Risky yoga

December 6, 2008 8:37 AM

What are some dangerous asanas?

I'm interested in asanas that people are somewhat likely to hurt themselves attempting. I don't have anything against yoga (though I think it's somewhat riskier than t'ai chi)-- I'd like a dangerous asana to use as part of an argument about something else.

I'm quite aware in a general sort of way about the sort of precautions people can use to keep from getting hurt. I'm also aware of the temptations which lead people to ignore those precautions and the numbness which makes those precautions hard to apply.

posted by Nancy Lebovitz to health & fitness (14 comments total)

I have seen people fall out of Eagle, Advanced Camel, Standing Bow Pulling Pose, and I hear horror stories of people sliding rapidly out of Rabbit when their hands slip off their heels. I'm told that last one can be a serious neck/spinal injury if your head is moving quickly enough.

Really, I think any of the single leg standing poses could be implicated in a fall if the student lost balance. Backward bending poses (like the camel) are probably also not 100% safe.
posted by bilabial at 9:32 AM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Since you're looking for "a dangerous asana to use as part of an argument about something else" - you don't say what - it might be useful to note that the very purpose of Yoga is to hurt yourself. More precisely, the purpose of Yoga is to destroy the body by manipulating it so deeply with the mind that you attain Moksha, the realization that the body is not the self.

It's always odd to me that it's become popular in the US as a 'healthy-lifestyle' sort of thing. This is more than a little off-base; there have been Yogis who've starved and beaten themselves and denied themselves in extreme ways, and Yoga in general is supposed to involve the denigration of the body in order to attain release from the soul-body loop. That's the point - it's not supposed to be 'healthy exercise.'
posted by koeselitz at 9:49 AM on December 6, 2008 [3 favorites]

I'm hoping that this will turn up more about dangerous asanas than discussions of askmefi etiquette.

That being said, on the one hand, keoselitz's answer is an angle on yoga that I'd never heard before and was therefore somewhat interesting. I've filed it under "see if evidence from other sources turns up". On the other hand, an attachment to the idea that there's one real purpose of yoga is... an attachment.

When I get some more about dangerous asanas, the reward will be, not just a "best answer" checkmark, but letting you know what argument info about dangerous asanas might fit into.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:33 AM on December 6, 2008

Wheel feels like it could be dangerous if your hands slip. I've heard someone else suggest that scorpion is dangerous, if you fall forward just right. Plow, shoulderstand, and headstand are not recommended for people with cervical spine problems, due to the weight and strain they put on the neck and shoulders.

Links are included because naming conventions seem to vary a bit, and a name in one school sometimes means something entirely different from what it means in another
posted by dilettante at 10:41 AM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

In yoga classes, the person leading the class will often offer "adjustments" to poses. For example "if you have knee problems, don't do the full lotus, try it without bending your knees"; "if you have wrist problems, try downward dog with your hands curled into fists and knuckles down", or whatever.

They'll also offer disclaimers and encouragements to "listen to your body" - I take it that these are more common in the more dangerous poses. Whenever you do an inversion (upside-down) pose like headstand or bridge, or one that puts any pressure or twist on the neck/spine, they are careful to disclaim - "if you feel any discomfort, come out of the pose; be sure your neck is not flat on the floor; if you have any dizziness, stop; be sure your shoulders are flat on the floor and you're protecting your neck" etc.

In terms of danger, I am thinking more of joint or spine injury, rather than injuries from a fall. In all poses there is also the danger of over-doing it, trying to stretch too far and hurting muscles etc that way.

You don't have to goad people into trying to be helpful by offering a "reward". People who come in here will try to be helpful; koeselitz is offering you extra info (which might be of special interest if you're making an anti-yoga argument) not trying to browbeat you or be rude.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:11 AM on December 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

In case that wasn't clear: I'm thinking that you can follow the disclaimers as a heuristic to find the dangerous poses.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:11 AM on December 6, 2008

Anecdotally, Bikram or "hot" yoga is considered the riskiest yoga practice, based on physician reports. The rooms are heated up to 115 degrees, with 60% humidity, causing soft tissue to become overly supple and prone to overstretching and tearing. Most commonly reported Bikram-related injuries affect the lower back, hamstrings, knee and sacroiliac joints. Practitioners also have suffered dehydration-related dizziness, nausea, muscle weakness, and cramping.

