As we go through life, we inevitably injure ourselves, either through accidents or simple wear and tear. We heal; but our soft-tissue; the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and especially the fascia of our body “remembers” the injury.
Let’s take a moment to review the different “elements“ of soft-tissue:
Tendons attach muscles to bones; they are less vascular than muscles and take longer to heal when irritated or injured.
Ligaments connect bone to bone and have minimal blood circulation; a serious ligament injury almost certainly requires surgery.
Muscles move the body; they are infused with blood and when irritated or injured, heal quickly. quickly.
And finally, permeating the entire body is fascia, yoga’s most important connective tissue.
Understanding Fascia is the key to understanding how yoga works:
About every ten years — ages 28 to 32, 38 to 42, 48 to 52, 58 to 62 and 68 to 72 — our fascia becomes less resilient, and those past injuries cause it to become tighter and tighter.
As our fascia becomes contracted, other parts of our body suffer. And if other parts of our body suffer, our fascia contracts even more throwing our body off the “plumb,“ sometimes subtly, sometimes grossly.
When soft tissue contraction causes us to be off the plumb, even the simple act of trying to remain upright throughout the day can become fatiguing. When our body is out of alignment, muscles and fascia are constantly contracting to keep us upright and by nightfall, we are exhausted.
Appropriately practiced, yoga works on the surface level by releasing contracted fascia. Gently, layer-by-layer, an appropriate yoga practice relaxes and releases tight fascia … and we begin to regain our energy.
Most exercise modalities, including many yoga systems, go deeply much too quickly, extending and hyper-extending the joints and spine too much setting up a chain reaction of irritation and pain within the muscles and especially, the fascia.
Translation? If it hurts, don’t do it. Lighten up, and you’ll open up that fascia, and the rest of your soft tissue will respond. There really is no gain in pain.
If a joint, say for instance your knee becomes injured; the nerve root that supplies that joint becomes stimulated and causes all the muscles, tendons, and fascia that attach to that joint, to contract (as well as the overlying fascia and skin); it’s the body’s way of immobilizing the tissue so it can heal.
However, since the fascia was stimulated and because fascia is non-specific; meaning that your fascia permeates well beyond the area served by a specific nerve root, fascia contraction irritates distal nerves; especially those nerves that were previously stimulated due to old, previously long-forgotten injuries. What happens next is that muscles and joints far away from your newly injured knee will also begin to hurt.
Throughout your life, all those physical and emotional injuries you had; all your illnesses, as well as the normal process of aging all cause fascia to contract. And as you age, fascia left to its own devices, contracts and can cause a nasty downward spiral.
Yoga is a powerful tool you can use to
help mitigate fascia’s propensity to contract.
So, now you want to practice yoga. If you are young and in reasonably good health, go ahead and practice yoga any way you wish, aggressively or not. Push it. Go for it. But I submit that if you are approaching middle age or if you have experienced injury or illness, aggressively pushing your yoga places you at risk for irritating soft tissue; especially tendons and ligaments.
And if you create such an irritation, it will cause the overlying and distal fascia to contract and that contraction of fascia causes additional soft tissue irritation. This is why you need to avoid pain; to avoid stretching into less resilient tissues such as tendons and ligaments.
Pain on the other hand creates a negative, unpleasant sensation such as a sharp, electric, pinching, searing or pulsing sensation that may or may not last beyond cessation of the exercise. You need to pay attention to the sensation you are creating.
Pain is a message that something is wrong and your exercise needs to be changed or stopped. If you’re performing an exercise or holding a position that hurts, you must find a way to do it differently. Otherwise, you’ll inhibit your progress by setting up a chain reaction of fascia irritation and pain. Pain in your neck, back, knees, or the sitting bones in your buttocks is especially crucial to avoid. Never push into pain in those areas.