December 5, 2024 • 38 mins
Learn 10 Core Competencies with lots of 1-1 support from me in the Quietmind Yoga Teacher Training. Learn more at https://www.quietmind.yoga/ytt
In this episode of the Yoga Teacher Training Podcast, I’m sharing the five most common causes of yoga injuries—and how you can avoid them. Injuries can sneak up on anyone, whether you’re a teacher or a practitioner, but they don’t have to. Yoga is about feeling good, strong, flexible, and balanced—not dealing with tweaks or strains that could’ve been prevented.
I’ll talk about real-life examples, like the mistake I’ve made (and learned from) of demoing poses without warming up first, the risks of jumping from one extreme range of motion to another, and why listening to your body is the most important skill you can develop. You’ll also hear my thoughts on why yoga isn’t about pushing to your limit or performing—it’s about creating a practice that supports you today, tomorrow, and for years to come.
If you’re ready to take your practice deeper or teach yoga in a way that supports your students’ growth and safety, join the waitlist for my Quietmind Yoga Teacher Training at quietmind.yoga/ytt. That’s where I guide you through the ten core competencies of yoga, including mindfulness, anatomy, and teaching skills.
Let’s keep your practice safe, sustainable, and aligned with what yoga is really all about. Listen now to learn how!
Keywords: Yoga injuries prevention, common yoga injuries, safe yoga practice, avoid yoga injuries, yoga teacher tips, yoga anatomy basics, yoga practice safety, preventing yoga injuries, yoga alignment tips, mindful yoga practice, lifelong yoga practice, yoga teaching skills, yoga sequencing for safety, yoga for flexibility and strength, yoga teacher training online, injury-free yoga practice, yoga tips for beginners, advanced yoga poses safety, listening to your body in yoga.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
So when you're doing yoga, you don't want to get injured, of
course. You want to feel good, you want
to stretch, you want to feel strong, flexible, balanced.
So how do you avoid the common causes of injury that might
happen in a yoga practice? Well, in today's episode, I'll
share the five common causes of injuries that are very easy to
avoid if you know what to look for, but also very easy to have
(00:32):
these things happen if you don'tknow what to look for.
I'm Jeremy Devins, this is the yoga teacher training podcast.
And if you'd like to deepen yourown yoga practice with me, go to
quiet mind dot yoga slash YTT. The next teacher training will
be opening pretty soon. You can get on the wait list for
that. And that's where we go deeper
into the 10 core competencies ofyoga, including teaching skills
(00:54):
I'll talk about today, mindfulness, I'll talk about
today, and anatomy I'll talk about today as well.
These are all key to helping prevent injuries.
So what are some of the common causes that are causing injuries
in yoga practitioners? Well, number one is for yoga
teachers. It's when you demo a pose when
you're not warmed up. Now, I've learned this the hard
(01:18):
way. My teacher told me early on in
my teacher training as well, like don't do this, right.
So let's say you go to teach your class and you're just
teaching. You're not practicing along,
you're not demoing things. And then you get to a complex
pose or even just a little more challenging pose like crow or
something like wheel that requires a little more
(01:39):
explanation for newer students. So you want to make sure they
understand. So you've been walking around
teaching, but now you decide, well, I should probably demo
this so they know what we're looking for here or some sort of
advanced bind or king pigeon or whatever.
The thing is, I've seen so many teachers do this.
I've done it myself in the past.And then you're not warmed up.
(02:00):
You've just been talking and nowyou go into an advanced pose,
cold. So your body's literally not
warmed up. It's cold, you could say, and
then you get a little tweak and something doesn't feel good and
then you're living with that forthe next few weeks.
So I've added more like this, like, oh, I probably shouldn't
have just jumped into wheel poselike that.
(02:23):
I should have done some more poses beforehand and then gotten
to that. Or, or just what's better and I
think is to point out a student that you know, has a strong
aligned wheel pose and then say,hey, could you demo this for us?
Gives the student an opportunityto sort of share their practice
in a way that they can say yes or no, they don't have to do it
(02:46):
and they can ask someone else and also give someone who's
warmed up a chance to do the pose instead of your cold
muscles. So that's what I recommend doing
instead for teachers is rather than just jumping into demoing
advanced poses, ask someone in the class to be the model to
demonstrate the pose. And then you can actually even
(03:06):
walk around, point things out like, OK, notice the external
rotation in the shoulders here for wheel pose and the extension
through the spine and these kindof things.
And here's what you want to avoid.
Here's what you want to do. And they actually gives you a
lot more room to point things out in a way that students can
follow along even better. And my mistake, I've done this
(03:27):
with certain binds or arm balances or back bends myself in
the past. It's like, oh, I, I think I feel
pretty good. I don't need to warm up.
I feel great. You know, I, I did my practice
earlier today. I'm not feeling tight at all.
Still going to the pose. And then, oh, kind of tweaked my
shoulder there, kind of tweaked my back.
So usually for me, these have been minor things because I'm
(03:50):
demoing, but I have a regular practice too.
So it's not as bad as it could be, but it's still not the best
scenario. So if you're teaching, I
recommend you have a student demo an advanced pose, unless
you're very warmed up and you'vebeen doing the practice too.
That's the whole logic of sequencing as well as we don't
(04:11):
come to a yoga class and say, all right, everybody, let's go
right into wheel pose off the streets.
Just walked in from the streets on to the end of the class.
Because we know that they're going to perform better.
They're going to feel more open,more flexible, stronger,
everything's better, more conscious breathing if they
build up to the wheel pose rather than jump right into it.
And I'm using wheel pose as an example, but it could be any
(04:33):
advanced bind or arm balance or challenging pose that requires a
lot of body awareness and complex movements.
So #2 common cause of injury to be aware of is focusing on
extreme range of motion, in particular going from 1 extreme
to another. So this is most common in the
(04:53):
yoga world in the Ashtanga sequence where there is the very
deep forward fold of pashimotanasana into the very
big backbend of wheel pose. This is later in the sequence.
So usually the body's very warmed up for this.
So it's not as big of a deal. But these extreme alternations
of movements from 1 extreme to another, from full forward fold
(05:16):
to full back bend is pretty extreme on the spine.
So I had a student and a teachertraining asked me recently of
like, what about going from happy baby to bridge pose?
Is that safe? I don't know.
And I asked them to just describe what's going on in the
spine there so you can think about this for yourself and
happy baby, what's going on in your spine and then what's
(05:39):
happening in bridge pose that might make it potentially a
risky movement. In my perspective and opinion,
understanding of anatomy is it'snot so bad from happy baby to
bridge because you go from happybaby.
It's a little bit of spinal flexion.
Sometimes teachers will emphasize keeping your low back
and tail on the mat, and that's OK in happy baby.
(06:02):
And then bridge pose is a bit ofan extension of the spine, but
it's a lot of strength in the glutes and the legs supporting
the back, which isn't always thecase with all back bends.
So that's a nice supported position to be in to support the
back and not be too extreme on the spine.
So you're going from a mild flexion of the spine, a mild
(06:24):
folding forward and it kind of position flexion and the happy
baby to a medium to big back bend extension of the spine and
in bridge pose. So that's one that is I think
safer to do, but less safe wouldbe Pashi Motanasana, the seated
forward fold, very deep flexion of the spine into wheel pose,
(06:48):
full extension of the spine. Depending on how advanced
experienced open the student is,this could be very big movements
or it could be a little bit moresubtle.
But generally you're going towards an end range of motion
between those two poses. And in Ashtanga you do them
back-to-back. This idea that was really
popular back then around the 70s, eighties, when this was
(07:11):
getting very popular, that you should balance things out,
right? So if you do everything on your
left side and left side, asymmetrical poses, you should
do everything on the right side too, like the lunges, Warrior 2,
everything that makes sense, right?
And if you do things One Direction, like a forward fold,
you should do something the other direction like a back
(07:33):
bend. And that's true.
I agree with that. I think there's logic and good
reasoning behind that. But you anatomically for your
spine, you should not do them immediately one after another
because your spine, the discs, the intervertebral discs between
these, the skeleton of the, the bones there and the spine needs
(07:56):
time to get to reset and go backto neutral.
