overstretching joints with yoga? (newbie question)

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone.

I'm very new to yoga, in fact I havent even had my first lesson yet.

I've found a great yogaschool and booked my introcourse, but there

are a few doubts in my mind, that I was hoping you lot could help me

dispell.

 

The thing is, Ive been quite into martial arts for the past many

years, more specifically the noble art of aikido. And while Ive

enjoyed my time as a martial artist, I find its time to move on to

more calming challenges, that wont have me aching all over. (Im 22

and can at times hardly get out of bed due to backpain, which is just

plain wrong!).

 

I've spent the past week or so, digging up info on the net about this

wonderful thing called Astanga, that seems to meet my requirements

for a tough physical workout, combined with de-stressing. And boy do

those ppl on the pictures look good. Wouldnt mind having a body as

strong as theirs, just as I admire the amount of control they have

gained over their limbs.

 

Through all my reading though, there is still one question left

unanswered, and that concerns joints. I've read, that during yoga, a

substance is secreted in the joints, whereby these are "oiled" so to

speak and therefor work better and smoother. This is all well and

good.

But what about overstretching. My aikido sensei once told me, that

those ppl who practice yoga, often stretch their ligaments too far,

thus making them less capable of pulling the joint back into

position, incresing the risk of a fracture due to overstretching. He

told me, that the role of the ligaments inside your joints (or around

them, if we must be anatomically correct) is to hold the joints

together, making sure you can only bend so far, and looking it like

that, its easy to understand why the rigorous stretching and

limberness attained through yoga could be seen as less than

beneficial.

 

What I want to know, is whether or not there is any truth to this.

Should I worry wbout the strength of my joints when I take my yoga-

class? Will the increased flexibilty eventually turn into arthritis?

And as an added bonus, I would be very grateful, if anyone could

assure me, that yes, yoga will be excellent for my back, and that I

have nothing to worry about in the department. I do not have a

clinical back-problem. Its more due to stress and too many bad break-

falls during aikido I think.

 

Thanks to anyone who actually read all of the above, and even more so

to those who takes the time to help this doubtful newbie.

 

Happy practice all, from Mette

[Guest guest]

> Should I worry wbout the strength of my joints when I take my yoga-

> class? Will the increased flexibilty eventually turn into

arthritis?

> And as an added bonus, I would be very grateful, if anyone could

> assure me, that yes, yoga will be excellent for my back, and that I

> have nothing to worry about in the department.

 

I think it is definitely possible for people to over-stretch in yoga

practice. That's one reason why you have to adapt the practice to

yourself and always bring full attention to your practice. Most of

what we are really trying to do with stretching is to remove chronic

tension from muscles. So we always want to try to be stretching into

the belly of the muscle. Some ligaments may need some stretching (as

they may have adjusted to the limitations of deep chronic tension),

but first tension should be removed from muscles. Proper allignment

in the postures is important. Pain is an indication that a stretch is

going too far or into the wrong place. The goal would be to regain

complete normal range of motion in all joints (and this is quite

limited in most joints in most people), not to exceed normal range of

motion by over-stretching.

 

Of course yoga is about the best thing you can do for your back, but

again the practice has to be done with full attention to insure that

you are helping yourself instead of hurting yourself.

 

Here is a great website with more info:

http://www.extensionyoga.com

 

More discussion on technical aspects of Ashtanga yoga can be found

here:

http://pub42.ezboard.com/byoga84291