Yoga provides various physical and psychological advantages, including pain alleviation, when it is safely done.
It’s essential to only engage in yoga poses that are appropriate for your physical condition if you want to prevent pain in your shoulders, elbows, wrists, or hands, as well as to prevent aggravating pre-existing problems.
It’s a good idea for beginners to start off with private lessons taught by an experienced instructor as a safety measure.
Here are 9 yoga injuries that may happen and let’s see how you must deal with them:
1. Wrists
It all boils down to leverage when it comes to your wrists. When your hands are on the mat, putting all of your weight in your wrists can cause muscle and joint damage.
How to get the injury eased
Spread your hands wide and press through your fingers in any pose that requires you to bear some of your body weight on your hands.
Push your hips back in the pose known as the downward-facing dog (Adho Muka Svanasana) to reduce the angle your wrists make with the floor. Check to make sure your elbows are directly over your wrists when performing arm balances like Crow Pose (Bakasana), advises Cheng.
2. Elbows
Bending your elbows out to the sides in positions like Low Plank can cause elbow pain (Chaturanga Dandasana). Although it can be simpler to execute, lowering down with your elbows bent outward might strain both your wrists and your elbows.
How to get the injury eased
Keep your elbows tucked alongside your ribs when bending them in a position (especially Plank or Chaturanga). The wrinkles on your elbows should also face forward, advises Cheng.
If it’s too challenging, start with your knees on the ground. This exercise is a serious test of triceps strength. You can always practise regularly till you reach the original version.
3. Shoulders
Avoid the shrug. You stop using the supporting muscles in your arms, shoulders, and neck when you lift your shoulders up toward your ears, such as when you transition into Upward-Facing Dog, also known as Urdhva Mukha Shvanasana.
According to Cheng, shrugging also compresses your shoulders, which can lead to musculoskeletal issues. Maybe worse: Overextending or overstretching makes it simple to harm your shoulder girdle or rotator cuff, or even dislocate the joint.
How to get the injury eased
Let go. When stretching, be cautious not to pull too hard on your shoulders, and keep them always kept back and down, away from your ears.
4. Ribs
Twists are fantastic for releasing the tension, but if performed incorrectly, they can cause intercostal muscular overextension or bruises (the muscles in between your ribs).
How to get the injury eased
Before twisting, lengthen through your spine upward. Imagine that someone is gradually lifting you upwards toward the ceiling while holding a string to the crown of your head. Even if you are flexible, only twist until you feel a stretch.
5. Lower back pain
Yoga instructors believe that the common injury of lower back discomfort is caused by the spine rounding in postures like Downward-Facing Dog and Forward Fold (Uttanasana).
According to Livingston, rounding causes your spine to flex in the opposite direction from how it should, which can lead to disc problems in addition to that post-class ache.
How to get the injury eased
Consider lengthening your spine up and away from your hips before bending down and hunching at the hips. You can prevent your spine from rounding by doing this.
According to Livingston, the problem could be tight hamstrings, so if you’re still having trouble staying on the straight and narrow, try bending your knees in postures like forwarding Fold and Downward-Facing Dog.
Try sitting on a cushion or block during Seated Forward Fold (Paschimottanasana) to relieve pressure on your lower back. You can hinge forward even more by doing this.
6. Hamstrings
Spend most of your days in a car, in class, or front of a computer? As accused, guilty. Since many of us have tight hamstrings as a result, Cheng claims that positions like the Forward Bend make it simple to pull or overstretch them.
How to get the injury eased
Hamstring stretches include Downward-Facing Dog, Warrior I (Virabhadrasana I), and Crescent Lunge (Anjaneyasana). Keep in mind to move gently and take things one step at a time.
Avoid postures that reach into the rear of your body if you have any form of hamstring injury until it heals.
7. Hips
In poses like Split (Hanumanasana), Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II), and Wide-Legged Forward Fold (Prasarita Padottasana), Cheng warns that it is simple to overextend the range of motion in your hips, risking tearing the muscles in your inner groyne or inner thighs.
How to get the injury eased
In any position when your hips are squared off in the same direction, a good general rule is to make sure your toes are pointing forward (think: Warrior I).
Consider that you are attempting to maintain constant illumination of the space directly in front of you while wearing headlights on the front of your hips.
8. Knee
Even seasoned yogis can notice knee problems long after class. The cross-legged position is a frequent source of pain, according to Livingston. If your hips are tight in the posture, your knees will be the first location to experience pain or tension since flexibility flows from the hips first.
How to get the injury eased
Avoid sitting in the Full Lotus (Padmasana) or cross-legged pose for extended periods of time if you frequently experience knee pain unless your hips are already quite flexible, advises Livingston. In cross-legged positions, placing a block or rolled-up blanket under your knees can also assist ease pressure.
Put a blanket under your knees to perform low lunges. Check to see if there is a vertical line running from your bent knee to your heel whenever you are in a standing pose with one knee bent (such as in Warrior I and Warrior II), advises Cheng. This guarantees that your body is effectively supporting its weight.
9. Neck
According to Skaarup, the pose headstand (Sirsasana) and shoulder stand (Sarvangasana) can be the worst for neck strain and injury.
Your cervical vertebrae are compressed when you repeatedly and mistakenly apply pressure to your neck. Joint problems and, in rare circumstances, a loss of neck flexion may arise from this.
How to get the injury eased
Always approach a situation with a beginner’s mindset. It can be tempting to try an upside-down pose before you’re ready when you witness other people performing it. Before attempting these poses if you are new to yoga, learn the modifications and strengthen your core and shoulders.
It might be preferable to completely avoid full inversions if you already have ongoing neck or shoulder problems, advises Cheng. If you’re serious about improving your technique, only undertake them under careful supervision and with the aid of neck-raising props.
Make sure your shoulder blades are brought back and down if you have practised the position without any supports so they can hold your body securely. Most significantly, Skaarup warns against jerking your head once you are standing in the stance because doing so could cause your body to become unstable and lead to a collapse.