Does Yoga Harm Your Body?

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As with many questions of this nature there exists a common paradox: can something be beneficial for us and still be harmful?   Perhaps a better question would be can yoga cause harm?   All forms of exercise are beneficial, but risk of injury is always present.   Done properly, yoga provides many of the key elements that create a healthy body.   In my opinion, the diaphragmatic breathing techniques, strengthening, and postural techniques taught to practitioners of yoga are several of the most important benefits.

The negative aspects of yoga lie in the undo stress that it imparts on the spine and joints of the body. Yoga challenges an individual to take specific joints in the body to their “end range” and then push further.   This act puts excessive strain on the ligaments of the joint, which are by nature meant to be inflexible, enabling the specific joint to have stability. The stretching of these ligaments and corresponding instability in these joints makes further injury more likely, as anyone who has had chronic ankle sprains can attest to – it only takes the slightest wrong move and reinjury occurs.   An unstable joint also causes poor biomechanics, which in turn causes destruction of cartilage, thus promoting premature degeneration.

Another element that must be examined is the improper loading of the spine due to the twisting or torquing movements that are often involved in specific yoga positions.   These poses put enormous pressure upon the load-bearing unit of the spine (i.e. the disc) and as spinal biomechanist, Stuart McGill, PhD, sights in his research, this is the most dangerous position the spine can undertake and is the most common cause of disc herniation.   Spinal stability is also due to small ligaments that segmentally connect each contiguous vertebra allowing gross movement of the spine, but limiting it at any specific level, confirming the importance of stability over flexibility of the spine.