Yoga and injury

It’s still a mystery, at least to me, if yoga really causes serious and long term injuries.

Somehow it’s happening to this group of friends, one after another.

We used to hike and speedwalk on steep walking paths every week, for years, when we were younger. We felt very fit then.

They I started yoga, and stopped joining them for the morning walks. I was perfectly fine until I went to the US and walked on an even steeper path in San Francisco Pier 39. Since then my hips and legs were never the same again. They were either in discomfort or pain most of the time, and the condition only improved after suffering for more than one year, after I sought treatment from various doctors and specialists.

2 years back, this same group of friends (3 of them) requested for me to teach them yoga. Of course I was more than happy to take up the offer. We did it once a week, and it stopped after less than one year as I was too occupied to continue teaching, and one of them, W, wanted to take a rest as she didn’t feel very good on her spine. Nothing very advanced or strenuous was taught given the short time.

Another one of them, T, continued with her journey in yoga with an Indian teacher. Few months back I was told that she pulled a muscle on her buttocks and had to stop too. She started to go for various treatments to cure the pain.

W’s back and leg were like mine, constantly in discomfort. She also went for various treatments and the latest being a chiropractor. His diagnosis was, her pelvis was not even and that had caused all the pain. He advised her to walk on flatland until she has fully recovered.

As for T, her pain never really got away and she decided to go for a MRI scan – and she actually has a minor slipped disc!

When W relayed these stories to me, she did mention a few times that our injuries could have been caused by yoga. I was kind of disturbed. And perhaps I sounded defensive too. Because I have never heard that yoga causes slipped disc! Maybe I should have controlled myself, but I thought I was implied as a bad teacher who caused injuries to my students.

My suspicion is, years of walking on steep slopes certainly strained our backs and legs without us knowing, but the effects are all flaring up only at an older age.

How can yoga cause these injuries? W told me the only time she used her pelvis was during yoga. You mean we can easily dislocate our pelvis just by sitting in half lotus pose? Or raising our legs in downward dog? But not to worry, our friendship is not strained.

I must admit that I am kind of discouraged to teach anymore. It is so easy to put the blame on yoga for any injuries – but there is no evidence to prove or disprove it. We can only guess. And of course many traditional doctors that they consulted are against the practice of yoga, for some strange reasons.

I can only conclude that yoga does have different effects on different people. But to say that yoga causes spinal and pelvic injuries, I just find it hard to accept. Can someone enlighten me?