7 Common Yoga Injuries and How to Prevent Them

Yoga is unique in that it is meant to be restorative for both the mind and body. It relieves conditions like back pain and arthritis, and it’s also good for your mental health.

That doesn’t mean yoga isn’t without risk. Certain yoga poses, especially those that involve extreme flexing or extending of the spine, can lead to compression fractures and sprains. But the risk in still very low. Only a few people who do yoga develop an injury that stops them from participating.

There is risk involved in any sort of physical activity, but because yoga is a low-impact and modifiable activity, the risk is a lower than in other forms of exercise.

Most yoga injuries develop gradually because of consistent overstretching and misalignment.

Most of us think of yoga as something gentle on our bodies, but it can cause a lot of pain and suffering if not done correctly.

Here are the 7 most common issues, along with tips on how to prevent them:

Hypermobility definition: when your joints allow too much mobility. This is commonly known as being double-jointed.

9 Common Yoga Injuries and How to Prevent Them:

1. Shoulders

Your shoulder is a very mobile joint, but lightly attached to the body, so it can be fragile.

If your shoulders round forward and you can’t straighten your arms when you lift them overhead, you have tight chest muscles and weak upper back muscles. (rhomboids). So, poses like chaturanga and arm balances will irritate the shoulder tendons if not corrected.

If you shrug (raising your shoulders up towards your ears) while doing poses like Upward Facing Dog you compress your shoulders and that puts your shoulders at risk for injury. You might even injure your shoulder girdle or rotator cuff by overextending or overstretching.

The Fix

Don’t pull too hard on your shoulders in stretches, and always keep them held back and down away from your ears.
Be sure to hug the elbows into the side body as you lower down through chaturanga. In poses like Upward Facing Dog and cobra be sure to expand into the collar bones and externally rotate the shoulders and pull them down the back.
To strengthen the rhomboids, lie face down on the mat with your arms by your sides. Lift your upper body and arms, stretching and lifting your arms and shoulders toward your feet. To open the pectoral muscles, lie on your back over a rolled mat, position the mat along your spine at the lower ribs, with your arms at your sides. Lift your arms up and over your head, as far as they’ll go without pain.

2. Hamstrings

If you sit at a computer the whole day you are bound to have tight hamstrings, so it’s easy to pull or over stretch them in forward folding poses. Injured hamstrings are usually the result of aggressive forward bending. Aggressive stretching irritates the hamstrings causing small tears in the muscles which leads to scar tissue to build up, and that can make the tendon even tighter. This kind of injury often builds up gradually, turning into hamstring tendonitis.

The Fix:

Downward Facing Dog, Warrior I (Virabhadrasana I), and Crescent Lunge (Anjaneyasana) are great ways to stretch out your hamstrings. Go slowly and work at your own pace.
Hamstring injuries happen when you forward fold without contracting the quadriceps and lower abdomen. When the front of the body provides stability, the hamstrings feel safe letting go.
If you have tight hamstrings, keep a slight bend in your knees as you forward fold and focus on lengthening the spine, rather than rounding at the low back.
Use blocks to bring the floor closer during standing forward folds and use a blanket or bolster to help the pelvis’ anterior tilt during seated forward folds.
To minimize the chance of injury, bend the knees and consciously engage or tighten the hamstrings. Often, hamstring attachment problems start because the hamstring releases and is slack as we hinge forward. That can cause a sharp tug on the attachment’s tendon, resulting in a tear.
Avoid using your hands to pull your body deeper into forward folds. If you have a lot of mobility in your hamstrings, be cautious and focus on engaging your outer hips, as it’s possible for you to overstretch and cause injury.
If you already have a pulled hamstring muscle, don’t do any forward folds. Give that hamstring a rest, ice it and elevate your leg several times a day.

3. Lower Back/Si Pain

Lower back pain is one of the most common yoga injuries, due to rounding through the spine in poses like forward folds and downward dog or keeping the legs too straight when going into a pose.

Over-stretching the muscles in your back or forcing muscles to lengthen is guaranteed to cause an injury eventually. You can also hurt your SI (sacroiliac) joint.

If your practice focuses on deep twists or straight-legged forward bending, you can put too much stress on the sacroiliac joint. Asymmetrical poses like parivritta trikonasana (revolved triangle pose) can also aggravate lower back and SI pain.

Rounding the back (when you shouldn’t) during poses causes the spine to flex the opposite way it’s supposed to, which can lead to disc problems and muscular problems in the lower back.

