Yoga Butt - A Real and Painful Injury

Do you like to unroll your yoga mat and jump into your favorite instructor's class? If this has become a highlight of your day, you know how frustrating it is when an injury comes along.

You can't easily change positions and move freely from one asana to another, and it sucks.

Related - Get a Great Butt With Yoga

Don't Know What Yoga Is?

Yoga is a Hindu theistic philosophy that teaches the suppression of all activity of the body and mind. This will let you self-realize the distinction between them and attain liberation.

You may know it better as postures, breathing techniques, and meditation derived from yoga, but often practiced independently to promote physical and emotional well-being.

Welcome to Yoga Butt

While yoga is low-impact and gentle, this sustainable movement practice is great for muscles and joints... until you pull, twist, or strain something.

Yoga butt is actually an injury that commonly occurs in beginner and advanced practitioners alike. For a lack of better words, it's certainly a pain in the arse.

Looking at teachers, advanced, and beginner yoga participants, there's many that experience frustrating aches and pains.

Yoga butt is the culprit.

Overstretching

Yoga is great for those with tight hamstrings.

However, when your hamstring is already weak to begin with, many problems and injuries can arise from overstretching.

You see, when you stretch a muscle, you're actually weakening it. That's why it's stretching - you're releasing the strength and tension that it's built up.

Fatigue, overuse, or improper use of a muscle are the three main reasons you'll get a pulled muscle. While strains can happen anywhere, the lower back, neck, shoulders, and hamstrings are very susceptible due to how much we use them.

Mild to moderate strains can be treated at home with ice, heat, and some anti-inflammatory medicine. Severe strains or tears, on the other hand, may need medical treatment.

Do You Have Yoga Butt?

The easiest way to describe yoga butt would be a dull pain that runs the length of your hamstring.

This sensation is amplified when you attempt to stretch your hamstrings by folding forward or doing the splits.

Sometimes the pain can present itself a little differently.

Have you ever felt pins-and-needles in the side of your glutes or calves? What about a sharp aching around the bones you can feel if you sit in something hard? (Those are called sit bones)

Unfortunately, this injury can come in a variety of ways due to the nature of the small common mistakes that can be had in a typical vinyasa practice.

So there are three types of yoga butt that can ruin your fun with the downward dog.

• First is from overuse - doing the same poses too often.
• Second is simply overstretching - the most common form that could lead to some serious tears that take a while to heal.
• Third is putting too much weight on your sit bones during a posture.

Yoga butt is common, but as you see below, it can be avoidable.

Yoga Butt is Avoidable

Many times yoga butt injuries are due to small cues that you miss from your teacher. It's really easy to get lost in the moment and just flow... But alignment is very important to prevent yoga injuries.

Let's Take a Triangle Pose for Example

Say you get into a triangle pose and your instructor tells you to bring your right hip forward and your left hip back. Doing this will give you a strong foundation for your pose so you will be strong and stable.

If you don't, you'll be stretching your hamstring too much, collapsing in on your pose, and hoping you don't fart. Ignoring your instructor's cues will eventually prevail. Listen to the alignment cues.

Paying attention to your alignment means that you always are squeezing your glutes and engaging your muscles in deep hamstring stretches.

Listen to Your Body

One of the most important things when practicing yoga is to listen to your body. Being aware and mindful of your positioning and alignment will make the difference between yoga being a joy or a pain.

Don't force or push anything when practicing. This is something you need to enjoy and experience, not who can stretch the fastest.

Wrapping It Up

It's not the end of the world if you have yoga butt.

In order to ease the pain, slow down and take things very slow while you practice. If your pain is amplified by practicing, make sure to speak with your doctor about the best therapy or treatment for you.