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| warning: Long post, but I want to give you all the details...
I'm brand new to Ashtanga, as I've just returned from 10 glorious days in Maui where I took classes with Nancy Gilgoff and her assistant Kasey. After about 5 days of practice, the muscles (?) /tendons (?)/whatever that connect to my sitbones started to hurt.
As a dancer of 7 years, I know the good pain of an intensive workout, and this wasn't / isn't it, but I presumed that this was hamstring soreness and that it was to be expected from the workout 1st series is, but when I talked about it with another student on my last night there, he said he'd never experienced anything like what i was describing--and this from a fellow who couldn't touch his toes when he began his studies (and as I said, I'm a dancer).
So after a long plane ride, I iced my sitbones for a few days and took rest from the practice, doing very little in the way of exercise: just a few very gentle sun salutations and some other non-yoga stuff. The pain has mostly subsided, but I still can't do a forward bend or a straddle leg stretch without fairly severe pain. The only pose that seems to help is badda konasana.
What have I done, what can I do, and what should I do differently next time?
thanks in advance.
I know from lurking on this board for a while that you guys know your stuff.
love.
open.
hearted.
~ali |
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| Well it could be an inflammation of the ligaments or ischial bursitis (bursitis at the hamstring attachment). You should see a physio. It is sometimes necessary to take anti-inflammatories (you can try ibuprofen) for a bit. It could be that you're opening up the hamstring in a way that you haven't before, that you have over done it, or that it is due to over use, but if you have just started the practice perhaps not.
People here will have very good advice and info for you but go to a physio, it's worth it.
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Expert Yogi
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| Hi ali - what happens with dancers and other flexible people is that they forward bend using their flexibility and don't engage the legs correctly. So they overstretch the attachments at the sit bones rather than the actual muscles in the backs of their legs. You need to learn how to engage the quads by lifting the kneecaps. That alone will help a lot. Good luck with the sore sit bones - I tore an attachment once, due to inattention and poor alignment - ouch! |
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| thanks for your quick replies, as they've already helped: I got a new word to search 'attachments'; it led me to this page on Yoga Journal's site:
http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/764_1.cfm
If anyone has any other opinions, I'm listening.
thanks,
ali |
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| ali - 2006-12-28 10:17 PM
warning: Long post, but I want to give you all the details...
I'm brand new to Ashtanga, as I've just returned from 10 glorious days in Maui where I took classes with Nancy Gilgoff and her assistant Kasey. After about 5 days of practice, the muscles (?) /tendons (?)/whatever that connect to my sitbones started to hurt.
As a dancer of 7 years, I know the good pain of an intensive workout, and this wasn't / isn't it, but I presumed that this was hamstring soreness and that it was to be expected from the workout 1st series is, but when I talked about it with another student on my last night there, he said he'd never experienced anything like what i was describing--and this from a fellow who couldn't touch his toes when he began his studies (and as I said, I'm a dancer).
So after a long plane ride, I iced my sitbones for a few days and took rest from the practice, doing very little in the way of exercise: just a few very gentle sun salutations and some other non-yoga stuff. The pain has mostly subsided, but I still can't do a forward bend or a straddle leg stretch without fairly severe pain. The only pose that seems to help is badda konasana.
What have I done, what can I do, and what should I do differently next time?
thanks in advance.
I know from lurking on this board for a while that you guys know your stuff.
love.
open.
hearted.
~ali
Well, did you ask this question to your two teachers, yet? Let me know what they say. |
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| I'm sticking with Tourist on this.
It sounds like a "tug" at the hamstring attachments.
If it's inflammed you can do several things - see if you can find a recipe for a tumeric drink, add tumeric to your cooking (it must be lightly heated to be activated), rub organic, untoasted sesame seed oil on the upper hamstrings (the pain source), increase your water intake and consider going off refined sugar, wheat (assuming you are in the US) and dairy products.
What can you do next time is a question we should pose to you.
What was your nature during the practice please? |
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| thanks for the advice.
I've been icing the location and after a light practice yesterday, I'm actually feeling better. I employed the advice given above, and used my quads and other muscle groups more. Even though I thought I was already doing this, I did feel a marked difference.
I'll try the sesame seed oil (--I'd been using castor) and the tumeric. Eliminating refined sugar isn't a problem, as my diet includes very little (esp. now that the holidays are over), but giving up wheat and dairy--whew. Would you consider delving into why you think I'd be wise to abandon these important sources of fiber and protein (and yumminess)?
Tomorrow, I'll see my massage therapist.
