Yoga. Yes or No?

Should I do yoga?

Like most health and fitness questions, the answer is “it depends.”

Yoga has recently been sold as the cure for everything. That is never the case. It may be a fantastic way to reduce stress, unplug and unwind. Yoga will not make your muscles long and lean. It is not going to improve your cardiovascular fitness. 

Yoga is not magic.

Benefits of yoga

Yoga can be very beneficial if you sit at a desk all day, or are constantly attached to a mobile device.

It can improve body awareness.

Yoga reminds you to breathe.

It can reduce stress.

Yoga can help you be more mindful.

It may relieve some back pain.

Yoga is not a cure-all.

Yoga can increase your risk of vertebral compression fractures

Your back is not a dishcloth.

Simultaneously squeezing and twisting your spine is not recommended.

While I believe that yoga instructors do not mean to do harm, yoga training is not regulated and not subject to minimal standards. The Yoga Alliance states on their website that government regulation is a “threat” to yoga. This type of language always raises concerns and leads to a wide variety of education and experience among instructors.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You don’t know what you don’t know, the Dunning-Kruger effect is alive and well in the fitness community.

Yoga is just one of many fitness practices, where lack of knowledge can seriously harm you.

The Mayo Clinic recently released a study on what yoga poses harm your spine (shown below)

Based on evidence collected the researchers summarized that 

 “Spinal flexion exercises are common in yoga and produce increases in both torque pressures and compressive mechanical loading forces applied to individual vertebral bodies. These forces may be additive or multiplicative and result from a diminished ability of the intervertebral disks to absorb the simultaneous combination of forces from upper body weight, spinal flexure muscle contraction and spinal longitudinal ligament strain.

In other words, yoga is not for everyone.

Anyone that has low bone density, degeneration of spinal disks or other back problems may suffer by performing many common yoga moves. Dr Mehrseed Sinaki in the Mayo Clinic’s Minnesota campus of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation says,

 “It is of potential concern that some yoga exercises may surpass the biomechanical competence of the spine and result in vertebral compression fractures (VCFs).”

More evidence that yoga is not the cure for everything

According to Brad and Bob, the Internet’s Most Famous Physical Therapists – their words, not mine – but I trust them and they are pretty entertaining.

Brad and Bob say, “bending and twisting is the best way to hurt your back.”

They recommend avoiding the poses below.

 

Recommended by our Famous Physical Therapists, they mess up the names of the cat and cow, but the stretches are good ones.

Should I do yoga?

It depends, but if you have a spinal condition like stenosis, bulging disks, or other bone or joint concerns, you may want to limit your stretches. Get advice from a knowledgeable source and just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t make it right for you.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla