The Iceberg Effect

Yoga does improves flexibility. It also great because often time meditation is incorporated to yoga making you feel relaxed. Accompanied by Massage Therapy you can very well avoid such pains.

You sound like you get it....I will let you in on one of my wellness bibles that has guided me through a more flexible healthy body...it's called The Supple Body by Sarah Black....check it out I think you will enjoy it.

Great story, maul. Thanks much for sharing! -:)

Sorry you've had such a bad experience, Mark, but I don't think you can generalize. Perhaps you have a very specific back problem that is aggravated by certain postures done in a certain way; I have no idea. But I can tell you that my yoga practice, aided by some very knowledgeable and safety oriented teacher (Iyengar) have helped me make tremendous strides in overcoming lifelong back problems starting from the lumbars going up to the shoulder blades and neck. I hope you find a positive solution but, whatever you do, don't reject an entire philosophy based solely on limited experience. Regards from Spain.

Yoga causes cronic back pain.

I know a lot about this very issue as it pertains to yoga practitioners and yoga teachers...you can't argue the benefit of connecting breath to movement. Flexibility is the ONLY fitness principle we can improve as we get older. This alone makes yoga a wonderful practice... BUT the only problem I have with yoga is how much you flex the front of your body... This has a tendency to tighten your psoas major which connects from your lower vertebrae to your lesser trochanter near the head of your femur...when that's tight it pulls on your lower back and causes a lot of discomfort... My point...yoga is great but you have to open the front of your body as much if not more than you close it...all of our daily intention is in front of us...open that up and create space as much as possible...

I can only offer my personal experience but my yoga practice has just about cured my lower back pain. For me, I believe the issue was a weak "core" - that is, the transverse abdominal muscles; my inner and outer thighs as well as a problem with my alignment that caused my pelvis to tilt backwards a bit. My regular, mindful yoga has taken me on a journey through my body, essentially, where I've been able to pinpoint these areas of weakness and strengthen them with the asanas. I believe doing the asanas (poses) will build strength in any event, but the mindfulness that yoga brings has been very helpful for me in diagnosing the real issues for me. Yoga has become a moving meditation for me, where the benefits transcend the merely physical. But, the physical benefits are extremely obvious. I almost never have lower back pain and when I do, I have very effective tools to deal with it.

They put out results earlier this year stating that yoga does not result in back pain loss, but does make you more flexile. Period. The pain was still there in a majority of the study patients. I have a herniated disc in c6 and I have done the back yoga from Peggy Cappy, and yes, I was more flexible, but the pain was still 100% there.

If you feel like it, please look up Art Brownstein's book "Healing Back Pain Naturally". It's a series of stretches and some are very simple but effective. You can read the users' comments on amazon. Also, a lot of people don't know about trigger points in muscles, getting rid of them means getting rid of pain ( for some people). Good luck!

Thanks Jamzo for the information and other people on this blog. I will do the research and go from there.

:D