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| I have been practicing astanga for 5 years, the primary series. Usually 5 days a week. I have been experiencing pain in my sacro illiac joint and my lower right side, my Q L area. Does anyone have suggestions or has anyone experienced this before. When I go to my chiropracter he usually puts it back in. Last week it was really bad and I couldn't even bend forward. I haven't been able to do my practice for 3 months because it makes it worse. Any ideas? I have just been walking for exercise but I really miss my daily practice and I want to get back to it. |
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| This is a pretty common injury, particularly in yoga. Unfortunately, once an SI is unstable, it pretty much remains a danger area ...
... unless ...
1) you learn to strengthen the muscles across the lower back and into the hip and
2) you learn how to "hug in" the muscles on the sides of the hips.
1) One of the best methods is to sit in Janu Sirsasana. Pull your bottom out from underneath you and roll the muscles of the thigh in and down. This is known in other traditions as an inner spiral or rotation. You'll feel yourself sitting more firmly on your butt bones.
Put your hand on the knee of the bent leg and lean kind of back a little so you could straighten your arm, supporting yourself on your opposite arm. Press the knee down. At the same time, press that knee back up into the hand. If you pay attention, you'll feel those muscles across the lower back tone. Don't neglect the straight leg, because it, too, plays a part in this. Flex your foot, spread your toes and lift your quads. You can play with this by gently turning your belly button (not your chest) away from the bent knee side, anchoring the bent leg hip down while pushing into your hand and down onto your knee. Play with reps of this exercise. (It has made a HUGE HUGE difference in my own SI, which was injured by an overenthusiastic adjustment by someone who had no idea how strong I am as I followed their instructions during their adjustment.)
2) Hugging in. This is tougher to explain. It is not squeezing the gluts, although that's going to be the first thing you tighten. Think of engaging the muscles of the hips so they cup around and towards the back of your hips.
A second method, which feels pretty good, is that when you're in any type of standing forward bend, ground your feet firmly, then isometrically squeeze them towards each other against the floor. As you rise up out of Paschimottanasana or Parsarita Podottanasana, squeeze them together as you rise. The firmness in the asana is fabulous, and works those lower hip/back muscles rather than using them to lift the heavy torso. The legs do the work.
Flexible people will whack the SI joint out pretty easily, because we flop forward. We don't use any muscle energy in these asana, because we're supposedly already there. There isn't a single pose that is ever "done." Working your legs in these poses might become your focus now, since you really need to strengthen that area of your body. Back off a little and think REALLY straight spine in forward bends. A "hunch" with the head straining towards a knee (rather than chin to shin) and not engaging uddiyana bandha puts pressure on this area.
Now. To fix it yourself. This is going to be tough to describe.
Grab a foam block. Lie down. Lift your hips off the ground as in the common version of Setubandha. Put the block on the tall side under your sacrum. Put the very corner of the block onto the point of the sacrum where the joint is. Be on the sacrum side rather than on the hip bone (illiac crest) side. Like where your chiro would put the heel of his hand to adjust your SI.
Find your balance on the block, so you want it to be as flat to the floor as you can.
Now stretch that same side leg out straight, and take that same arm over your head. Keep the other foot on the floor for balance. Put all your body weight on the corner of the block by kind of draping yourself over it. Kind of move around a bit. You'll feel pressure, but it won't hurt.
When you think you've had enough, carefully bend the straight leg so you have both feet on the floor. Lift your hips, remove the block, shift your weight towards your feet and lie down.
TO GET UP. Do NOT just jump up. You need to move symetrically. Use your elbows to lift yourself into Sukhasana. Roll forward, put your hands on the floor and come into table. Push yourself backwards to come up, almost through a baby down dog. Then lift one knee, then the other, and see how it feels.
This has saved my sanity.
I hope you feel better!
