The Clinical Side to Yoga

What’s with all this Yoga hype?

If you haven’t heard about Yoga these days, I would be quite surprised. Yoga classes are offered all over the world, in all the many varieties, and Yoga is always talked about as the best thing you can do for yourself.

There is no doubt that a class integrating your mind and body will do you well. But what if you have, or had, an injury? Will the Yoga class down the road from you still do you good?

Well let’s think about this…if you have a leak in your roof, do you want the roofer to do the same work on your roof as your neighbours who are just looking for general maintenance?

…hence the formation of Clinical Yoga.

We all understand that when an injury occurs, how we function immediately changes. Most importantly, how our muscles activate, or co-activate, completely fluctuates. The intention of Clinical Yoga is to take you through the stages of healing with balanced movement and precise activation patterns.

What is most commonly forgotten about injury is that our mind harbours the memory of your previous pain and tries protecting your body from a reoccurrence. As Yoga’s original basis is focused on unifying your mind and body, Clinical Yoga encapsulates this by freeing your mind of the fear of re-injury and enables you to progress back to natural movement.

As a little story of what a class is, the main difference falls into how Yoga poses are performed. Each asana (pose) in class is tailored directly to your body and your injury. Each series performed is simple, yet challenging. Each moment of challenge is balanced with a moment of ease. Each class is suitable for any age and physical ability, as the simplicity of the series will be adaptable for all levels. Each person that joins will be taught, or re-taught, the foundations of the practice. And each time you leave you will feel rejuvenated.

Once we are able to return back to our natural state, then of course it is time to jump back into the Yoga studio down the road from you!

As we all have our place in the healing process and the role of a general class (whether it’s PT, Pilates, Yoga or Spin) is to progress your uninjured body.  As Physiotherapists it is our place to bring you from pain to performance. For some insight from working in both phases, please allow yourself the pleasure to fully return to your natural movement before jumping back in. It is only favourable to yourself to get the most out of what each class has to offer.