The Dangers of Yoga Postures: Posing A Risk?

It’s thought of as being ultra-healthy. And it is! But there are some serious dangers of yoga postures you should be aware of

By Jody McCutcheon

Yoga is different  things to different people. For some, it’s a stress reliever. For others it’s a means of honing mental focus and muscle strength (including the body’s most important muscle, the heart). Yoga helps improve flexibility and endurance, lowers blood pressure, creates antidepressant chemicals to balance your mood, counters aging and even enhances one’s sex life. It’s undeniable that yoga is a health booster for many reasons.

Ironically, though, for an activity that physicians recommend to patients who require rehabilitation from sports and other injuries, yoga may in fact cause significant harm to your joints, bones and potentially more. So what are the potential dangers of yoga postures?

The Potential Dangers Of Yoga Postures

Dangers of Yoga Postures

First Hints Of Danger

More and more data suggests yoga has a dark side. But let’s make one thing clear: this only applies to the contemporary yoga that’s been practiced since the early 20th century. The yoga of the ancient Indians is quite different. Their poses represent an extension of the cross-legged and squatting postures commonly employed in daily life back then.

Rather than a delicate combination of mental, physical and spiritual practices, yoga today melds religion and spirituality with Western concepts of athletic and physical training. The result is a form of exercise that’s far more American than ancient Indian.

Modern living is far different than it was for ancient Indians. Rather than squatting and sitting cross-legged for most of the day, we now tend to sit in chairs. Our muscles tighten up, losing necessary flexibility. Then, two or three times a week, we go to yoga classes and strain to contort our rigid selves into nearly impossible poses, leaving ourselves susceptible to injury.

The first hints of the dangers of yoga postures emerged a few decades ago in such reputable journals as Neurology, The British Medical Journal and The Journal of the American Medical Association. A case here, a case there, from minor injuries to major damage.

The Proof

Statistics support the notion of risks from modern yoga. As practitioners increase in number, so do the injuries. Yoga isn’t regulated, so there are no reliable statistics. But a recent study suggests yoga-related Emergency Department visits have increased significantly since 2001, especially among people 65 and older.

Even yoga instructors are beginning to agree. Glenn Black, a teacher for four decades, counts celebrities and yoga gurus among his many clients. Black believes many commonly taught yoga poses can do great damage to people, as they twist our bodies into unnatural positions. He should know, as many of his clients are rehabbing from previous yoga injuries, as is he himself.

Michaelle Edwards is another expert who counts herself among the wary. With four decades of practice and twenty-five years of teaching under her belt, Edwards recently wrote a book called YogAlign, Pain-free Yoga from Your Inner Core. Many of the typical poses being taught, she says, such as shoulder and head stands and downward-facing dog, simply aren’t in synch with how our bodies work. If the experts are concerned, the general public would do well to take heed.

Dangers of Yoga Postures

Types Of Yoga Injuries

As Ms Edwards suggests, many traditional poses carry injury risks. These include osteoarthritis, nerve damage and repetitive strain injuries like tendonitis. A type of kneeling position known as vajrasana can lead to nerve damage resulting in foot weakness, a condition that has earned the name yoga foot drop. Inversion poses such as headstands and handstands can cause degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine and lead to increased eye pressure, which can produce retinal tears.

Despite a persistent, common belief in its ability to stimulate the thyroid – a belief for which there’s no actual medical evidence – plow pose is another risky pose. It creates a right angle between neck and trunk and hips. The cervical spine is designed to hold no more than fifteen pounds at a time, forcing the cervical discs to hold more pressure than they can endure for minutes on end. This type of sustained spinal flexion increases the risk of spinal compression and even spinal fractures, as well as impingement of the vertebral arteries and over stretching of nerve tissue.

These types of poses that emphasize extreme ranges of motion represent a big concern. In 2009, a Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons research team compiled a worldwide survey that asked yoga teachers, therapists and doctors about the most serious yoga-related injuries they’d seen. The largest number of injuries occurred in the lower back, followed by shoulder, knee and neck. The next most common yoga-related consequence? Stroke.

meditation

Risk For Stroke?

One of the more serious dangers of yoga postures is stroke. Yes, you read that correctly. While rare, stroke is one potential consequence of poses that rely on extreme ranges of motion, even in young, healthy people.