Hopefully, with all these and the grace of god, I'll be feeling well enough for a big workshop I'm teaching next weekend.
As for what I'll do differently and the nature of my practice....The honest answer is that, initially, I wanted to do well--no, I'm not sure what that means (other than that my ego was driving). That initial desire faded when I found that the asana practice took me to that same magical place dance takes me, and I understood why Ashtangis are Ashtangis. I looked forward to class, and didn't want to miss even one.
During the practice, I set my sights inward and didn't feel that I was doing too much or risking injury. But I'm a newbie, and so there seems so much to do: breathe, lock the bandhas, look in the right direction, do the pose, _and_ keep all the right muscles engaged. I was really allowing my main focus to be on the breath and mula bandha, for I assumed that my dance background would keep my muscles in check. I was wrong.
As I continue forward on my journey, I'm going to be far more careful with my asana practice, and for now at least, my practice will be at home where I can feel free to make necessary modifications to honor my hamstrings for a bit. And now that the breath is becoming more natural, hopefully I'll be better equipped to pay attention to the quads and other muscles I need to be employing.
I hope to return to Maui in the spring or summer to continue my education, and when Nancy returns from her trip to India in February, I'll ask her advice for me and my practice.
thanks again.
open.hearted.
ali |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ali,
Do you ever get any low back or sacroiliac pain-either of these may be a clue to why your hamstrings don't like stretching.
Nick |
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| Mucous, inflammation, and disease.
ali - 2006-12-29 11:41 PM
... Would you consider delving into why you think I'd be wise to abandon these important sources of fiber and protein (and yumminess)?
ali |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 2479
Location: A Blue State | I'll go with Tourist on this -- I had similar problems from time to time when I was starting out, and I am more than a little flexible. .. bg |
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Location: London, England | Hi Glenda,
Sorry to be a stickler, but it's not actually possible to stretch the tendons without stretching the muscles-if you can point me to some research that shows it can happen, I'd be very interested and would take it back, but as the hamstring becomes a tendon which attaches to the sit-bones, how can you stretch one and not the other-the muscle and the tendon are in series. Engaging the quads by lifting the kneecaps will only allow further stretch of the hamstrings, due to reciprocal inhibition-so if anything, engaging the quads will increase the incidence of hamstring strains and tendonitis. The only thing that is going to prevent hamstring injuries is to have functional hamstrings whose action is not impeded by the dysfunction of surrounding muscles, i.e. synergists and antagonists.
Take care
Nick
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Expert Yogi
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| Well, I am pretty sure you have discussed the issue of overstretching ligaments and/or tendons before. Wanna explain that since that is the point I was trying to make? |
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Location: London, England | Hi Glenda,
Yes, I think you are right, we have discussed stretching ligaments, not sure about tendons.
I see your point now. But I think it is important to ask why the tendon is dysfunctional in tendonitis. The cause is nearly always due to forces being sustained by the hamstrings which the tendon cannot sustain. this can be acute, such as when a sprinter comes off the blocks, or chronic, perhaps because of a bad posture, resulting in lengthened (lordotic lower spine) or shortened hamstrings (flattened lumbar curve). It is important to note that either the hamstring muscles, or their tendons, can be affected by mis-use, dis-use, or over-use of the hamstrings.
As the OP is an ex-dancer, I'd hazard a guess that she may stand with her hips flexed (one or both sides), and a corresponding increase in th lumbar curve. In this scenario, commonly called the lower crossed syndrome, the gluteals and abdominals are lengthened and weak, and the erector spinae and the hip flexors (iliopsoas) are short and tight.
This muscle imbalance lengthens the hamstrings putting them under constant strain, and resulting in an increase in the injuries suffered by the hamstrings or their tendons.
The answer as always is to encourage a return to good posture, working on neutral tilt of the pelvis and a corresponding return of the normal spinal curvatures. This sets up a train of events which basically means that the range of motion and the strength with which we can exert our arms and legs is increased. By creating a stronger core, we have a more stable base from which to move our arms and legs. Our balance is improved, so that muscles do not get stretched nor tightened too rapidly-a strong core basically removes any ballistic components in our execution of yoga postures. It may be that the forces we create are greater, but we can sustain them better, and our alignment causes improvements in health and performance-not decreases.
Does that make sense? I know it's incomplete-no way am I going to go through tendons/ligaments, no way 
Nick |
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| What I don't know about anatomy could fill a library, but just wanted to jump back into this discussion, as I've been following it as I heal myself.
First, I'm still a dancer--a bellydancer, actually--which I came to relatively late in life, but it has transformed my body in the seven years I've been practicing. We use our lowest ab muscles to hold our pelvis in neutral so that we can initiate all sorts of hip work that otherwise isn't possible (or at least isn't as articulated. So I don't think bellydance is the culprit here.
When I had my massage, my therapist noted that my hips were misaligned; my chiropractor confirmed. Maybe this misalignment was the cause (or perhaps the result??) of the injury.
If it helps anyone, I might note that the most difficult (read: impossible) postures for me are the twists--even the most basic of them, like triangle. Forward bends (until now) (like straddle leg stretch) were my favorite.
open.hearted.
ali
ps. edited to include recent picture of me during a performance. maybe seeing the posture will help?
Edited by ali 2007-01-08 2:04 PM
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| Hmmm I don't recognize that pose Ali.
Perhaps from a different yoga lineage.
Attachments and insertions can get very confusing depending on what muscle you are referencing. For yoga, unlike chiropractic or medicine, most teachers learn funtional anatomy, that is anatomy relevant to what they are doing. While anatomy has a lot to give one of the issues I have with "it" is that it tends to be imparted as absolutes. This is a lot like western medicine and it's take on itself. And it's why many patients think their doctors are g-d.
My point is that we have some built-in innate mechanism for wellbeing. Granted we are taught not to cultivate them at an early age.
But I digress. Where are you with your current injury?
Obviously it was not muscular pain you were experiencing as a result of workout.
Therefore we can assume it was some "over doing" somewhere in the back of your front.
As for you pelvic alignment, man I just hate to hear these sorts of things. And again, not that it isn't accurate but it often makes people feel they've got something weird, odd, or deformed. There are many people with this sort of thing.
I think my stance is well known for these sorts of things. I dont' believe a typical Ashtanga practice can really work with this. I believe the pace of the class to be too fast to get students to find what needs to be found in order to bring the pelvis back where it belongs. Not enough time for the work, not enough time for the feel, not enough time for result.
What is your pain level at this point and what things have you or are you doing currently with what effect??
Edited by purnayoga 2007-01-08 2:45 PM
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Location: London, England | Hi Ali,
First of all, what a picture-my jaw has dropped to the floor and won't come up again, so well done. Posturally, however, and I'm doing my best to focus on that, , you have all the hallmarks of practicing an exercise which would tend to mean that you do not achieve neutral spine in your normal posture-the muscles that are being used to attain this posture are the hip flexors and erector spinae-a recipe for muscle dyfunction.
Your hips are flexed and the lower spine is arched-it may look great, but I would recommend lots of core stability exercises, so that when you move into postures like the one in the photo, you don't push the spinal joints to their limits. this will hopefully mean that you learn to position your pelvis appropiately, with knock-on effects for the hamstrings. Hopefully, the aesthetic appeal will also increase as you learn greater control of the mid-section of your body.
One last thing, observe that in this posture, your hamstrings are lengthened-if you read over my last post, that is also not a good habit to get into-and by dancing or doing yoga, we are creating/reinforcing habits.
Still think it's a brilliant picture, though.
Nick |
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| Neel:
You asked where I am now in my healing process. Here's the synopsis:
My initial pain was constant, especially when sitting, and it seemed to be located between the bottom of my sit bone and the top of my leg. After a week or so of rolling around on a tennis ball and using ice compresses, the initial pain subsided.
The second phase was that I experienced pain in any forward bend no matter how shallow, but felt relief in poses like baddha konasana.
The third phase (and this is after a three hour massage and a visit to the chiropractor and a weekend of dance workshops) is where I am now: no real pain to speak of unless I attempt a deep forward bend (standing, sitting, legs together, legs apart...doesn't matter), and I still feel relieft in baddha konasana. Because I was at a weekend long dance workshop this past weekend, I iced my hamstrings (and knees--but that's a different story) every night.
----disclaimer:
I included the dance picture because Nick seemed to be suggesting that this injury may be related to my dance posture and not my yoga practice, which I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around. I've been practicing dance for nearly 8 years, and I've just begun my Ashtanga practice. This injury happened while I was in Maui studying yoga (and not dancing), which is why I posted my question on this board.
