Nowadays most doctors ask patients who have just undergone a surgery or have chronic pain, to try out yoga. It is widely used as a rehabilitation method that can heal, reduce trauma, and also increase flexibility. But, you need to head to the right school or teacher, to get all the above benefits. Yoga practice without guidance may not be safe, as you may think. You require the right expertise and guidance to get the best out of yoga. And that is where the best 200 hour yoga teacher training in Rishikesh comes into the scene.
If you do not do yoga the right way, you may suffer injuries of many kinds. Let us decode a few of them and understand how you can avoid them.
How To Avoid Common Injuries In Yoga?
- Developing Concentration And Awareness – Doing yoga means, thinking about the present moment. Do not allow your thoughts to drift away while practicing yoga. It is important that you understand that yoga is not just asanas; it is as much about breathing techniques. When you combine both in a proper manner, the benefits come in quickly. If you are distracted, you may suffer falls and slips, causing unnecessary injuries.
- Warming Up – Before yoga practice, warm up is an extremely crucial step, which many yoga practitioners avoid. Many people come from work to urban studios and start doing yoga. It does not work that way. You need to give the body some time to adjust to the movements. So, when you learn and practice yoga as a part of the best yoga teacher training in Rishikesh, you are made to start with sun salutations. These help in warming up the body and gives you the best benefits later. A good teacher will guide you on the right path, by following certain sequences in yoga from start to finish. You must follow particular sequences, as breaking out of them can lead to injuries.
- Following Alignments – As a learner or a teacher, alignments are also very important in yoga. Your physical alignment must also be the same as your mental alignment. When you do a posture, with proper adjustments and alignments, you tend to get all the positive benefits of the asana. Moreover, you must always keep in mind that alignments and sweet spots differ from one person to another. Furthermore, you have to balance the poses well, by doing backbends, forward bends, side bends and inversions. Always do the asanas on either side, to solve imbalances.
- Personalization – One size does not fit all, and it applies to yoga practice apart from other aspects of life. Every person has a different body structure, so you need to know about modifications and variations, so as to work around your limitations. Additionally, if you or a student practicing a certain pose, you should learn usage of props like cushions, bolsters, blocks, and straps, to ease the practice. Yoga is not about displaying your acrobatic skills and physical abilities, but enjoying the experience.
- Choosing The Best School – You should always enrol in the best 200 hour yoga teacher training in Rishikesh, at a renowned school. This is extremely important in yoga, and the wrong choices can lead to injuries and accidents. Choose a school like Yoga Vidya Mandiram, which is accredited by Yoga Alliance. Such schools will follow all the safety norms, while conducting classes.
- Studying Anatomy And Physiology – You must study Yoga anatomy and physiology properly, so that you know where the organs are located. Moreover, you will also learn about the biological processes that goes on inside the body. You will be able to design the sequences in yoga, accordingly.
Common Injuries In Yoga That You Must Know About
- Hamstring Injuries – This is one of the most common injuries that yoga practitioners face. If you repeatedly overstretch your body, without proper warm up, the area above the hamstring, where the tendons attach with the sitting bones, develops small tears and lacerations. Always ensure to do forward bends under experts initially, to avoid hamstring tears.
- Wrist Pain – This mainly occurs, when you are into fast-moving poses or flows. You often allow the wrists to bear the weight of the entire body, without proper preparation. Like always, warm ups are necessary here as well. Sometimes, short duration poses do less harm. But when you hold poses for longer duration, chronic sprains can occur, scarring you for a long time.
- Neck Injuries – We are already bogged down by gadget usage, which leads to neck stiffness and pain. The already weak neck muscles are often the first to be hit, during wrong yoga practice. When you do the Upward facing dog and Camel pose, you exert pressure on the neck that makes it worse in the long run. The cure for this, is to strengthen your shoulder muscles first and then attempt such poses. If your shoulder muscles are strong, they will support the neck well, minimising injuries.
- Rotator Cuff Injuries – In some poses like Staff pose or Chaturanga Dandasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, and Crow pose or Kakasana, you take the maximum hit. When you do weight bearing poses, do transitions quickly, or perform deep bends, these injuries take place. Thus you must take adequate preparation before doing such poses in yoga. A good school will design proper exercises, so that you can warm up and strengthen your muscles properly, before attempting any of the above.
- Lower Back Injuries– Yoga practice can relieve back pain. However, if your body is unprepared and you do the postures in the wrong manner, the opposite can happen. You will see such injuries occurring, when you try to compete with the others. You will first need to understand that yoga is not a competition. You must warm up adequately and then do all poses requiring back bends, whether front or back. The yoga teacher training in Rishikesh will help you prepare so that injuries do not occur.
Take Away…
Yoga Vidya Mandiram is one of the best schools for proper yoga teacher training in Rishikesh. And you will get good knowledge on these injuries, which you can avoid by careful planning, preparation, and proper warm ups. So, without thinking any longer, join the school to learn the tricks of the yogic realm.