So I sometimes describe it like a memory foam, like if you've
ever had a memory foam pillow orcushion and you press your hand
into it and you can see your handprint on the memory foam
even after you lift your hand away.
And it takes maybe a few secondsand then the handprint goes away
(08:19):
and then the memory foam is backto its starting position.
The spinal discs are kind of like that.
So you go into a Dee forward fold and now your spinal discs
have changed form a bit into this forward fold position.
O if you quickly go into a back end, which is the opposite, it's
(08:39):
very fast for your discs to needto adapt.
And this isn't so much a how flexible you are or how strong
you are kind of thing. It's just the discs.
It's like that's not something you can really strengthen or
change so much in the discs and the spine.
And they're like this memory foam that needs a moment to
reset and the discs reset when you go back to a neutral spine.
(09:04):
So the simple solution to this alternating extreme range of
motion, if you're going to do itis OK, go to the deep forward
fold and then to a neutral spinelike Don Dawson or staff pose,
where you're just sitting up tall and you focus on
lengthening your spine and you wait a a moment, maybe a breath
or two, doesn't take too long, and then go into the back bend.
(09:28):
So that is one way to approach it.
But even with that, I would still generally go slowly into
the poses. And Ashtanga is a bit more
emphasis on speed. So injuries are more common in
Ashtanga and other more athleticstyles of yoga where it's more
like a performance, like Bikram yoga to some degree, like
(09:50):
Ashanga to some degree, where it's you got 5 breaths and you
go to the next thing, 5 breaths,you go to the next thing.
And there's no like, oh, hold on, I need to pause here.
It feels like my body needs a moment.
It's just you just go like a performance.
And if you treat your body in this way, like any athlete, any
athlete in any sport, eventuallyyou're going to get injured.
(10:11):
It's just part of the deal. Like if you've been in
gymnastics, pretty much everyoneI know who's been in gymnastics
gets injured at some point and that's usually why they stop.
Or if you play any professional sport, basketball, football,
whatever, soccer, eventually you're you're probably going to
get injured because the goal is performance and pushing your
body. Whereas my approach to yoga and
(10:32):
what I think yoga can be is lessof a performance and more of a
alignment, centering connection to your body and breath checking
in, tuning up your body, just connecting with what's there and
being gentle. And by my approach is like, you
have a lifetime to do yoga and you want to practice in a way
(10:53):
that is going to help you practice better tomorrow and the
next day and next week and next year and the next 1020, thirty
years and the rest of your life really.
So if that means today I don't do any big back bends, I'm OK
with that. And maybe tomorrow I will.
Maybe the next week I will and I'll feel more up for it and my
(11:13):
body will feel more open to it. But essentially, like if I'm
going through a practice and I feel a little twinge in my knee,
I'm just going to start skippinga lot of knee stuff that day.
And the next day it's usually fine.
And if it's not, maybe it's a couple days, whatever.
But it's not a performance. Like it's not like I need to
check off. OK, I did these 84 poses today
(11:34):
and now I'm set for the day. It's I checked in with my body
and oh, I got a little ache here.
Whoever leaves some tension there built some strength here,
modified a bit here to prevent injury.
It's more of this awareness rather than look at how bendy I
am and look how extreme I can push my body in my perspective.
(11:55):
I think there's a lot of value in the performative kind of
approach. And like the yoga, competitive
yoga that happens in some places, especially in the Bikram
tradition, there's there's, it'skind of cool to see what people
can do with their body and push to their limits.
And there is a level of discipline for that that's
really respectable. And tapas and passion and, and
(12:17):
dedication to the practice, that's very respectable.
But I, I've just seen it so manytimes over the years.
People get injured when they, when they practice in this way.
So I'm not looking to get injured.
I want to practice for the long run.
But I did hurt myself last year doing this, knowing all this,
(12:38):
having gone so long, avoiding this.
I push my body practicing some advanced vinyasa Ashtanga
influence stuff with somebody who is also very experienced.
I was like, OK, well, we're bothvery experienced.
Let's let's push each other a little bit.
Let's try, you know, and see what happens.
And I ate my words, you know, I got injured.
I got a little spinal slip disc in my back.
(13:00):
It really sucked. I had nerve issues, numbness
through my right side. It's actually very scary to have
your side to go numb. It's like, am I having a stroke,
a heart attack? What's going on here?
All because I pushed myself too much in some deep flexion poses
where my spine already has a slight imbalance in that way and
(13:21):
I pushed it even more, slipped the disc, pinched a nerve.
Then I had nerve issues for a few months.
Really sucks. So I don't recommend that.
And I felt like in some ways I needed to, to experience that
and like test it because I've said it all this time and after
over a decade of practice, I hadnever actually done it that way,
never injured myself in that way.
(13:42):
But now I have. So I can say for sure, don't do
that. Don't go from 1 extreme to
another. Give yourself space between the
poses and approach it more as a lifelong practice rather than a
performance of like, how deep can I go and how bendy can I be
to sort of impress somebody or impress myself or whatever.
The thing is there #3 common cause of injuries, just trying
(14:07):
to go deeper into a pose for thesake of just going deeper into a
pose. So let's say you're getting real
close to a bind and if a teachercan come over and assist you,
you can get that bind. And it kind of feels nice to get
it. It's kind of the sense of
accomplishment, exciting, fun. OK, I got it.
Yes, I opened up like in some some ways in the old tradition
(14:28):
too, It's like, well, you can't do it 'cause you're closed and
you got to open your body. And this opens your energy and
opens your energy channels and emotionally, spiritually,
mentally, it opens you up. And there's some truth in that.
Absolutely. The mind and body are one thing.
They're not totally separate. So when you open your body, you
do open your mind and you do feel clearer and better
(14:49):
mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
And it's like, can you have thispositive open experience and
never do a a bound side angle pose?
Of course. Are there people or you could
say who are enlightened beings or brilliant minds or highly
successful in their world and they've never done a headstand
(15:10):
or whatever advanced pose you might be thinking you want to
do? Of course.
And are there people who can do all the poses and they're still
jerks and mean and manipulative or whatever, abusive?
Yes, of course. So there's no correlation here
necessarily between how deep yougo in a pose and that it's like
(15:31):
going to solve all your problemsor makes you a better person or
whatever. It just means you can go deeper
in a pose. And if that's something that it
calls to you and you want to do it for the sake of doing it,
then go for it. But it's more likely you're
going to get injured if you do that and you practice that way,
which is kind of this performative athletic approach.
So if it's just this explorationof like, well, let's see what my
(15:53):
body's capable of, why not go for it?
Especially when you're younger, like under 30, your body's a bit
more malleable, adaptable. Great.
As you get older, these things, you want to generally be more
gentle and slow with it. And yes, you can have major
openings and going to advanced poses that even if you start
yoga in like your 40s or 50s or 60s, you can have amazing
(16:17):
increases in flexibility and strength and balance.
But just keeping in mind like, why are you really practicing?
Is it to just push your body to see what you can do for the sake
of doing it? Or is it for something else like
just longevity, health, Wellness, feeling good as you
move through your day, being able to pick up your kids and
(16:37):
your grandkids well into old age?
Or being able to just take care of yourself and not have this
risk, especially as you get up there in age.
Like just falling down is one ofthe most dangerous things that
can happen to a senior citizen. The average senior citizen just
falling down. You could break a hip, you could
have difficulty getting up. So just having a practice where
(17:01):
you're regularly getting up and down off a mat is one of the
best things you can do for overall lifelong health and well
into old age. But when you're younger, yeah,
you can push your body and you're more malleable,
especially under 20, like your body's still developing and
everything to be very malleable.Then you want to build more
strength and and not push it toomuch into the flexibility.
(17:24):
So this is the third thing to consider.
Like are you just trying to go deeper to go deeper because
someone said you should go deeper.
Well, is that really why you want to practice?
Is that really what it's about? Because you just increased your
risk of injury and the benefit to the risk is kind of a bad
trade off, right? The the risk to reward ratio is
(17:44):
just like, why? OK, so you can do some advanced
crazy pose. Now what?
