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Recognizing Overuse Injury

Overuse injuries are a wake-up call: They reflect an imbalance in your yoga practice. When you experience an overuse injury, take it as an opportunity to reflect on - and change - your practice habits.

Overuse injuries can involve injury to muscles, connective tissue, or nerves. They can result from a number of destructive practice habits: practicing without sufficient time to recover; practicing a specific set or type of poses without counterposes; practicing without conscious attention to safe alignment. 

How do you recognize an overuse injury? Overuse injuries tend to start out as a nagging discomfort that gets worse over time - over the course of days, weeks, and months. The discomfort or pain feels worse during - or soon after - your yoga practice. You can also recognize behaviors or attitudes that are likely to lead to overuse injuries. If you are attached to practicing in a specific way, even though the practice has become painful or uncomfortable, then you are at risk for injury. If you are willing to practice through pain or discomfort in a pose, you are at risk for injury. 

How can you respond intelligently and compassionately to an overuse injury? Overuse injuries respond to only one thing: change.

• First, give up any attachment to practicing certain poses that trigger pain or discomfort. At one point in time, I had to stop practicing cataranga dandasana and any poses that stressed my wrists. It forced me to find a creative way to practice sun salutations on my forearms, and helped me break my attachment to practicing in only one way. 

• Investigate new approaches to your practice - take this as an opportunity to investigate what might be missing from your practice. Are there types of poses (i.e., back bends) that you rarely practice? Is your practice a balance of active and more restorative sequences? 

• Ask your teacher for feedback on your alignment and movement patterns. Are there habits that you aren't aware of, that might be contributing to an injury?

• Consider taking a break from asana and focusing on other parts of a full yoga practice: for example, meditation, relaxation, breathing, chanting, study, or service.

If you are currently experiencing any kind of injury, read about how to nurse an injury with a yoga prescription.

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