I understand that lots of folks feel that the flow of Ashtanga is too quick for a beginning student of yoga--and I'm still willing to concede that Ashtanga isn't for me, if that's what comes to pass--but as a dancer who's been using various asanas in my daily practice for several years and who attends (albeit irregularly) a Jivamukti class here in New Orleans, I thought my body was ready for Astanga.
further disclaimer: My draw to yoga (like my draw to dance) has very little to do with the physical, but this physical setback (keeping me from doing both effectively) has me focused on the physical right now.
open.hearted.
ali |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ali,
Trouble with this medium is that I make guesses based on experience-I hope that you realize that at first I was generalizing to try to go through the various things that were going on, and then I used the picture to clinch it.  I hope the information provided gives you a clearer insight and helps you eradicate the problem.
I sometimes think that dancers are amongst the hardest students to teach, because they have alreay learnt a control of body posture, and if it is bad posture, I try to correct it-but they really hang on to the old posture for as long as they can! I'm talking ballet and contemporary dance, not raq-sharki (my sister is a teacher), I don't have any experience of that.
By the way-you say you iced your knees-what's going on with them-if you look back over the thread, then it might be that the knees and the sitting bones may not be such a different story..
take care
Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ali,
"The second phase was that I experienced pain in any forward bend no matter how shallow, but felt relief in poses like baddha konasana."
The likley reason you are not getting pain in baddha konasana is because this posture obviously does not stretch the hamstrings-sorry if that was too obvious. In fact, done well, the hamstrings are contracted in this posture, so that the sit-bones are dragged over the floor towards the feet, and the pelvis flexes as the torso rolls over the sit-bones. In this case, baddha konasana becomes a yogic version of a hamstring exercise-so you may actually find that the posture is very helpful in finding good hamstring function.
In my humble opinion, though, you can use the lessons learnt in baddha konasana to understand the action in postures like paschimmottanasana, which do stretch the hamstrings.
In pashimottanasana, you will often see that the position of the pelvis becomes fixed, so that any attempts to perform the posture with greater effort basically results in hyper-flexion of the lumbar and thoracic spine, together with hyper-extension of the cervical spine, elevation of the shoulder girdle, and often hyper-extension of the knees-not always. So the pose becomes a recipe for bad posture. If you go to a yoga class, typically 90% of students will display at least one or two of the factors.
If, however, you can keep the pelvis tilting into flexion, a number of different things happen.
As the pelvis tilts, the torso is pushed over the legs so that the centre of gravity is moved towards the knees, rahter than back towards the hips. You will feel that the heels press into the floor, whilst the sitting bones seem to pull away from the floor. This helps to keep the pelvis tilting, which then allows the lower spine to regain some of its normal curvature, which removes the thoracic kyphosis, which removes the cervial lordosis, which enables the shoulder blades to be pulled inwards and downwards, which allows ujjayi breathing to be done with greater skill and ability.
This is where bandha prove their worth, as they allow a student to feel the complete posture, rather than trying to juggle all the different components.
If a student has tight hamstrings, I tell them to bend their kees so that they can feel the pelvis tilt. The leg can be made straight over time-I expect, if you have the patience, that this would be a good route for you to take, even if only for a short time-sometimes people only have to do it once to get the feel.
What this means in terms of your hamstrings is that you will begin to stretch them by tilting the pelvis, not by hyper-extending your knees-remember, people who hyper-extend their knees are likely to over-arch their lower back-people who can maintain the appropiate pelvic tilt can maintain the correct force-couple relationships of the different muscles as they perform postures and movements.
The action of the legs is very important-too many people extend their heels-this tends to move the centre of gravity back and puts the weight more firmly on the sit bones. To help a student engage the right action, I take hold of their ankles, and pull on the legs (gently-they often find hamstring fibres they never knew they had), so that their sit bones are being pulled forwards-then I ask them to pull themselves towards me-the sit bones get dragged over the floor-the hamstrings are used to pull the student fowards, probably the hip flexors are active as well, to fold the body. As the student is pulling with the arms as well, you can see that instead of pulling with the arms and pushing with the feet, you are concentrating on a task which is simpler and more cohesive-you are pulling your body both towards better alignment, and to one place-not two different direction at once-Yoga!
A fine posture to experiment with this is janu sirsasana B from the first series-too often, it is taught sitting on the foot too firmly-if instead you push down on the foot underneath you, your pelvis lifts slightly, and the heel of the front foot presses into the floor-this helps the straight knee to lift slightly, and stops hyper-extension. The foot underneath you has to be fully pointed, otherwise it often hurts-and it's good practice to do this, anyway (again, you will see that I do not always agree with the percieved wisdom in the yoga world today  ).
Take care
Nick
Edited by Nick 2007-01-09 5:02 AM
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pain in my a**
