Is Yoga Hazardous or Helpful? The Biomechanics and Benefits of Advanced Yoga Postures

Sustained neck extension, full range-of-motion squats and loading of the cervical spine. Are they harmful, or healing moves?

While each raises concerns of risk for potential injury, these movements do show up in certain advanced yoga poses. And some experts argue that—with proper experience and warm-up time—otherwise questionable or “contraindicated” movements can be healthy for a yoga student’s body. Read on to discover more about the biomechanics of advanced yoga postures that might raise concerns in the eyes of fitness professionals.  

 All Poses in Their Place

Commercial yoga companies frequently choose complex and contorted yoga poses (like the ones discussed below) for their brochures and marketing tools. However, advanced postures like these have no place in a beginner yoga practice, all of our experts emphasize.

“Just as a trainer wouldn’t start someone on certain exercises until they were strong enough, yoga teachers shouldn’t teach a pose unless the student has sufficient range of motion, strength and control to do the pose properly,” says Lori Rubenstein, M.App.Sc., D.P.T., a yoga instructor and doctor of physical therapy who teaches in the yoga therapy program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Calif. She encourages advanced postures only if “the student has trained properly and worked up to them.”

Nevertheless, fitness professionals may still wonder how certain postures can be safe, even for the advanced, warmed-up yoga practitioner. Our experts weigh in.

 The Pose: King Pigeon Variation I (sometimes called one-legged pigeon; Sanskrit name: eka pada rajakapotasana I)

The fitness controversy: Trainers may be concerned with torsional force on the front (i.e., bent) knee that could potentially damage its lateral structures.

The yogic perspective: This pose only presents concern if the student moves the front foot too far forward and increases the angle between the upper and lower leg too much, says Rubenstein.

 To ensure adequate flexibility in the external rotators of the hip joints, students should be guided gradually into this posture by slowly improving range of motion (ROM), notes Rebecca Reed-Jones, Ph.D., a biomechanist, yoga teacher and current director of the Stanley E. Fulton Biomechanics and Motor Behavior Laboratory at the University of Texas in El Paso.

Practitioners should also “actively dorsiflex the front foot, aligning the ankle mortise joint with the shin, which then limits lateral motion at the knee,” says Robin Armstrong, D.C., a chiropractor, yoga therapist and trainer of yoga teachers based in Vancouver, B.C. (The ankle mortise joint is the bony archway made of the talus—the “ankle bone”—and the bony prominences of the tibia and fibula on either side.)

Unique benefits: This posture relieves the strain of a sedentary lifestyle and elongates the psoas and rectus femoris of the back (straight) leg, says Armstrong. Plus, it focuses on the frequently neglected flexibility of the external rotators, deep flexors and lateral muscular structures of the hips and thighs, adds Reed-Jones.

Modification: The student could position the heel of the front foot closer to the groin, says Armstrong. “You may also prop up the opposite hip [i.e., of the bent leg] with a block, blanket or towel to bring the pelvis level and to avoid overly loading the front knee,” she adds.

I think this a great article for the begining yog-ite or the seasoned pro. It does a great job of explainer both the Personal Trainer and Yoga Instructor's point of view. To read the rest of the article click the link below.

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