Christine |
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| Is it happening in both SI joints or primarily on one side? I would guess that it is the right SI joint mostly, due to the pain in right Q L area. If my assumtion is correct, then their will be an area on the left side that is stealing the show. It could be the left psoas, left adductors, left periformis, left illiacus and all of the above. I am going to assume the Q L area is in pain because it is strained. If my assumtions are accurate then the left shoulder girdle will also have a tendancy to hold down into the pelvis with the left side of the neck being held. So you want to release the holding on the left side and find new ways of moving and feeling that have both sides sharing in your core energy. Bring your awareness into the area between the left femur bone and just outside of the pelvis( along the bone) under the illium with the hip socket being the main meeting place of the two (femur and pelvis). And see if you can release that area. If it is both SI joints you want to explore the occiput region. This is where the back of the neck and the skull meet and relate. As a Rolfer I find this area is a major holding place for the majority of people. If the underside of the back of the skull is clamped down into the back of the neck then the SI joints will also lockup. If it goes on for a long time then the tissue in the SI area will deteriorate and then get strained out and unsupported. The occiput region also relates to the brain stem and its fight or flight mechanisms with stress. I have made alot of assumtions in this post, please let me know if they were inaccurate. I just made a big leap of faith. Hope it helps. |
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| Dear Renee:
Please forgive me if I understand you wrongly. As I understand what you are saying is that you are getting a pain by doing some exercise, call it whatever. When you get pain, then you go to Chiropractor who puts you back in. And, then when you start exercise the pain is coming more continuously this time. And, your goal is to get into the same practice again. In my honest opinion, your practice and goals are all wrong. You are carried by a competitive and wrong goal. This can NOT be called as Yoga.
Your first goal is to get over the pain without using any therapy, meaning you have to become healthy. If you know the pain can NEVER go after a prolonged health oriented practice, you must accept it and NOT do any thing which brings pain.
Once you become healthy in that part, you should do only such a practice which is within your limits.
Best Luck.
neel kulkarni
www.authenticyoga.org |
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| This was very interesting!!!!!!
My SI is pretty painful much of the time. Particularly when I garden, which is every day about 5-8 hours a day in Vajrasana. If I turn without sitting up straight to grab a tool or something? OOOOOWWWWW.
My teacher and sometimes bodyworker has said recently, though, that my SI is fine. And I'm not getting any relief with my easy block trick. She has been working on pressure points along my spine, because she says my latissimus dorsi (the one that comes from the spine to attach to the illiac crest) is knotted and hard as a rock.
Now, I must tell you that my deceased mother in law lives in my upper back. For 10 years I kept my dislike and distaste for her inside, not making it my husband's problem. (It's another story.) When she died, I thought she was gone until someone brought it to my attention that it might be one of the reasons I have such tightness.
Anyway, she's telling me that muscle is hiking up my hip, which acerbates the tightnes sin my upper back and pulls on my SI area.
But how does one release that by oneself?
C. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| Christine - I have lower back issues, too and it is not my si or my MIL  When I sit down it is hard to get up most of the time - I stay bent over and have to take some time to get straight upright. The whole sacral band seems to be in slight spasm, especially after forward bends. I know it has something to do with the lift of the spine and also the d*mn lordosis. I am getting Hellerworked right now (like Rolfing) which is amazing but no permanent relief yet. When I was a kid I would adjust my si (which I didn't know was my si and didn't know I was "adjusting") by sitting on my sit bones, drawing my knees up into my chest and feet a bit off the floor and just rocking until it clicked. After having the kids (baby #1 was 10 lbs!) I lost the magical ability to do that. I should try it again since baby #1 is now 24... |
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| Tourist,
I've found if I really draw Uddiyana bandha in, and tuck my tail before standing up? What you describe happens to a smaller degree. I also use my legs to stand, almost like getting out of Chair Utkatasana? Push DOWN to stand up so I don't use my lower back.
I am having decent luck with the block and another Supta padangusthasana II variation that's pretty wild for putting my SI back in. I think I discovered today that I also muscle through certain asana because of my tight back. Anjanayasana, Vira I and III, and things like that with a slight arch in the back? Because I'm so tight, I'm using the latissamis dorsi (I have got to look that spelling up!) when I get fatigued in one of them. IMMEDIATE spasm.
Of course, that doesn't explain why lying over a bolster sends me into a spasm that resembles the reaction someone gets when sticking their tongue into an electrical outlet. It's something to do with that small degree of curve.
Ah well. Another day another spasm. I've currently, for the first time ever, got a hamstring attachment tweak. Down by the knee. Frustrates me because you cannot work through a hamstring! Plus, not only have I never had that before, forward bends are about all I can do with total ease.
Off to bed.
C. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Thanks for the tips Christine - just remembering to get my legs under me and use them to get up has made a huge difference. Of course, it is advice I would have given someone else but forget about completely when it is me who needs the advice! I have definitely been using my back to sort of heave myself up to stand. Feels so much better already. |
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si problems
