can Cause Pain" Written by Sara Hauber.
First published in 2012; updated and republished November 23, 2019.
First published in 2012; updated and republished November 23, 2019.
Read more about how yoga classes can hurt you at this link [a new window will open].
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