And what is that really accomplished other than just you
can do the pose? Cool and life goes on #4
possible reason for injuries anda yoga practice is not knowing
the anatomy well enough for yourself to practice it or for a
(18:07):
teacher to assist it. So let's say if somebody is
trying to get into wheel pose and you don't know, like where
should my hands be? Or say you're trying to get in
the wheel pose. If you replace this with any
advance pose, you don't know, like should my feet point out or
in or forward? Should my fingers point out or
in or forward? Or what should I look?
(18:30):
Should I tuck my chin? Should I lift my chin?
What's going on? And should I engage my glutes?
Should I not engage my glutes? All of these questions are
easily answered when you know the basic anatomical principles.
And I talked about this a lot onthe podcast at the in the past.
I go way deeper in my teacher training program where we go
through the anatomy. But the simplest version here of
(18:53):
what I want to share today is just look at the anatomy of the
pose and break it down and buildup from there.
So when we'll pose anatomically,the arm is being internally
rotated is going to put a lot more strain on the neck and
shoulders and make it a lot lesssustainable to hold the body
(19:15):
weight up in the pose. Versus if your arms are
externally rotated in wheel pose, that gives you a little
more space in the shoulders. It aligns the shoulders to
engage the lats, the back muscles better, the triceps,
everything, the shoulders, the deltoids, everything in the
(19:36):
kinetic chain just engages in a more safe and supportive way to
get into the shape of wheel posewhen the arms are externally
rotated versus internally rotated.
And you might not even know whatI'm talking about when I say
that. So that's where learning a basic
anatomy stuff is very essential before trying to really practice
(19:58):
these things. A good teacher will walk you
through it in a class so you're able to follow along.
And then a good teacher will also know how to assist because
they'll know what to look for, to know what to assist or what
not to assist or where did it say, you know, actually should
do this or should not do that. And that just comes with knowing
the anatomy. And the way I think about poses
(20:21):
is every pose is a constellationof optimal anatomy patterns.
So we will pose is external rotation in the shoulders,
extension in the spine, engagement of the glutes to
extend the hip flexors, these kind of things, right?
So I can get very nerdy with this, but that's the simple, you
(20:44):
know, I can keep going like thatof all the alignment cues.
But it's basically when you do that plus that plus that, it's a
sort of harmonious alignment of shapes in the body.
Whereas if I added in internal rotation of the shoulders and
wheel pose, now that's making everything about that shape more
difficult and more strained, more likely to cause injury, not
(21:08):
using the body and its optimal movement patterns, and you're
just more likely to have problems.
So every asana, which is really cool about asana, it's like the
people who've evolved this, Iyengar, Joyce, Krishnamacharya,
all the teachers who followed from them to refine it to modern
(21:29):
teachers to we've kind of passedthis on.
A lot of it really just through oral tradition, teacher to
student for many years. Now that it's like, OK, if you
do this, it's going to be more harmonious.
Essentially it's going to feel better.
You're going to feel more spacious, stronger, more
flexible. You're going to increase these
things and if you don't do that,it's not going to feel so good
(21:54):
and you're not going to feel so open.
You're not going to feel so strong.
You're going to feel more limited.
So the, every, every pose in yoga, that is the modern poses
that we practice, all the commonones is a constellation of
optimal alignment patterns. And that's what makes it feel so
good. Even if it's hard, it feels so
good and it feels so supportive to the body.
(22:18):
Now within that, a little bonus cause of injury here is
repetitive stress motions. So yeah, even though Chaturanga
up dog, down dog, the way it's taught with alignment cues is a
great optimal movement pattern in the body, if you just do that
over and over again, you're going to create imbalances.
(22:39):
Usually the front deltoids work a lot in that sequence and the
real rear deltoids, the back muscles don't work so much
there. So it's hard to create these
imbalances where you're really strengthening one part of the
body and not strengthening another.
So if you just do certain commonposes without knowing what
(23:00):
they're affecting in the body and knowing the anatomy, you're
going to create imbalances and repetitive stress injuries.
So this happened to me many years ago when I was like, I'm
going to push my body. I'm going to do a, I'm going to
do a vinyasa practice every day for 30 days and challenge
myself. And after about 9 days, I
(23:21):
started to have this major shoulder issue every time I did
the vinyasa. OK, well, I can push through it.
I can ignore this. I can just keep going.
I can say, oh, maybe it'll go away.
Maybe my body's just adapting. I don't think that is sound
logic. I think pain in the body means
(23:41):
pay attention inside now. Pay attention inside now.
It doesn't mean push through it and persevere because you're
weak and you need to be strong and this is going to make you
stronger if you just push through it.
I don't subscribe to that way ofthinking.
I think that is very dangerous way of thinking with the body
and it's going to cause injuries.
(24:02):
So even though I was doing this optimal alignment pattern of
Vinyasa chaturanga, up dog, downdog, knowing the anatomy, doing
it safely, I was doing it hundreds of times in a week.
I don't know, maybe not hundreds, but usually the
average class is somewhere between like 20 to 60 vinyasas,
(24:23):
depending how many times the teacher teaches it.
And you can skip them, of course.
But at the time, I was like, part of my challenge too is I'm
just going to do everything the teacher says.
And that's where I kind of realized one of these lessons
of, yeah, that you don't need todo so many vinyasas.
And yeah, some of them are good,but then you need to do stuff to
(24:44):
balance it out too. It just like if all we did was
locust pose over and over again,20 to 60 * a class that's not so
balanced. It's like you're going to have
to do other stuff too or you're going to start to get repetitive
stress injuries that way, which is way less common and way more
needed to get back strengtheningstuff.
So I learned to listen to my body at a new level.
(25:06):
And this is the 5th cause of injury I want to share today is
not listening to your own body and just doing things because
the sequence says you should do it.
Now there's that example I gave of I went to the classes and
they said vinyasa dozens of times.
So I did it dozens of times. And after about 9 days I was
having a shoulder injury and I needed to do other motions and
(25:30):
rotator cuff stuff and rest and recover my shoulder and and do
gentle stuff for a while. So I did that.
But another more common way I see this is I know so many
people who practice Ashtanga yoga regularly and they get a
torn meniscus. Why might that happen?
Why might so many Ashtanga yogi's get a torn meniscus?
(25:51):
If you ever practice Ashtanga, you may have noticed there's a
lot of times where you need to jump through to seated, like
jump from a vaniasi jump throughand now you're going to quickly
go into Lotus pose. And when you do that, you got to
move your leg from the hip. If you don't, you're going to
pull on the knee. So rather than move from the
(26:13):
hip, when you move that fast, people end up moving their knee
and twisting their knee, which the knee does not have much
rotation, very small room for rotation.
The knee is a hinge joint, like a door.
So they rotate the knee, rotate the hinge and they tear the
meniscus and then they've got toget it.
You got to get surgery to repairit.
(26:35):
Very common in Ashtanga because of this motion.
So as an example, if you look ata door in a room, the door has
hinges and the hinges just go One Direction.
That's what your elbow is meant to do.
That's what your knee is meant to do.
So just like a door, if you, if you take that hinge and you try
to rotate it, you're going to eventually RIP the door off the
(26:58):
hinges. So that's what happens for the
knee. And it's the most common injury
in basketball because what happens in basketball with the
knee, you've got to plant your foot and then pivot around the
the defense that you're going against their offense.
So you got to plant your foot and pivot.
So you plant your foot and then rather than bend your knee,
(27:19):
you're now rotating the knee. So torn meniscus is very common
in basketball and in Ashtanga because in Ashtanga you got to
quickly go into Lotus pose and that is moving from the knee
rather than the hip. So that's one way this happens.
But really the issue there is listening to your body.
It's not so much just the astronomer sequence, because if
(27:39):
you listen to your body, you'll quickly notice, oh, tweaked my
knee. OK, I'm going to skip those now
or modify that now. And, and just, instead of doing
full Lotus, I'll just do Sucrosina cross legged and you
go through a practice like me, Iwas doing the vinyasa's, oh,
tweak my shoulder. I could say, well, I just got to
(28:00):
push through it. And that's actually what most
Ashtangi say, because that's Ashtanga.
It's like, did you just do the sequence?
You don't question it. That's how Bikram is as well.
You just do the sequence, you don't question it.
