How to Practice Yoga with Lower Back Pain

0:00 Today's topic will be lower back pain. Welcome to the going pro. Yoga podcast, nugget series. My name is Michael Henry and I'm Byron de Marseille and he's short 15 minute episodes. We're going to be answering some of the most common questions in the yoga industry.

0:17 So you can walk away with the answers in a short period of time. That's right. Michael with each topic, that we choose will be discussing it from two different perspectives, the teacher, and the student. I'll be approaching these questions as a physiotherapist or physical therapist with over 10 years experience, treating some of the most common and complex injuries.

0:34 And my guidance will be from the perspective of having taught 7000 classes, roughly 10,000 hours over 10 years. Welcome to our podcast. Welcome to going pro yoga podcast. I am one of your hosts Byron de Marseille and across the way. I have Michael Henry.

0:55 Today's topic will be lower back, pain management. Yeah. How to teach yoga? Maybe with low, back, pain, and how to practice yoga with maybe lower back pain, or just back pain, lower back pain. We could probably specific specifically talk about that.

1:13 That's probably gonna be the most relevant for people. So I think that I don't want to say the easiest way to start, but it's probably the shorter version with regards to how to teach yoga with a lower back injury. Mmm. I would say you can probably chime in but to me, it would be like, don't demonstrate very much try to avoid actually putting yourself in a situation where you're going to be at risk and maybe you can even communicate that to the class beforehand, say, Hey, you know,

1:39 dealing with a little bit of this. So I'm not going to be demoing too much stuff, but don't worry like You know, my cueing is on point because I'm part of the going pro platform and I know how to cute like a boss. Check it out. Right?

1:50 So people need to know our experience with pain for this to make sense. So I'm gonna just go ahead and tell you I've struggled with back pain, since I was 12 years old at a very young age. This comes as a surprise to most people evidently as a yoga teacher.

2:05 I receive a lot of I guess unsolicited information of their opinion on my body and they're like, wow, your postures so great. And wow, that is an amazing pose you can do and they assume I'm very flexible and all these things when Truth is that yoga is saved my life from a perspective of pain and specifically the lower back.

2:29 I won't go to detail because that will require its own podcast to go into my life journey of pain, but just know that I am pain free. Now I am I'm not going to say I'm a gymnast doing backflips all over the place but considering where I was let's say a 22.

2:46 And then even 32 as a new yoga teacher learning how to teach with pain and now it's like, I don't know if I figured it out. I don't think there ever is a figuring it out because it keeps changing and evolving and it's always up to me to also do that.

2:59 But I've figured out a lot of things that have helped my pain. Great. You can build on what I said then because mine came from no experience and it sounds like you have plenty of experience. I hope so. But you so you've recently had pain or what's your situation?

3:15 Well, I'm a New Yorker. You're like most of, you know, pretty much within a year. And actually, a few months ago. I started to experience a lot of lower back pain, which came through for a few reasons, with my physiotherapy brain.

3:29 I was able to deduct it that I was doing a little bit too much yoga and not enough of the other types of trainings that I needed to do, which was working on some polling type exercises. Kind of doing some resistance training exercises for my body and also maybe not taking enough breaks.

3:43 I was probably doing a lot of too much. You got too much y'all. Yoga. So those are probably the reasons why my back was starting to flare up, but I wasn't teaching while I was experiencing this pain. I was trying to practice.

3:56 I was a student mostly when I was trying to practice with this low back pain. So that's kind of what I can talk a lot about, but before we go into that, okay. So how do we protect the students? Let's come at it with that perspective and then also chimed in with what if you're hurting and your yoga teacher and how do you teach like that? Okay, so if you're going to yoga with lower back pain, this Very common.

4:17 Actually, this is number one from my collected data over the years as to what get someone in the door. Number two, probably being curiosity. Number three, being their girlfriend or boyfriend. So, lower back pain, I would focus on at first, at least, strengthening the areas of the body.

4:40 And I'm talking to a PT across the way here. So he's going to give some great advice. I'm sure but strengthening the core. Being the reciprocal or other side of your back, your stomach, making sure it's strong so that it can protect the lower back.

4:55 That's number one that I would focus on. Number two, would be other strengthening areas possibly in the stabilizing muscles in your legs. So the outer leg, the inner leg and this is just as an insurance policy in more, more or less. It may not fix the problem, but it could reduce pain and it could keep you from hurting yourself more. Okay.

5:16 So after you purchase that insurance policy, which let's be real health coverage should be free. That's a whole other podcast. That's all the if I guess and then after you kind of get into that, I would mention let's think about specifically for your spine.

5:35 What irritates the pain is it extension of your spine back bending or is it flexion of the spine forward bending or something? That something else could be side bending? Yeah, could be. Possibly twisting, which means it might be a little bit higher up than lower back. But sometimes it's hard to tell what's a little backwards mid-back.

5:51 It's just like my back hurts, right? And yeah, and I'm going to pass it over to you in a second but thinking about how how your individual nature comes up so that no one actually knows what you feel, as much as you try to express it. Nobody knows.

6:07 That's one thing I had to learn and you might have to go through this phase in this journey of poor me, poor me. Nobody gets it. Nobody gets it looking for somebody who gets It and to a degree. Some people will get it even the people who seem to get it there on their own Journey. Okay, so please understand that.

6:24 You are the only one that has this information, even though you try to give it to someone else. Even if you have an x-ray or MRI and the physical information is there, you're still the only one with the feelings. Mmm. Okay, and then, I'm going to pass it to you. Boom.

6:38 Okay. So we're talking about having the student or being a student of yoga and practicing with low back pain, right? So the thing That came up for me with regards to the muscles. You were spot-on. Obviously, the core is very helpful, but it's more.

6:51 So just understanding that. We're trying to stabilize and support the spine. So not to break down the X-ray anatomy of what's going on. But ultimately the muscles that are really going to help to support your pelvis, which your pelvis is connected to your spine lower back.

7:05 The more we can kind of stabilize and strengthen and support that area. The, the less pressure and stress is going to go through the back. So that yes, is the core muscles, but we're also Talking about like Byron said, the leg muscles, stabilizing muscles, the glute muscles basically all the way down to your feet.

7:22 Right? If you have a good strong posterior chain, basically, meaning everything on the back side of your body, from your butt down. All of that is going to help to create a lot of stability and strength for your lower back. Most people that have lower back issues also have really tight hamstrings or possibly, they might be very weak hamstrings, or maybe it's actually a week glutes or maybe their glutes aren't firing properly, or maybe there's something else. Send their hips, that's not

7:47 stabilizing properly. So the lower back muscles, the bigger, Mac muscles, like the quadratus lumborum. If that means anything to you, might be activating might be kicking in and pulling on the spine and making you feel uncomfortable in certain movements and trying to help and support and stabilize you all the while.

8:02 There's a player in your muscle repertoire, that's not in the game and they need to be. So sometimes doing that little extra work to find out where it is. Maybe you need to go see a PT or someone else that can help to evaluate what that is for you. Or you can see what works for you and what doesn't work for you.

8:18 Or you can just kind of like take a guess and go to the gym and try to do some exercises and Target these areas and maybe that will be enough. So that was the first thing. Yeah. The second thing is, I don't know what my notes are saying, but it says going to yoga class doctors writing and he doctor exactly.

8:36 Well now I'm a little bit better than the doctors writing. So I can't claim that going to yoga class with lower back pain is something. That is probably what a lot of people do. And this isn't so much coming from like you're a you're a teacher.

8:51 Sorry, you're a, you're a teacher that's going to a yoga class and you're trying to help yourself as a Sure of this podcast. I'm thinking more. So like people will go to yoga thinking that yoga is going to fix their lower back. Like I got lower back pain.

9:04 Yoga is going to help me. Possibly, possibly not. For some of the reasons. We've already mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, because yoga can help to open up, create space. Loosened something that might be tense or tight, that is causing some irritation or pain in the lower back. But at the same time, it's kind of throwing a dart at the against the wall.

9:23 You might actually hit the bullseye or maybe you won't, maybe it's not what you need. Maybe it is what you need. So can yoga help your lower back? Yes. Can it fix everyone's lower back? No, definitely not. Right. So it's kind of one of those things that You're experimenting and trying out and it's really good to do it with a little bit of control and caution in understanding that and if you are not doing that kind of reflective thought, it's important for your students to

9:50 the people that come into your class. With that mentality. Yoga is going to help me with my lower back. You can help to guide them and support them so that they understand basically what I just explained to you. Yep. No, your body is kind of what was coming up for me as you were talking and you explained. It is in a way.

10:06 Hey, where I was thinking the wild wild west of physical therapy. Experimentation is what we're talking about where if you know your body well enough. Then you possibly could help yourself in a yoga class. Otherwise, the Wild Wild West is like, you're just getting some instructor who may or may not be qualified to actually help.

10:26 You most likely. Not sometimes, there's some really, really great ones that know what they're talking about and can help you. So if you take the advice of some of these non qualified, People couldn't end up hurting yourself actually more. The lower back is something we don't want to mess around with, so this actually comes up, is a listener of ours. Maybe she's listening to this and a student who is in class today.