The potential for yoga-induced stroke has been known since at least 1972, when an article on the subject by W. Ritchie Russell was published in The British Medical Journal. But whether the cause of the stroke is properly attributed is another matter. Due to a lag between precipitating factors and the onset of symptoms (you may have done the yoga last evening and experienced stroke symptoms this morning), linking cause and effect may not be so simple.

The main factor for stroke is hyperextension of the neck. Normal backward neck extension is about 75 degrees, sideways about 45 degrees and forward about 40 degrees. Yet even intermediate yoga practitioners rotate their necks as much as 90 degrees! Severe neck hyperextension, as in cobra pose and the aforementioned plow pose, can occlude blood flow in the vertebral arteries, depriving the brain of blood.

These types of strokes don’t usually affect language or conscious thinking. However, they can severely damage the body’s core functioning, sometimes even causing death. Even those who recover a majority of functions can still suffer for years from headaches, dizziness, imbalance and difficulty in making fine movements.

back bend

Hip Injuries, Especially in Women

Another body area yoga can hurt is the hip. Generally, males tend to suffer more overall yoga injuries than women, but female yoga practitioners may suffer more hip injuries. This is due to a flexibility that allows for extreme range-of-motion bending. The resulting wear and tear around the hips can lead to severe pain and hip damage.

You need to be particularly careful if you have a condition called femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). Here, the bones of the hips are abnormally shaped and don’t move together smoothly. Problems can be exacerbated by doing yoga. Such movements as pigeon pose can cause the hip bones to grind together, over time causing osteoarthritis and joint damage.

According to an article on the drawbacks of female flexibility by New York Times science writer William J. Broad (whose controversial story How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body is one inspiration for this piece you’re now reading), many top US orthopaedic surgeons say the number of women presenting with yoga-related hip pain has indeed increased. Experts – from physicians to yoga teachers – say the same thing: listen to the body’s pain tolerance levels. This obviously applies to both men and women.

Overdoing It

So, why the potential for injury from an activity seemingly as beneficial as yoga? Well, some of the dangers of yoga postures stem from the type of yoga being done. The New York Times has reported that the excessive heat of Bikram yoga (a kind of hot yoga) may raise the risk of muscle and cartilage damage and overstretching. Furthermore, overstretched ligaments can fail to regain their shape, increasing the potential for sprains, strains and dislocations.

It’s not so much that there are loads of simple dangers of yoga postures. However, the risk for serious injury clearly exists. Mainly when we’re overdoing it. That’s especially true with poses that rely on extreme ranges of motion. We may push too hard to achieve a position, stretching and twisting and bending far beyond what our bodies are capable of enduring, over and over.

Ligaments don’t contain many sensory nerves, so they don’t exactly advertise when they’re being overstretched and damaged. It’s no surprise that after decades of practice, yogis in their fifties and sixties are having their hips replaced.

One reason we may tend to overdo it is thanks to that good old American adage: ‘no pain, no gain.’ While that may be true for say, body builders or runners, it’s not for yoga! Good yoga teachers must balance a desire to push the student with a responsibility to ensure the student isn’t injured in practice.

Always Listen to Your Body

Maybe the question isn’t about yoga’s safety, but rather whether the human body is designed to accommodate the angles yoga practice demands. Of course, there are some who can bend themselves into the most advanced of yoga poses, no problem. But the main dangers of yoga postures arise when we all think we can do so, ‘because it’s just yoga‘ or ‘because even 80 year olds can do it.’

Just as the teacher has a responsibility to protect the student, the student, you have an equal responsibility to yourself to prevent the dangers of yoga postures. To remain injury-free, to listen to your body, and to never push beyond the pain. One available tool is from Dr Axe, who defines several contraindicated poses. Check it out to see what poses present the biggest risks to your health.

The bottom line on the dangers of yoga postures? If a pose or movement hurts, it’s probably something to avoid altogether. Yoga can be your friend when you use it as a health strategy, not see it as a challenge.

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1 thought on “The Dangers of Yoga Postures: Posing A Risk?”

  1. It’s not a dark side of Yoga. Excessive use/doing or going beyond your limit of any thing can harm you. If you do overeating or you do over gyming that can also harm in other ways. In the end it’s your opinion but for me excessive use of anything can harm you so go according to your body.

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