But I think that is a dangerous way to practice because you get
injured. It's just like, it's just so
(28:20):
common because you got to listento your body and your body has
the wisdom to have pain. And the pain receptors are there
to teach you to pay attention inside.
Now, like if you touch a hot stove, pain receptors go off.
Pay attention to your body. If you keep touching that stove,
you're going to burn your hand. And there's actually a pretty
(28:42):
interesting thing. There's people who are born
without pain receptors, which you might think that might be
kind of cool, but it's actually very dangerous because they
could put their hand on a burning stove and not know, not
have the feedback that says, Ouch, don't do that.
You're going to burn your skin off.
And they just keep their hand there and they burn their skin
(29:04):
off. So we need the pain receptors
and we need to pay attention when the pain receptors are
active because it's telling us pay attention inside.
Now you're about to get injured if you don't do something to
stop this. So when you have that first
little tweak, that first little,oh, that doesn't feel so good.
I don't know, just do less. Just skip the pose.
(29:28):
Just modify live to fight another day.
It's not worth it. There's no reason to push your
body like that into the pose. You'll be fine tomorrow if you
just skip it and just maybe tomorrow you come back and you
can do the pose. There is phases where you
practice long enough. There might be months or years
(29:48):
where you just not doing certainposes because they tweak a
certain body part. And no matter how much you work
on it, it's still just not feeling good.
And I would rather you have a lifelong practice where you now
you just don't do headstand anymore or you just don't do
full Lotus anymore, but you still do a full practice for the
(30:08):
rest of your life and you have this place that you can come
back to. You're mad and breathe and feel
centered and grounded and, and connect to your body and breath.
That's what it's all about to me.
It's rather than a performance, it's a place to recenter and
reconnect to yourself. The performance aspect can be
really fun and worth exploring and and great to challenge
(30:30):
yourself. And it's nice to have these
challenges for yourself, like tomaybe work on building up to a
crow pose or a headstand or a wheel or whatever scorpion pose,
whatever you want to work on. But when you have the pain, pay
attention inside now and live topractice another day because
it's a lifelong practice rather than a performance for today.
(30:53):
And you're not impressing anybody.
If you can jump through to Lotuspose fast, it's your practice,
it's for yourself. Like a good Yogi.
Any yogi's around you are real yogi's aren't going to judge you
if you don't do it. They're going to say great.
You're listening to your body, you're connecting to yourself.
That's what really matters. And any teacher who says you got
(31:13):
to do it this way is more concerned with their ego and
control than they are with your practice and your body.
And I would not recommend continuing to practice with a
teacher like that. I've had Ashtanga teachers and
even Bikram teachers in all styles.
And I mentioned those two a lot today because they're so common
with this like performative side.
But I've had teachers in those styles too who say listen to
(31:35):
your body. Yeah, I know the sequence says
this, and I'm supposed to say you follow the sequence, but
it's your body. Like you do what?
Listen, you do what feels right to you.
And I think yoga should be aboutbuilding this relationship of
the self to the true self, as the Bhagavad Gita says, rather
than yourself to the authority of an external teacher who says
do it this way. That's not a healthy
(31:56):
relationship. And that's really just an
impediment to your own connection to yourself.
It's a something in the way of your own connection to your true
self. And they should be a guide.
They should be a support, but they shouldn't be the
replacement of the true self within.
So have teachers connect with teachers, learn from teachers.
(32:17):
This is a teacher to student lineage for thousands of years
and question everything and testit out and listen to your body
and trust your intuition. And if it feels off, don't do
it. And if a teacher says you have
to listen to me, find another teacher.
Him being kind of blunt here, but really, I mean, I've, I've
(32:37):
seen it enough where it's just you don't need that in your
life. There's no reason for that.
There's no reason for any teacher to need to tell anyone
what to do with their body or that it has to be a certain way.
That's not yoga. That's more just control.
That's more like fitness or performance or exercise.
And again, if you want to just perform, that's great.
(32:58):
So these are the five things I think that can cause injuries.
And a yoga practice that you want to watch out for #1 demoing
poses when you're not warmed up for teachers #2 focusing on
extreme range of motion, particularly going from 1
extreme to another, like seated forward fold to wheel pose
without any pause. And instead have a little pause
(33:19):
there, maybe a couple breaths toreset the spine and the discs #3
is trying to go deeper into a pose just for the sake of going
deeper into a pose. And that's where it really comes
down to questioning your motivation of why you're really
practicing. And if it really is you just
want to go deeper into pose and push your body, you're probably
going to get injured, but have fun.
(33:41):
And if you don't want to get injured, then focus on just
doing the pose in a healthy range of motion.
And there's no need to push it beyond that.
Number 4 is not knowing the anatomy well enough to really
practice or assist the pose. So the real lesson there is
learn anatomy. And I find it very hard.
(34:02):
I found it so hard to learn. When I was learning, I would
look at the books, I would do all this stuff.
I had a great teacher, but it still just went over my head.
But I've found ways to learn it and teach it that I think work
and that's what I teach in my teacher training.
So if you really want to learn this, go to Quiet Mind at Yoga
Slash YTT and sign up for the teacher training wait list.
And I, I think I have one of thebest anatomy trainings out
(34:24):
there. Honestly, I don't like to brag
very much, but this was a hard fought battle for me.
It took me like 5 or 6 years to be like I think I got it now.
And and I can see my students light up when I share with them
like this too. So I love sharing it.
And I do have other episodes where I share a bit more about
this if you want to go deeper onthe anatomy path.
So check that out. And the number 5 is just not
(34:47):
listening to your own body and just doing things because the
sequence says you're supposed todo it this way.
And there's this sort of phrase that's common of like the pose
is not incorrect, the student isincorrect.
And I totally disagree with thatway of thinking.
And that comes from like the Ashtanga Bikram kind of lineage
where they say if the pose is wrong, then you've got to
(35:08):
correct the student and you've got to push their body into the
shape to make them conform to the shape.
And I totally disagree with that.
I would rather you never do the pose and you never get injured
than to push your body into a pose with like a 40 to 60% risk
of injury. Not worth it.
(35:29):
Benefit to risk is just not worth it.
So listen to your body. If it feels bad, it probably is
bad. And if you have pain, pay
attention inside now. Live to practice another day,
and focus on practicing for the next few decades rather than for
the next few minutes. Because if you can't do a pose
now, it doesn't mean you're a bad person, doesn't mean you're
(35:50):
any less enlightened than someone who can do the pose.
It just means your body's not open to do the pose right now.
That's all it means. And maybe tomorrow will be,
maybe you'll get more flexible and strong and you will go into
other poses and maybe not. And can you live with that?
Because as we get older, there'sgoing to be things that change
that we can't control with our bodies, no matter how much yoga
(36:12):
we do. And can you live with that?
So we're really learning how to live with what is change, what
we can change, and accept what we cannot change.
And there's a lot of peace in that.
There's a lot of serenity in that.
So we can find freedom in that way of approaching our practice
and have this connection of a self to the true self rather
than the self to a set sequence made-up by somebody years ago or
(36:37):
some teacher who wants you to dothings their way.
Do it your way, listen to your body.
There's been plenty of times where I'm in a class and a
teacher is like, no, actually dothis.
And I'm like, no, thank you. And they're like, no, no, no, do
this. And I'm like, no, thank you.
I'm going to listen to my body, you know, And they're trying to
teach the class and they don't like me interrupting their flow
and saying I'm not going to do their thing.
(36:58):
It's like, hey, I know that's not going to work for my body.
I'll usually say something like,oh, I know my body, or I know
that doesn't feel good for me, or I had this old injury or
whatever. Some teachers get really
uncomfortable with that, but it's really just showing where
they're uncomfortable with themselves and where they don't
have this awareness of other bodies being different than
their body and needing differentthings in their body.
(37:20):
And maybe they do have some of that awareness, but it's
important to remember like only you can decide what happens to
your body in a yoga practice. Doesn't matter what any teacher
says, listen to your body. Do what feels right for you,
even if that means going againstwhat they just said.
And their ego should be able to handle it.
They're not there to control anddictate other people's lives.
(37:42):
They're there to just share yogaas best they can.
