Yoga injuries: An unwelcome trend
What a cliche: I hurt myself in yoga class.
I visited a new class and the teacher had us doing up-dogs into down-dogs into up-dogs for several minutes, encouraging us to roll over our toes. I was able to do this for the first time, but I paid the price, with excruciating back pain that lasted about a week.
Now I see that getting injured is more common than I realized. A new book by a New York Times reporter, William J. Broad, is summarized in this article with a great title: "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body."
So many people invite injury by doing the poses wrong, and teachers don't correct them. And since most of us are sitting at a desk all day, our bodies are not primed for the extreme angles of many of the poses, such as headstand and shoulderstand.
In a class I took a few days ago, the teacher said she was becoming more aware of yoga injuries and urged us not to push ourselves. The problem, though, is that you often don't know you're hurt until the class is over.
Photo: Karen Tapia-Anderson, LA Times
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