The Fix:

Before hinging at the hips and bending forward, try lengthening your spine up and away from your hips. This will help you avoid rounding in your spine.
Try bending your knees in poses like Forward Fold and Downward Facing Dog, because tight hamstrings can also cause lower back pain. Bending your knees in forward folds allow your low back to decompress.
During Seated Forward Fold (Paschimottanasana), sit on a blanket or yoga block to take pressure off your lower back. This will also help you hinge forward even more.
In twisting poses, engage your core and initiate the twist from there. Never go beyond your comfort level and always stop if anything starts to hurt. Slow down during twists and go in and out of them very slowly with deep breaths.
If you already have lower back problems, limit the amount of twists you do. If you do them, do them gently and with minimal twisting to avoid worsening the problem.
Keep a slight bend in your knees throughout your entire practice, if necessary.
Always keep your core engaged, as core strength contributes to a strong, safe back.

4. Wrist

Tendinitis is the painful inflammation of a tendon in the wrist.

When it comes to your wrists, it’s all about leverage. When you place all your weight in your wrists when your hands are on the floor it can surely lead to muscle and joint injuries.

Poses such as Downward Facing Dog, Plank, Side Plank, Chaturanga, Handstand, Crow, and other arm balances, if done incorrectly, can also aggravate wrist pain.

Instead, think about really taking the time to focus on your hand and wrist alignment, even in the most basic poses.

In some styles of yoga, a common instruction while in plank is to tilt forward, so the forearms go past the wrists. Over time, moves like these could strain the wrists if you don’t prepare and condition them properly.

Wrist pain could also be a result of repetitive stress. This small joint is most often already aggravated by too much computer usage. If you have weaker upper arms and forearms you are at a higher risk because you won’t be able to press your palm firmly enough into the ground to relieve the weight placed on your wrists.

The Fix

Warm up properly and slowly add pressure before putting your full body weight on your wrists.
Keep your weight spread evenly through your hands, especially between the knuckles of the palm and the thumb. Otherwise, you can strain your wrists.
Don’t take your shoulders too far forward past your wrists.
Use a yoga wedge, or a rolled-up towel under your palms to take extra pressure off your wrists.
Supplement your yoga practice with some basic arm exercises designed to condition and strengthen your forearms and wrists.
Place your knees on the ground to modify poses, as you build strength in wrists.
Keep your wrist straight. You can flex or extend your wrist, but ideally you want to keep it in line with the arm and not turn it to the right or left.
Use a rolled-up towel and put it under your palms so it causes less strain on your wrist when doing positions such as Downward Facing Dog.

5. Elbows

Many elbow injuries are from repetitive strain or stress (RSI) which are injuries to the musculoskeletal system or nervous system from repeated movements. RSI’s are developed over time from repeatedly doing a pose incorrectly.

Pain in your elbows can result from letting them flare out to the sides in poses like Chaturanga. It might feel easier lowering down with your elbows pointing out, but it puts extra stress on both your elbows and your wrists.

The Fix:

When you bend down in a pose like chaturanga keep your elbows tucked alongside your ribs, the crease of your elbows should face forward. This ensures you use your triceps strength to lower. If this is too much for your triceps do the modified version on your knees.

6.Ribs

Twists are amazing for releasing tension, but if done improperly they can over stretch or bruise the muscles in between your ribs.

The Fix:

Lengthen upward through your spine and into the crown before twisting. Twist to the point of feeling a good stretch but not past it.

7. Hips

It is easy to overextend the range of motion in your hips in Front Split (Hanumanasana), Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II), and Wide-Legged Forward Fold (Prasarita Padottasana) which might tear the muscles of your inner groin or inner thighs.

The Fix:

Ensure your quads and core are engaged to give you stability, and only go deep enough into the pose to feel a light stretch. Ligaments and tendons must be lengthened slowly over time to avoids injury and inflammation.

8. Knee

Many people feel discomfort, tension, or pain in their knees during yoga practice. This is due to tight hips or preexisting injuries or conditions.

The Fix:

If you experience regular knee pain, avoid sitting in cross-legged poses or Full Lotus (Padmasana) for extended periods unless your hips are already very flexible. You can place a block or rolled-up blanket under your knees in cross-legged positions to help reduce strain. For low lunges, place a blanket under your knee. Keep your knee over your ankle in any lunging postures. And try not to lock your knee out, as this is really bad for the joint.

9. Neck

Repeatedly placing pressure on your neck leads to compression of the vertebrae. This can result in joint issues and, in some cases, loss of neck flexion.

The Fix:

If you already have chronic neck or shoulder issues, it might be best to avoid full inversions as a precaution.

Never put pressure on your head and neck in any kind of inversion, including when you prepare for wheel pose.

Don’t force yourself into poses that the rest of your body, shoulders, wrists, and core isn’t prepared to support you in.

If you really want to advance your practice, only attempt inversions with close supervision and using props that elevate your neck away from the floor.