And you're there to receive the yoga as best you can.
And that means connection of yourself to your true self.
And the teacher is just a support, a guide, a pointer to
that rather than a replacement for the true self.
So hopefully you found this episode helpful.
If you enjoyed it, leave a review in Apple podcast.
(38:03):
Share it with a friend. And you're, if you're in a
teacher training, share with your classmates.
And if you've already taken a teacher training, there's a lot
of stuff you probably missed in there.
And the 10 core competencies of yoga from the history, the
philosophy, the anatomy, the teaching skills, the business,
the asana, the poses, all of this.
We go into very good depth in the yoga teacher training
(38:25):
program that I lead the Quiet Mind Yoga Teacher Training, and
you can join the wait list now at Quietmind dot Yoga YTT.
Thanks for listening and look forward to sharing more with you
next time on the Yoga Teacher Training Podcast.
So when you're doing yoga, you don't want to get injured, of
course. You want to feel good, you want
to stretch, you want to feel strong, flexible, balanced.
So how do you avoid the common causes of injury that might
happen in a yoga practice? Well, in today's episode, I'll
share the five common causes of injuries that are very easy to
avoid if you know what to look for, but also very easy to have
(00:32):
these things happen if you don'tknow what to look for.
I'm Jeremy Devins, this is the yoga teacher training podcast.
And if you'd like to deepen yourown yoga practice with me, go to
quiet mind dot yoga slash YTT. The next teacher training will
be opening pretty soon. You can get on the wait list for
that. And that's where we go deeper
into the 10 core competencies ofyoga, including teaching skills
(00:54):
I'll talk about today, mindfulness, I'll talk about
today, and anatomy I'll talk about today as well.
These are all key to helping prevent injuries.
So what are some of the common causes that are causing injuries
in yoga practitioners? Well, number one is for yoga
teachers. It's when you demo a pose when
you're not warmed up. Now, I've learned this the hard
(01:18):
way. My teacher told me early on in
my teacher training as well, like don't do this, right.
So let's say you go to teach your class and you're just
teaching. You're not practicing along,
you're not demoing things. And then you get to a complex
pose or even just a little more challenging pose like crow or
something like wheel that requires a little more
(01:39):
explanation for newer students. So you want to make sure they
understand. So you've been walking around
teaching, but now you decide, well, I should probably demo
this so they know what we're looking for here or some sort of
advanced bind or king pigeon or whatever.
The thing is, I've seen so many teachers do this.
I've done it myself in the past.And then you're not warmed up.
(02:00):
You've just been talking and nowyou go into an advanced pose,
cold. So your body's literally not
warmed up. It's cold, you could say, and
then you get a little tweak and something doesn't feel good and
then you're living with that forthe next few weeks.
So I've added more like this, like, oh, I probably shouldn't
have just jumped into wheel poselike that.
(02:23):
I should have done some more poses beforehand and then gotten
to that. Or, or just what's better and I
think is to point out a student that you know, has a strong
aligned wheel pose and then say,hey, could you demo this for us?
Gives the student an opportunityto sort of share their practice
in a way that they can say yes or no, they don't have to do it
(02:46):
and they can ask someone else and also give someone who's
warmed up a chance to do the pose instead of your cold
muscles. So that's what I recommend doing
instead for teachers is rather than just jumping into demoing
advanced poses, ask someone in the class to be the model to
demonstrate the pose. And then you can actually even
(03:06):
walk around, point things out like, OK, notice the external
rotation in the shoulders here for wheel pose and the extension
through the spine and these kindof things.
And here's what you want to avoid.
Here's what you want to do. And they actually gives you a
lot more room to point things out in a way that students can
follow along even better. And my mistake, I've done this
(03:27):
with certain binds or arm balances or back bends myself in
the past. It's like, oh, I, I think I feel
pretty good. I don't need to warm up.
I feel great. You know, I, I did my practice
earlier today. I'm not feeling tight at all.
Still going to the pose. And then, oh, kind of tweaked my
shoulder there, kind of tweaked my back.
So usually for me, these have been minor things because I'm
(03:50):
demoing, but I have a regular practice too.
So it's not as bad as it could be, but it's still not the best
scenario. So if you're teaching, I
recommend you have a student demo an advanced pose, unless
you're very warmed up and you'vebeen doing the practice too.
That's the whole logic of sequencing as well as we don't
(04:11):
come to a yoga class and say, all right, everybody, let's go
right into wheel pose off the streets.
Just walked in from the streets on to the end of the class.
Because we know that they're going to perform better.
They're going to feel more open,more flexible, stronger,
everything's better, more conscious breathing if they
build up to the wheel pose rather than jump right into it.
And I'm using wheel pose as an example, but it could be any
(04:33):
advanced bind or arm balance or challenging pose that requires a
lot of body awareness and complex movements.
So #2 common cause of injury to be aware of is focusing on
extreme range of motion, in particular going from 1 extreme
to another. So this is most common in the
(04:53):
yoga world in the Ashtanga sequence where there is the very
deep forward fold of pashimotanasana into the very
big backbend of wheel pose. This is later in the sequence.
So usually the body's very warmed up for this.
So it's not as big of a deal. But these extreme alternations
of movements from 1 extreme to another, from full forward fold
(05:16):
to full back bend is pretty extreme on the spine.
So I had a student and a teachertraining asked me recently of
like, what about going from happy baby to bridge pose?
Is that safe? I don't know.
And I asked them to just describe what's going on in the
spine there so you can think about this for yourself and
happy baby, what's going on in your spine and then what's
(05:39):
happening in bridge pose that might make it potentially a
risky movement. In my perspective and opinion,
understanding of anatomy is it'snot so bad from happy baby to
bridge because you go from happybaby.
It's a little bit of spinal flexion.
Sometimes teachers will emphasize keeping your low back
and tail on the mat, and that's OK in happy baby.
(06:02):
And then bridge pose is a bit ofan extension of the spine, but
it's a lot of strength in the glutes and the legs supporting
the back, which isn't always thecase with all back bends.
So that's a nice supported position to be in to support the
back and not be too extreme on the spine.
So you're going from a mild flexion of the spine, a mild
(06:24):
folding forward and it kind of position flexion and the happy
baby to a medium to big back bend extension of the spine and
in bridge pose. So that's one that is I think
safer to do, but less safe wouldbe Pashi Motanasana, the seated
forward fold, very deep flexion of the spine into wheel pose,
(06:48):
full extension of the spine. Depending on how advanced
experienced open the student is,this could be very big movements
or it could be a little bit moresubtle.
But generally you're going towards an end range of motion
between those two poses. And in Ashtanga you do them
back-to-back. This idea that was really
popular back then around the 70s, eighties, when this was
(07:11):
getting very popular, that you should balance things out,
right? So if you do everything on your
left side and left side, asymmetrical poses, you should
do everything on the right side too, like the lunges, Warrior 2,
everything that makes sense, right?
And if you do things One Direction, like a forward fold,
you should do something the other direction like a back
(07:33):
bend. And that's true.
I agree with that. I think there's logic and good
reasoning behind that. But you anatomically for your
spine, you should not do them immediately one after another
because your spine, the discs, the intervertebral discs between
these, the skeleton of the, the bones there and the spine needs
(07:56):
time to get to reset and go backto neutral.
So I sometimes describe it like a memory foam, like if you've
ever had a memory foam pillow orcushion and you press your hand
into it and you can see your handprint on the memory foam
even after you lift your hand away.
And it takes maybe a few secondsand then the handprint goes away
(08:19):
and then the memory foam is backto its starting position.
The spinal discs are kind of like that.
So you go into a Dee forward fold and now your spinal discs
have changed form a bit into this forward fold position.
O if you quickly go into a back end, which is the opposite, it's
(08:39):
very fast for your discs to needto adapt.
And this isn't so much a how flexible you are or how strong
you are kind of thing. It's just the discs.
It's like that's not something you can really strengthen or
change so much in the discs and the spine.
And they're like this memory foam that needs a moment to
reset and the discs reset when you go back to a neutral spine.
