The New York Times recently published an article previewing a book on the rewards and risks of practicing Yoga. William J. Broad became significantly aware of the risks of Yoga through an injury and then used his curiosity to widen his perspectives on the practice of Yoga in modernity. Reading this article was great for me. As a student of exercise and human movement mechanics, it was an extreme relief to read this pertinent article. His message is simply that there are many healing presumptions when it comes to yoga and maybe that one cannot heal the body and mind by walking into a yoga studio a handful of times because it’s not suited for the vast majority of people. His research and experience give us several reasons to NOT “Just Do It”. Rather, we should listen to the body, its protective mechanisms, and question its limitations.

Underneath the numerous severe or rare injuries mentioned in the article, I hope the readers gathered that yoga has potential benefits and potential risks. This is true of all forms of exercise. Broad mentioned a Yoga specific injury, “Yoga drop foot”. As of now, the general public can put that diagnosis into the ‘things we should be careful of’ file. This file also includes “Runners Knee”, “Jumpers Knee”, “Adult onset Scoliosis”, “Tight IT Band”, “Shin Splints”, and “Tennis Elbow” (I’m very sure that there are more injuries that athletes identify with). What do all these injuries have in common? They are negative adaptations to exercise or competitive training.

The onset of injuries that occur from misuse and overuse of the body is a production of your nervous system, immune system, and muscular system. In fact, I think such a production is brilliant. I say this because these injuries have given me a hands on education to joint mechanics and the nervous system, an education not provided by a talking head or book. By the way, I’m not hinting to you that I have experienced every athletic chronic injury. What I am saying is that the human body has an amazing capability to protect itself and that we cannot out smart those mechanisms with exercise or strenuous yoga poses or dynamic stretches or icing a tendon for 6 weeks or changing your shoes, and I can definitely expand this list to numerous quick fix remedies that people sell. We have to ask the right questions of the body.

The omnipresent nervous system has a big job to do; make its operator/conductor (you the human) sensitive to danger and communicate that information to the brain. If there is limited range of motion around a joint, aka muscle tightness, there is a message present from the nervous system for the operator. The message could be communicated for many reasons, but biomechanically speaking the joint is simply protecting itself from vulnerability. It is well accepted that when a person exercises there are periods of fatigue followed by periods of recovery.

Sometimes when there is too much mechanical stress and fatigue, the nervous system has to protect itself by communicating to the muscular system that there is too much stress present. This message is intended to protect very important tissues near the joints (tendons, ligaments, bone). Every person has a different fatigue and stress tolerance level for their joints. As a person who exercises you should learn to recognize these tolerances because if the tolerance level is exceeded time and time again your ability to recover from those loads of stress diminishes. Eventually, you have an injury (pick from any of the above). That injury might heal acutely with TLC and ice, but the biomechanical reason for vulnerability has to be addressed to truly heal.

I’ve learned through rigorous education from Muscle Activation Techniques™ that this view of the nervous system and injury is unique in it’s approach to treating injury. What the message here and from Broad’s Yoga article is that there are limits to the body that do not have ‘one size fits all’ solutions. Every single one of us has to be prepared for our daily lives and choice of recreation. This type of preparation doesn’t have an expiration date or an end resolution. The stresses on our body are ever changing so our approach in addressing the issues should not be concrete in a set of poses, or in a list of exercises, or in a certain amount of repetitions. In order to achieve the optimal levels of performance, health, and avoid negative consequences we have to learn our stress tolerance levels and the best questions to ask of our body.

To learn more about how Muscle Activation Techniques™ questions the body click here.