10:49 Julia. She did exactly this, she knows her body. She came to my class and she explained to me how she is, you know, doing things that she thinks helps and she hears what I'm saying, and she explained that she's not always following along because she's Doing this as a way to help herself and since she told me that I'm totally fine with it. So yeah, just wanted to bring that one up. Yeah, and she was practicing exactly what we're talking about.

11:16 Is just like you want to explore it on your own and not necessarily just assume that the teacher knows your full situation or can help you and you know, a yoga teacher and general isn't necessarily a qualified person to be able to help someone with their lower back pain.

11:32 Maybe they can help support it in a lot of ways. And I think problem. This is a whole other Topic. But the expectations that falls on yoga teachers is, like, all of a sudden you become a yoga teacher, and you're also a doctor apparently to some people, right?

11:43 True. You don't, you don't, you don't buy into that, you don't jump into that. Don't try to pretend to be something that you're not. So someone's coming in with lower back pain. Don't don't try to pretend like, you know, how to help them.

11:52 Just, you know, stick within your means, stay in your lane and try to support them as best as you can, ultimately, it's their responsibility to be able to take care of themselves to know what their limits are. And this is sounds like what Julia was doing. As she knew it were, her limits were. So, she came, the Class, and she did what she could and then she didn't do what she knew she couldn't do, right? Okay, let's shift over to teaching injured. Mmm, as we teach yoga classes.

12:17 What if we're injured? And how do we navigate this? What if you have a lower back injury? Well, first I'll say your best. Friend is your injury. So if you start to look at it, like it's teaching you instead of hurting you and keeping you from something, then there's a better chance that it's going to be useful to help.

12:36 People as well because now you've learned a lesson you see we can't actually help others unless we've learned a lesson. And that lesson is different. That's the this is this is where you get into the wise old yoga teachers that were also interested in their lessons because they have so much life experience. So until you learn that lesson, it's hard to get it. So your best friend look at it as your best friend. It's going to teach you something. There's there for a reason life

13:03 isn't perfect. But at the same time, it is Perfect, because it's guiding you where you're supposed to be. All right, and then know that the rest of your teaching Journey will also be exactly that. It's going to go in phases. So you may be fixated on your X-ray, and your MRI and your psoas muscle one day one year, five years, but then you're going to move on because it didn't help and you're going to go into something else, diet, perhaps sleep, not overdoing it moderation.

13:30 This are just my life. I'm kind of sharing you. The lessons I've learned and I'm fast-forwarding, you to the, but the end result is I feel amazing. But if I was rigid, then I would be stuck in a pattern. Okay, so teaching the yoga class, injured shift, your mindset. That way you can help others, possibly. Reduce the amount of things that your students do because it might irritate you like, for instance, if Ford Flex Shin flexing, your spine is something, irritates you then be mindful teach to it, more become

14:03 a better teacher because your injury makes you more articulate. And in able to communicate about it. This is exactly what's happened to me. I'm a very careful teacher, very careful to warm up the body. So just had someone, tell me today. I love how slow we go in the beginnings of your classes. I've also had Said like man, you go too slow in the beginning of your classes.

14:22 So I'm totally open minded, and I am passionate about going slow in the beginning. So it rings. True and it attracts people that like that. So, as a teacher, don't sell yourself short. No, it's going to teach you something.

14:35 If you have to avoid yoga practicing, do it. Avoid your yoga practice for a little bit, teach it or Channel it in different ways, meditate and to help others. How can you practice yoga without Warrior one chaturanga? Down dog, you know, yeah, it gives you an opportunity to create a different type of Class, A themed glass.

14:57 Maybe it's a theme class for people with lower back pain and you're helping to focus on that. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people to attend your class at, that's how you Market it, right? Absolutely. Yeah, cool. Well, we're right on schedule, actually.

15:09 So this is, you know, doesn't always happen. Usually, we're a little bit over time. But these are 15-minute nuggets were at about 14 minutes now, so thank you so much for listening buying. Is there anything else that you want to add to this?

15:20 Beck, no pain, no gain, Make It Rain. Keep it going. Keep it going is what I'm hearing, but don't push yourself too much, possibly. Yeah, actually, it's the opposite of no pain. No gain. Yeah. Okay. There we go. All right. Thank you so much for listening.

15:34 We appreciate all of you. If you guys have any comments questions or concerns because this is a Hot Topic. And we only talked about it for a very brief period of time, as always reach out to us. You can go to the website, send the voice know which question e-mail.

15:47 Send us a DM, all of that jazz. Otherwise, appreciate you. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next time.