(09:04):
So the simple solution to this alternating extreme range of
motion, if you're going to do itis OK, go to the deep forward
fold and then to a neutral spinelike Don Dawson or staff pose,
where you're just sitting up tall and you focus on
lengthening your spine and you wait a a moment, maybe a breath
or two, doesn't take too long, and then go into the back bend.
(09:28):
So that is one way to approach it.
But even with that, I would still generally go slowly into
the poses. And Ashtanga is a bit more
emphasis on speed. So injuries are more common in
Ashtanga and other more athleticstyles of yoga where it's more
like a performance, like Bikram yoga to some degree, like
(09:50):
Ashanga to some degree, where it's you got 5 breaths and you
go to the next thing, 5 breaths,you go to the next thing.
And there's no like, oh, hold on, I need to pause here.
It feels like my body needs a moment.
It's just you just go like a performance.
And if you treat your body in this way, like any athlete, any
athlete in any sport, eventuallyyou're going to get injured.
(10:11):
It's just part of the deal. Like if you've been in
gymnastics, pretty much everyoneI know who's been in gymnastics
gets injured at some point and that's usually why they stop.
Or if you play any professional sport, basketball, football,
whatever, soccer, eventually you're you're probably going to
get injured because the goal is performance and pushing your
body. Whereas my approach to yoga and
(10:32):
what I think yoga can be is lessof a performance and more of a
alignment, centering connection to your body and breath checking
in, tuning up your body, just connecting with what's there and
being gentle. And by my approach is like, you
have a lifetime to do yoga and you want to practice in a way
(10:53):
that is going to help you practice better tomorrow and the
next day and next week and next year and the next 1020, thirty
years and the rest of your life really.
So if that means today I don't do any big back bends, I'm OK
with that. And maybe tomorrow I will.
Maybe the next week I will and I'll feel more up for it and my
(11:13):
body will feel more open to it. But essentially, like if I'm
going through a practice and I feel a little twinge in my knee,
I'm just going to start skippinga lot of knee stuff that day.
And the next day it's usually fine.
And if it's not, maybe it's a couple days, whatever.
But it's not a performance. Like it's not like I need to
check off. OK, I did these 84 poses today
(11:34):
and now I'm set for the day. It's I checked in with my body
and oh, I got a little ache here.
Whoever leaves some tension there built some strength here,
modified a bit here to prevent injury.
It's more of this awareness rather than look at how bendy I
am and look how extreme I can push my body in my perspective.
(11:55):
I think there's a lot of value in the performative kind of
approach. And like the yoga, competitive
yoga that happens in some places, especially in the Bikram
tradition, there's there's, it'skind of cool to see what people
can do with their body and push to their limits.
And there is a level of discipline for that that's
really respectable. And tapas and passion and, and
(12:17):
dedication to the practice, that's very respectable.
But I, I've just seen it so manytimes over the years.
People get injured when they, when they practice in this way.
So I'm not looking to get injured.
I want to practice for the long run.
But I did hurt myself last year doing this, knowing all this,
(12:38):
having gone so long, avoiding this.
I push my body practicing some advanced vinyasa Ashtanga
influence stuff with somebody who is also very experienced.
I was like, OK, well, we're bothvery experienced.
Let's let's push each other a little bit.
Let's try, you know, and see what happens.
And I ate my words, you know, I got injured.
I got a little spinal slip disc in my back.
(13:00):
It really sucked. I had nerve issues, numbness
through my right side. It's actually very scary to have
your side to go numb. It's like, am I having a stroke,
a heart attack? What's going on here?
All because I pushed myself too much in some deep flexion poses
where my spine already has a slight imbalance in that way and
(13:21):
I pushed it even more, slipped the disc, pinched a nerve.
Then I had nerve issues for a few months.
Really sucks. So I don't recommend that.
And I felt like in some ways I needed to, to experience that
and like test it because I've said it all this time and after
over a decade of practice, I hadnever actually done it that way,
never injured myself in that way.
(13:42):
But now I have. So I can say for sure, don't do
that. Don't go from 1 extreme to
another. Give yourself space between the
poses and approach it more as a lifelong practice rather than a
performance of like, how deep can I go and how bendy can I be
to sort of impress somebody or impress myself or whatever.
The thing is there #3 common cause of injuries, just trying
(14:07):
to go deeper into a pose for thesake of just going deeper into a
pose. So let's say you're getting real
close to a bind and if a teachercan come over and assist you,
you can get that bind. And it kind of feels nice to get
it. It's kind of the sense of
accomplishment, exciting, fun. OK, I got it.
Yes, I opened up like in some some ways in the old tradition
(14:28):
too, It's like, well, you can't do it 'cause you're closed and
you got to open your body. And this opens your energy and
opens your energy channels and emotionally, spiritually,
mentally, it opens you up. And there's some truth in that.
Absolutely. The mind and body are one thing.
They're not totally separate. So when you open your body, you
do open your mind and you do feel clearer and better
(14:49):
mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
And it's like, can you have thispositive open experience and
never do a a bound side angle pose?
Of course. Are there people or you could
say who are enlightened beings or brilliant minds or highly
successful in their world and they've never done a headstand
(15:10):
or whatever advanced pose you might be thinking you want to
do? Of course.
And are there people who can do all the poses and they're still
jerks and mean and manipulative or whatever, abusive?
Yes, of course. So there's no correlation here
necessarily between how deep yougo in a pose and that it's like
(15:31):
going to solve all your problemsor makes you a better person or
whatever. It just means you can go deeper
in a pose. And if that's something that it
calls to you and you want to do it for the sake of doing it,
then go for it. But it's more likely you're
going to get injured if you do that and you practice that way,
which is kind of this performative athletic approach.
So if it's just this explorationof like, well, let's see what my
(15:53):
body's capable of, why not go for it?
Especially when you're younger, like under 30, your body's a bit
more malleable, adaptable. Great.
As you get older, these things, you want to generally be more
gentle and slow with it. And yes, you can have major
openings and going to advanced poses that even if you start
yoga in like your 40s or 50s or 60s, you can have amazing
(16:17):
increases in flexibility and strength and balance.
But just keeping in mind like, why are you really practicing?
Is it to just push your body to see what you can do for the sake
of doing it? Or is it for something else like
just longevity, health, Wellness, feeling good as you
move through your day, being able to pick up your kids and
(16:37):
your grandkids well into old age?
Or being able to just take care of yourself and not have this
risk, especially as you get up there in age.
Like just falling down is one ofthe most dangerous things that
can happen to a senior citizen. The average senior citizen just
falling down. You could break a hip, you could
have difficulty getting up. So just having a practice where
(17:01):
you're regularly getting up and down off a mat is one of the
best things you can do for overall lifelong health and well
into old age. But when you're younger, yeah,
you can push your body and you're more malleable,
especially under 20, like your body's still developing and
everything to be very malleable.Then you want to build more
strength and and not push it toomuch into the flexibility.
(17:24):
So this is the third thing to consider.
Like are you just trying to go deeper to go deeper because
someone said you should go deeper.
Well, is that really why you want to practice?
Is that really what it's about? Because you just increased your
risk of injury and the benefit to the risk is kind of a bad
trade off, right? The the risk to reward ratio is
(17:44):
just like, why? OK, so you can do some advanced
crazy pose. Now what?
And what is that really accomplished other than just you
can do the pose? Cool and life goes on #4
possible reason for injuries anda yoga practice is not knowing
the anatomy well enough for yourself to practice it or for a
(18:07):
teacher to assist it. So let's say if somebody is
trying to get into wheel pose and you don't know, like where
should my hands be? Or say you're trying to get in
the wheel pose. If you replace this with any
advance pose, you don't know, like should my feet point out or
in or forward? Should my fingers point out or
in or forward? Or what should I look?
(18:30):
Should I tuck my chin? Should I lift my chin?
What's going on? And should I engage my glutes?
Should I not engage my glutes? All of these questions are
easily answered when you know the basic anatomical principles.
And I talked about this a lot onthe podcast at the in the past.
I go way deeper in my teacher training program where we go
through the anatomy. But the simplest version here of
(18:53):
what I want to share today is just look at the anatomy of the
pose and break it down and buildup from there.
