May 02, 17.31 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
"Wrong Yoga Postures can cause serious injuries"by Dr. Rajeev K Sharma, Senior Consultant Orthopaedic & Joint Replacement Surgeon, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital New Delhi
"Wrong Yoga Postures can cause serious injuries"by Dr. Rajeev K Sharma, Senior Consultant Orthopaedic & Joint Replacement Surgeon, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital New Delhi
Are you one of those men and women who have been taken by the magnificence of yoga lately? If yes, do make sure you are not predisposing yourself to injuries by indulging in wrong or unsupervised yoga postures, without understanding your body.
While there is little doubt that yoga is one of the most healthy exercises to indulge in, unsupervised or wrong postures can cause serious injuries to the body.
Most postures in Yoga are complex and need proper guidance and help from well trained Yoga experts in order to be performed in the right manner. With more and more people becoming aware about the benefits of Yoga, the number of people who practice the art amateurishly has also increased; a lot of them follow DVDs of yoga instructors and start performing complex postures without any supervision, opening up the high risks of getting injured.
From the popular side plank to the wheel and camel pose, such postures can often damage tendons and muscles through hypertension of elbows and wrists. A serious injury like a tennis elbow is also on the cards due to the wrong depiction of these poses. Even the simple downward dog position, and touching of toes, can injure the Achilles tendon for some people, especially those who aren’t physically active in their lives. Acute back pain due to bad postures by rookies is a common phenomenon and can often make them unsuitable for many Yoga positions due to a sensitive back.
“Amateur yoga can be extremely dangerous. The major problem is that people do not understand their own body and its weaknesses. Often, even when they feel pain while in wrong postures, they choose to ignore it, assuming it is a necessary part of the whole regime. Such errors lead to damage in tendons, joints and muscles and affect simple movements like walking, running and climbing stairs. Extreme head and neck movements can also cause problems in the brain and spinal nerves, by producing blood clots and swelling and wounding vertebral arteries. There is a need to seek advice of trained Yoga experts and avoid postures which can cause more harm than fitness,” says a leading orthopaedic specialist.
What may be right for one body, may not be right for another one. Moreover, starting off on a lighter note and slowly graduating to more complex positions and postures is the right way to go ahead.