Yoga has long been thought of as a way to bring peace and calm to the mind, spirit, and body. That does not mean that it should be entered into lightly. There are now upwards to 20 million people taking up yoga as a regular exercise. William J. Broad’s new book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards was a focus in the New York Times for why yoga can be very harmful to the body.
This article mainly discusses Glenn Black’s (a highly recommended yoga teacher for four decades) opinion on why yoga is not for people who are not in great physical condition. It also looks at the few studies that have been done on injuries that have been caused by a few different yoga positions.
Black says that it is not just students that injure themselves but yoga teachers also. He stated that “the vast majority of people” should just give up yoga all together. He believes that because yoga has become so popular and these classes have become increasingly spread, teachers have not obtained all of the necessary skills to be monitoring to see if students should be doing certain poses. He also thinks that teachers egos are getting in the way of them being good to their students.
Broad points out that after a year of meeting Black, he too had received a yoga injury. Black’s injury was the result of so many years putting extreme pressure on his back. He developed spinal stenosis, which is when the openings between the vertebrae begin to narrow and compress spinal nerves. This causes excruciating pain and Black said that this was the result of yoga.
The article points to different studies that have been conducted on yoga injuries–the most severe of these causing strokes. Many physicians will point out how some poses such as the headstand put severe pressure on the neck and can cause irreparable damage. Other poses like the vajrasana (nicknamed by physicians “yoga foot drop”) can cause nerve damage when repeated on a daily basis; unless the practitioner quits, it could end up causing lifetime damage.
Black and these doctors agree on one very important issue. Many yoga moves should not be used in a general class. Instead of giving users a healing effect, they could very well cause traumatic stress on their bodies.