So when we'll pose anatomically,the arm is being internally
rotated is going to put a lot more strain on the neck and
shoulders and make it a lot lesssustainable to hold the body
(19:15):
weight up in the pose. Versus if your arms are
externally rotated in wheel pose, that gives you a little
more space in the shoulders. It aligns the shoulders to
engage the lats, the back muscles better, the triceps,
everything, the shoulders, the deltoids, everything in the
(19:36):
kinetic chain just engages in a more safe and supportive way to
get into the shape of wheel posewhen the arms are externally
rotated versus internally rotated.
And you might not even know whatI'm talking about when I say
that. So that's where learning a basic
anatomy stuff is very essential before trying to really practice
(19:58):
these things. A good teacher will walk you
through it in a class so you're able to follow along.
And then a good teacher will also know how to assist because
they'll know what to look for, to know what to assist or what
not to assist or where did it say, you know, actually should
do this or should not do that. And that just comes with knowing
the anatomy. And the way I think about poses
(20:21):
is every pose is a constellationof optimal anatomy patterns.
So we will pose is external rotation in the shoulders,
extension in the spine, engagement of the glutes to
extend the hip flexors, these kind of things, right?
So I can get very nerdy with this, but that's the simple, you
(20:44):
know, I can keep going like thatof all the alignment cues.
But it's basically when you do that plus that plus that, it's a
sort of harmonious alignment of shapes in the body.
Whereas if I added in internal rotation of the shoulders and
wheel pose, now that's making everything about that shape more
difficult and more strained, more likely to cause injury, not
(21:08):
using the body and its optimal movement patterns, and you're
just more likely to have problems.
So every asana, which is really cool about asana, it's like the
people who've evolved this, Iyengar, Joyce, Krishnamacharya,
all the teachers who followed from them to refine it to modern
(21:29):
teachers to we've kind of passedthis on.
A lot of it really just through oral tradition, teacher to
student for many years. Now that it's like, OK, if you
do this, it's going to be more harmonious.
Essentially it's going to feel better.
You're going to feel more spacious, stronger, more
flexible. You're going to increase these
things and if you don't do that,it's not going to feel so good
(21:54):
and you're not going to feel so open.
You're not going to feel so strong.
You're going to feel more limited.
So the, every, every pose in yoga, that is the modern poses
that we practice, all the commonones is a constellation of
optimal alignment patterns. And that's what makes it feel so
good. Even if it's hard, it feels so
good and it feels so supportive to the body.
(22:18):
Now within that, a little bonus cause of injury here is
repetitive stress motions. So yeah, even though Chaturanga
up dog, down dog, the way it's taught with alignment cues is a
great optimal movement pattern in the body, if you just do that
over and over again, you're going to create imbalances.
(22:39):
Usually the front deltoids work a lot in that sequence and the
real rear deltoids, the back muscles don't work so much
there. So it's hard to create these
imbalances where you're really strengthening one part of the
body and not strengthening another.
So if you just do certain commonposes without knowing what
(23:00):
they're affecting in the body and knowing the anatomy, you're
going to create imbalances and repetitive stress injuries.
So this happened to me many years ago when I was like, I'm
going to push my body. I'm going to do a, I'm going to
do a vinyasa practice every day for 30 days and challenge
myself. And after about 9 days, I
(23:21):
started to have this major shoulder issue every time I did
the vinyasa. OK, well, I can push through it.
I can ignore this. I can just keep going.
I can say, oh, maybe it'll go away.
Maybe my body's just adapting. I don't think that is sound
logic. I think pain in the body means
(23:41):
pay attention inside now. Pay attention inside now.
It doesn't mean push through it and persevere because you're
weak and you need to be strong and this is going to make you
stronger if you just push through it.
I don't subscribe to that way ofthinking.
I think that is very dangerous way of thinking with the body
and it's going to cause injuries.
(24:02):
So even though I was doing this optimal alignment pattern of
Vinyasa chaturanga, up dog, downdog, knowing the anatomy, doing
it safely, I was doing it hundreds of times in a week.
I don't know, maybe not hundreds, but usually the
average class is somewhere between like 20 to 60 vinyasas,
(24:23):
depending how many times the teacher teaches it.
And you can skip them, of course.
But at the time, I was like, part of my challenge too is I'm
just going to do everything the teacher says.
And that's where I kind of realized one of these lessons
of, yeah, that you don't need todo so many vinyasas.
And yeah, some of them are good,but then you need to do stuff to
(24:44):
balance it out too. It just like if all we did was
locust pose over and over again,20 to 60 * a class that's not so
balanced. It's like you're going to have
to do other stuff too or you're going to start to get repetitive
stress injuries that way, which is way less common and way more
needed to get back strengtheningstuff.
So I learned to listen to my body at a new level.
(25:06):
And this is the 5th cause of injury I want to share today is
not listening to your own body and just doing things because
the sequence says you should do it.
Now there's that example I gave of I went to the classes and
they said vinyasa dozens of times.
So I did it dozens of times. And after about 9 days I was
having a shoulder injury and I needed to do other motions and
(25:30):
rotator cuff stuff and rest and recover my shoulder and and do
gentle stuff for a while. So I did that.
But another more common way I see this is I know so many
people who practice Ashtanga yoga regularly and they get a
torn meniscus. Why might that happen?
Why might so many Ashtanga yogi's get a torn meniscus?
(25:51):
If you ever practice Ashtanga, you may have noticed there's a
lot of times where you need to jump through to seated, like
jump from a vaniasi jump throughand now you're going to quickly
go into Lotus pose. And when you do that, you got to
move your leg from the hip. If you don't, you're going to
pull on the knee. So rather than move from the
(26:13):
hip, when you move that fast, people end up moving their knee
and twisting their knee, which the knee does not have much
rotation, very small room for rotation.
The knee is a hinge joint, like a door.
So they rotate the knee, rotate the hinge and they tear the
meniscus and then they've got toget it.
You got to get surgery to repairit.
(26:35):
Very common in Ashtanga because of this motion.
So as an example, if you look ata door in a room, the door has
hinges and the hinges just go One Direction.
That's what your elbow is meant to do.
That's what your knee is meant to do.
So just like a door, if you, if you take that hinge and you try
to rotate it, you're going to eventually RIP the door off the
(26:58):
hinges. So that's what happens for the
knee. And it's the most common injury
in basketball because what happens in basketball with the
knee, you've got to plant your foot and then pivot around the
the defense that you're going against their offense.
So you got to plant your foot and pivot.
So you plant your foot and then rather than bend your knee,
(27:19):
you're now rotating the knee. So torn meniscus is very common
in basketball and in Ashtanga because in Ashtanga you got to
quickly go into Lotus pose and that is moving from the knee
rather than the hip. So that's one way this happens.
But really the issue there is listening to your body.
It's not so much just the astronomer sequence, because if
(27:39):
you listen to your body, you'll quickly notice, oh, tweaked my
knee. OK, I'm going to skip those now
or modify that now. And, and just, instead of doing
full Lotus, I'll just do Sucrosina cross legged and you
go through a practice like me, Iwas doing the vinyasa's, oh,
tweak my shoulder. I could say, well, I just got to
(28:00):
push through it. And that's actually what most
Ashtangi say, because that's Ashtanga.
It's like, did you just do the sequence?
You don't question it. That's how Bikram is as well.
You just do the sequence, you don't question it.
But I think that is a dangerous way to practice because you get
injured. It's just like, it's just so
(28:20):
common because you got to listento your body and your body has
the wisdom to have pain. And the pain receptors are there
to teach you to pay attention inside.
Now, like if you touch a hot stove, pain receptors go off.
Pay attention to your body. If you keep touching that stove,
you're going to burn your hand. And there's actually a pretty
(28:42):
interesting thing. There's people who are born
without pain receptors, which you might think that might be
kind of cool, but it's actually very dangerous because they
could put their hand on a burning stove and not know, not
have the feedback that says, Ouch, don't do that.
You're going to burn your skin off.
And they just keep their hand there and they burn their skin
(29:04):
off. So we need the pain receptors
and we need to pay attention when the pain receptors are
active because it's telling us pay attention inside.
Now you're about to get injured if you don't do something to
stop this. So when you have that first
little tweak, that first little,oh, that doesn't feel so good.
I don't know, just do less. Just skip the pose.
(29:28):
Just modify live to fight another day.
It's not worth it. There's no reason to push your
body like that into the pose. You'll be fine tomorrow if you
just skip it and just maybe tomorrow you come back and you
can do the pose. There is phases where you
practice long enough. There might be months or years
(29:48):
where you just not doing certainposes because they tweak a
certain body part. And no matter how much you work
on it, it's still just not feeling good.
And I would rather you have a lifelong practice where you now
you just don't do headstand anymore or you just don't do
full Lotus anymore, but you still do a full practice for the
(30:08):
rest of your life and you have this place that you can come
back to. You're mad and breathe and feel
centered and grounded and, and connect to your body and breath.
That's what it's all about to me.
It's rather than a performance, it's a place to recenter and
reconnect to yourself. The performance aspect can be
really fun and worth exploring and and great to challenge
(30:30):
yourself. And it's nice to have these
challenges for yourself, like tomaybe work on building up to a
crow pose or a headstand or a wheel or whatever scorpion pose,
whatever you want to work on. But when you have the pain, pay
attention inside now and live topractice another day because
it's a lifelong practice rather than a performance for today.
(30:53):
And you're not impressing anybody.
If you can jump through to Lotuspose fast, it's your practice,
it's for yourself. Like a good Yogi.
Any yogi's around you are real yogi's aren't going to judge you
if you don't do it. They're going to say great.
You're listening to your body, you're connecting to yourself.
That's what really matters. And any teacher who says you got
(31:13):
to do it this way is more concerned with their ego and
control than they are with your practice and your body.
And I would not recommend continuing to practice with a
teacher like that. I've had Ashtanga teachers and
even Bikram teachers in all styles.
And I mentioned those two a lot today because they're so common
with this like performative side.
But I've had teachers in those styles too who say listen to
(31:35):
your body. Yeah, I know the sequence says
this, and I'm supposed to say you follow the sequence, but
it's your body. Like you do what?
Listen, you do what feels right to you.
And I think yoga should be aboutbuilding this relationship of
the self to the true self, as the Bhagavad Gita says, rather
than yourself to the authority of an external teacher who says
do it this way. That's not a healthy
(31:56):
relationship. And that's really just an
impediment to your own connection to yourself.
It's a something in the way of your own connection to your true
self. And they should be a guide.
They should be a support, but they shouldn't be the
replacement of the true self within.
So have teachers connect with teachers, learn from teachers.
(32:17):
This is a teacher to student lineage for thousands of years
and question everything and testit out and listen to your body
and trust your intuition. And if it feels off, don't do
it. And if a teacher says you have
to listen to me, find another teacher.
Him being kind of blunt here, but really, I mean, I've, I've
(32:37):
seen it enough where it's just you don't need that in your
life. There's no reason for that.
There's no reason for any teacher to need to tell anyone
what to do with their body or that it has to be a certain way.
That's not yoga. That's more just control.
That's more like fitness or performance or exercise.
And again, if you want to just perform, that's great.
(32:58):
So these are the five things I think that can cause injuries.
And a yoga practice that you want to watch out for #1 demoing
poses when you're not warmed up for teachers #2 focusing on
extreme range of motion, particularly going from 1
extreme to another, like seated forward fold to wheel pose
without any pause. And instead have a little pause
(33:19):
there, maybe a couple breaths toreset the spine and the discs #3
is trying to go deeper into a pose just for the sake of going
deeper into a pose. And that's where it really comes
down to questioning your motivation of why you're really
practicing. And if it really is you just
want to go deeper into pose and push your body, you're probably
going to get injured, but have fun.
(33:41):
And if you don't want to get injured, then focus on just
doing the pose in a healthy range of motion.
And there's no need to push it beyond that.
Number 4 is not knowing the anatomy well enough to really
practice or assist the pose. So the real lesson there is
learn anatomy. And I find it very hard.
(34:02):
I found it so hard to learn. When I was learning, I would
look at the books, I would do all this stuff.
I had a great teacher, but it still just went over my head.
But I've found ways to learn it and teach it that I think work
and that's what I teach in my teacher training.
So if you really want to learn this, go to Quiet Mind at Yoga
Slash YTT and sign up for the teacher training wait list.
And I, I think I have one of thebest anatomy trainings out
(34:24):
there. Honestly, I don't like to brag
very much, but this was a hard fought battle for me.
It took me like 5 or 6 years to be like I think I got it now.
And and I can see my students light up when I share with them
like this too. So I love sharing it.
And I do have other episodes where I share a bit more about
this if you want to go deeper onthe anatomy path.
So check that out. And the number 5 is just not
(34:47):
listening to your own body and just doing things because the
sequence says you're supposed todo it this way.
And there's this sort of phrase that's common of like the pose
is not incorrect, the student isincorrect.
And I totally disagree with thatway of thinking.
And that comes from like the Ashtanga Bikram kind of lineage
where they say if the pose is wrong, then you've got to
(35:08):
correct the student and you've got to push their body into the
shape to make them conform to the shape.
And I totally disagree with that.
I would rather you never do the pose and you never get injured
than to push your body into a pose with like a 40 to 60% risk
of injury. Not worth it.
(35:29):
Benefit to risk is just not worth it.
So listen to your body. If it feels bad, it probably is
bad. And if you have pain, pay
attention inside now. Live to practice another day,
and focus on practicing for the next few decades rather than for
the next few minutes. Because if you can't do a pose
now, it doesn't mean you're a bad person, doesn't mean you're
(35:50):
any less enlightened than someone who can do the pose.
It just means your body's not open to do the pose right now.
That's all it means. And maybe tomorrow will be,
maybe you'll get more flexible and strong and you will go into
other poses and maybe not. And can you live with that?
Because as we get older, there'sgoing to be things that change
that we can't control with our bodies, no matter how much yoga
(36:12):
we do. And can you live with that?
So we're really learning how to live with what is change, what
we can change, and accept what we cannot change.
And there's a lot of peace in that.
There's a lot of serenity in that.
So we can find freedom in that way of approaching our practice
and have this connection of a self to the true self rather
than the self to a set sequence made-up by somebody years ago or
(36:37):
some teacher who wants you to dothings their way.
Do it your way, listen to your body.
There's been plenty of times where I'm in a class and a
teacher is like, no, actually dothis.
And I'm like, no, thank you. And they're like, no, no, no, do
this. And I'm like, no, thank you.
I'm going to listen to my body, you know, And they're trying to
teach the class and they don't like me interrupting their flow
and saying I'm not going to do their thing.
(36:58):
It's like, hey, I know that's not going to work for my body.
I'll usually say something like,oh, I know my body, or I know
that doesn't feel good for me, or I had this old injury or
whatever. Some teachers get really
uncomfortable with that, but it's really just showing where
they're uncomfortable with themselves and where they don't
have this awareness of other bodies being different than
their body and needing differentthings in their body.
(37:20):
And maybe they do have some of that awareness, but it's
important to remember like only you can decide what happens to
your body in a yoga practice. Doesn't matter what any teacher
says, listen to your body. Do what feels right for you,
even if that means going againstwhat they just said.
And their ego should be able to handle it.
They're not there to control anddictate other people's lives.
(37:42):
They're there to just share yogaas best they can.
And you're there to receive the yoga as best you can.
And that means connection of yourself to your true self.
And the teacher is just a support, a guide, a pointer to
that rather than a replacement for the true self.
So hopefully you found this episode helpful.
If you enjoyed it, leave a review in Apple podcast.
(38:03):
Share it with a friend. And you're, if you're in a
teacher training, share with your classmates.
And if you've already taken a teacher training, there's a lot
of stuff you probably missed in there.
And the 10 core competencies of yoga from the history, the
philosophy, the anatomy, the teaching skills, the business,
the asana, the poses, all of this.
We go into very good depth in the yoga teacher training
(38:25):
program that I lead the Quiet Mind Yoga Teacher Training, and
you can join the wait list now at Quietmind dot Yoga YTT.
Thanks for listening and look forward to sharing more with you
next time on the Yoga Teacher Training Podcast.
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