A fateful twist: yoga teachers risk injury in quest for perfect pose
ORIGINATING in India more than 5,000 years ago, yoga is believed to be one of the first forms of exercise created, bringing physical and psychological benefits to those who practise it.
But today’s Instagram conscious instructors are falling victim to injuries because they are attempting challenging poses that will look good on social media, experts have warned.
The desire to teach the discipline “purely for aesthetic reasons” is leading to a rise in the number of yoga teachers suffering injuries, particularly in their hips.
Benoy Mathew, a physiotherapist who works at Harley Street Physio in London, and specialises in hips and knees, said the practice had become over-commercialised, resulting in inexperienced people being attracted into teaching it and pushing themselves too far.
“When I first started seeing patients eight years ago, I would see around one yoga teacher every six months. But now I am seeing four to five every month,” he said. “Social media has definitely contributed to this feeling of having to take it to the next level and that’s purely for aesthetic reasons. Just because you can get your head to touch the floor, you might manage to get an ego boost, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to have a huge health boost. You are just leaving yourself with more problems.”
Teaching the ancient practice, which is popular with celebrities including Victoria Beckham and the Duchess of Sussex, does not require any specific qualifications, according to the UK’S governing body. Mr Mathew believes this is a contributing factor to the increase in injuries.
“There is a big variation in the experience of yoga instructors,” he said. “Some people who teach the sport come from a fitness background with a lot of knowledge of the body, whereas others come from a purely aesthetic background. It has been over-commercialised, and I think that is what is causing a lot of the problems.” According to a study published in the British Medical Journal last year, 64 per cent of injuries acquired doing yoga occur in the lower half of the body including the hip, hamstring and knee. Poppy Pickles, who teaches yoga in south east London, said that people who rushed into advanced poses to look good on social media risked injury. “We are much more impatient in the West and many people want to be able to do the poses they see on posters, which will look good on their Instagram,” she said.
Ms Pickles, 38, who has been teaching for two years, said yoga teachers often experienced nasty injuries because there was a “pressure” to prove they were better than their students.
“The injuries I come across the most among fellow yoga teachers are shoulder and hamstring tears,” she said.
“There’s pressure as a yoga teacher to show that you are better than your students. So people often throw themselves into these positions to demonstrate you are capable of doing the moves. Most yoga teachers I know get injuries in their legs and lower backs from forcing themselves into positions.”
Is there a yoga position called Schaudenfraude? Meanly un-zen it may be, but there is something just a little bit satisfying for the inflexible among us to discover that even those who instruct the less bendy in the ancient art of yoga can sometimes get themselves twisted into positions they struggle to get out of. According to Benoy Mathew, a British physiotherapist (and yoga devotee), he is seeing an increasing number of yoga teachers with serious hip problems because they are pushing their bodies too hard and mistaking joint pain (bad) for stiffness (something to work through). “What’s achievable for one might not be achievable for others,” he says. Well, quite. Namaste, Mr Mathew – time to forget the downward dogs and practise our shavasana (also known as lying flat on your back).