As for specific asanas, the plow has caused thoracic nerve damage in some individuals. The lotus has caused back sprains and herniated discs. Forward-bending asanas have caused sacroiliac injury.
posted by terranova at 11:15 AM on December 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

Anecdotally, Bikram or "hot" yoga is considered the riskiest yoga practice, based on physician reports.

That's interesting because, imho, compared to any other yoga class I've been to bikram focuses a lot less on stretching and more on compression poses and strength building. There aren't a lot of dramatically contorted poses (with the exception of tree and fixed form, which are not for people with knee problems or beginners and a lot of people don't do them).

Statistically speaking I'd bet money that forward bends are the most risky thing to do, especially as I have seen them taught many times when the instructor encourages the clients to over stretch while arching the lower back with little to no warm up. If you have tight hamstrings you can ~really~ mess up your lower back. Pinched disks, bulging disks etc. Even people who've been doing yoga for a long time can hurt themselves doing forward bends.

Falling over is a risk but not really a yoga specific risk, you can fall over in any sport.
posted by fshgrl at 11:30 AM on December 6, 2008

I hurt my lower back doing the backward-bending part of ardha chandrasana (they tell you to squeeze your gluteal muscles before bending backwards; you really should do that) and hurt my shoulder doing sasangasana (way too vigorously, that one was just me being stupid). They also say you can hurt your knee if you extend it past your foot in poses like warrior.
posted by salvia at 1:41 PM on December 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

A friend who is a yoga instructor (Ashtanga, maybe) says that an unsupported shoulder stand is pretty dangerous and that a lot of instructors will still have beginners do them.
posted by Airhen at 2:55 PM on December 6, 2008

Storm Shadow.
posted by tarvuz at 8:07 PM on December 6, 2008

Handstand in the middle of a room. Very easy to swing too far and fall very hard. Happened to me once or twice, on hardwood floor - ow. I'm a lightweight though so I did not break anything. Another one is padmasana (lotus) - dangerous for the knees. Another one is forearm stand, also may be easy to swing too far and fall over and (I'm guessing) may be possible to break an arm or two.

My personal view is that asanas are MUCH LESS dangerous than pretty much anything else you may do in your spare time if you do them alone by yourself. If you do them in a class or an exhibition, that's another thing because you're trying to keep up with the pace or push yourself too far or be embarrassed that you can't do something well enough. If you do them by yourself without any hint of competitiveness, you'd have to try hard to hurt yourself.

It also depends on whether you're overweight. In many asanas you're lifting the whole weight of your body and, well, the heavier it is, the heavier it will strain you. One other thing is coffee. I don't know if it's just me but coffee makes me much less sensitive to my physical limits. My limbs feel brittle and at the same time I feel like I have no idea if I'm close to straining or breaking some muscle or bone or very far.

Gurdjieff wrote that he was very happy to meet people who did breath exercises on their own because they had to pay him through the nose to fix the damage they caused themselves. On the other hand, Sivananda wrote that people who are overly cautious about asanas and pranayama are mistaken because these things are no more dangerous that walking down the stairs and with a modicum of care the risk is minimal.
posted by rainy at 9:57 PM on December 6, 2008

Thanks, everyone. It looks as though the plow is the consensus for a risky asana. I'm surprised-- I was expecting something more dramatic-looking.

My apologies if people were annoyed by my offer of a "reward". In any case, the argument I want this information for is an effort to demonstrate that it's hard to get safe and honest advice on losing weight because being thin is so overvalued.

If being able to do the plow were considered to be the proof of being a worthwhile person (we're imagining some malign alternate universe here), there's be a lot more plow-related injuries, advice on how to become able to do the plow faster than is safe, demands that people who shouldn't do the plow at all be able to do it anyway, and beliefs that the new, unproven method of learning to do the plow must be the solution and if people don't succeed at learning the plow from this new method, it must be because of their emotional problems.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:54 AM on December 8, 2008

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Dharma Mittra Headstand. One must be deep in the zone to do it without sustaining a serious neck injury. Particularly on NYC concrete.
posted by ezekieldas at 8:26 PM on December 16, 2008