If you already practice the pose without props, make sure your shoulder blades are drawn down and back so they’re safely supporting your body.

The 3 Components To Injury Prevention:

Flexibility

Range of motion is the scale or degree to which you can move a joint through. People are said to be tight when they have a limited range of motion and flexible when they can move more freely.

When practicing yoga, you have greater access to your range of motion. Yoga helps to prevent injury from a flexibility perspective because it gives you more leeway to move in unexpected ways.

Balance

And as with strength and flexibility, you can improve balance through yoga, which will prevent injury. In yoga you perform asymmetrical yoga poses that challenge your balance., yoga increases the degree of balance possible over time.

Symmetry

Yoga balances the imbalances caused by other activities in your life. Being too strong or flexible in one area of your physique but underdeveloped in another can expose you to injury. Yoga counters this by preparing your body for unfamiliar situations and movements.

10 Tips For Preventing Injury In Yoga Class:

Try one-on-one classes – If you are a beginner, you can do an introductory class or one-on-one instruction to get a good foundation before you move up to more advanced poses.
Talk to your doctor – If you have any medical conditions or injuries, speak to your doctor before participating in yoga.
Talk to you teacher- Discuss any known illness or injury with your yoga instructor prior to the class, so he or she can recommend pose modifications.
Choose a suitable class – Yoga classes range in styles and difficulty, make sure you choose one that fits your abilities and goals.
Slow as you go – move slowly and intently. Save the backbends and head or shoulder stands for when you’re more proficient. Also fast-paced classes doesn’t give you the opportunity to learn things slowly.
Don’t be afraid to use props – blocks, straps, and other yoga accessories for support and to ensure proper alignment.
Avoid large classes -. Pick a small class where your teacher can make sure you execute poses safely and properly
Ask questions – Ask questions if you’re not sure how to perform a pose.

10 Beginner Tips To Avoid Yoga Injuries:

Modify as needed – Because it is essential how we position our bodies, modification is essential when building strength and flexibility.
Bring balance to your practice – Your yoga practice should be a balance of strength and flexibility, those who are hypermobile should avoid overstretching and going too deeply into poses because that might cause injury or flare up an existing injury.
Listen to your body – if a stretch goes from feeling like a good stretch to pain, then it’s a sign to stop what you are doing and assess. When you have pain the day after rather than normal muscle soreness it’s a good indicator that you overdid it with your stretching.
Don’t lock your joints – During movement, it’s best to keep your joints slightly bent to avoid hurting yourself. People often lock their joints because keeping a slight bend requires more strength. If this is you, rather bend those elbows. You’ll build more sustainable muscle strength and stay safe.
Wear appropriate clothing – Wear clothing that will not restrict your movement.
Know your limits. Do not try positions beyond your experience or comfort level.
Try a different style of yoga – There are many different forms of yoga, some more strenuous than others. It is important to learn which type of yoga will best suit your needs.
Don’t linger in a pose – Even if a pose is not particularly strenuous, don’t just linger there without awareness. Make sure you are constantly aware of what your body is doing and that your alignment is correct.
Warm up – Always warm up thoroughly before a yoga session. Cold muscles, tendons, and ligaments are vulnerable to injury when not warmed up properly.
Rest when necessary – If you do experience an injury, put your practice on hold until it has healed. Stop using the injured muscle or joint and rest until you’re sure that you’ve fully healed. Practicing with an injury will only cause more inflammation around the injured area and prolong the problem

How can Yoga Helps Prevent Injuries?

Yoga focusses on functional strength, which means you are working several muscles and joints at the same time. This will mimic how you move during the day doing everyday tasks or physical activities.

This increases your body’s ability to withstand strains, which affect muscles and tendons, and sprains, which target ligaments.

Yoga aims to strengthen your ligaments and tendons, by applying various degrees of force and direction on the connective tissue.

Strength brings stability. Many injuries occur because we have mobility without stability. Meaning, we are moving without applying strength. This overloads the joint being moved. Yoga teaches you how to have both so that you can move injury-free.

Conclusion:

Injuries often start with a warning. Your body will sometimes give you a heads up to indicate you are doing something that it doesn’t like, and you are one your way to sustain an injury. Especially types of RSI.

Yoga will help you develop the skills necessary to detect those early warning signals.

When practicing yoga, you want to create the right balance between strength and flexibility to reduce your risk of injury.

Fortunately, the rewards of a basic yoga practice outweigh the potential physical risks, as long as you take caution and perform the exercises in moderation, according to your individual flexibility and level of strength.

Despite the risks, if you follow these simple recommendations, most people can benefit from yoga and easily avoid injury.

9 Common Yoga Injuries and How to Prevent Them: