Is Yoga Aggravating Your Back Pain?

I want to start by saying yoga is not a bad thing.  However, yoga is not good for everyone all of the time.  While it can help with flexibility, if you don’t have the strength or motor control to handle the increased flexibility you may start to run into trouble and have some pain and dysfunction.

I have had the privilege of working with many yoga practitioners and it is always a lot of fun.  The majority have a great body awareness and a desire to continue to stay active.  They have usually run into a wall and find that they are no longer able to do the things they want in their yoga practice as well as in life.  I look at my role as being there to help people achieve their goals. In many cases you don’t have to stop yoga, just modify certain things.  Or take a temporary break from yoga while we build you up so that you can handle some advanced activity without pain or dysfunction.

Where Do I Go From Here To Help My Back Pain?

I steal a line from Gray Cook (he’s a cool physical therapist who reminds me of Chuck Norris, but in a good way).  He says do not put fitness on top of dysfunction.  What he means by this is that if you start doing high level activity before you have a stable properly functioning base (corrected muscle imbalance and properly aligned pelvis and rib cage) you’re exercise program will fall apart, usually sooner rather than later, and you will start to experience dysfunction and pain.

The most common type of dysfunction I see with a yoga population is back pain.  Particularly a hyperlordic or over arched low back.  In physical therapy we are able to address this issue so that you can get back to the things you want to do.  We do this using specific corrective exercises that will be different for each person, as well as manual techniques.