Yoga can be very good for healthy aging. For example those living with Osteoporosis. Yoga can promote balance, decreased tension in the body, repatterning of risky social posture and movements that are risky to those living with the silent disease of osteoporosis. But there are some yoga poses and activities that are risky for students living with Osteoporosis, example loaded spinal flexion. Therefore, yoga teachers must be educated on what poses and movements to avoid or modify for these participants.
I have been working with and training yoga teachers for many years about how to teach to seniors. But educating is not enough. It is not easy to apply this knowledge! It takes a lot of practice and deeper critical reasoning because of all the poses and variations there are in asana (yoga poses). Many teacher training programs in the US teach to the pose and not to the purpose of the pose and how to modify it to anybody (I mean Any Body!).
Choose your yoga teacher carefully. The practice of yoga can cultivate this wonderful wisdom and freedom for students. One of these freedoms is the understanding of the patterns in my body and mind that do not support health and happiness. For those with Osteoporosis sitting on the floor with a flexed spine is risky, even more so when we add a twist.
There is a lot of inaccurate info on the internet. I just did a search for yoga and Osteoporosis images and there is a posted for the top 10 poses and MANY are contraindicated for osteoporosis mainly because the matority of people performing the poses do so with spinal flexion, example revolved triangle pose. The flexible model can do the pose, but not the majority of the students. Some of this is due to the students skeletal variation and some due to the students elasticity. It is better to offer a pose that does not load the spine and build the awareness of the spine.
Here is a link to a recent article from the Mayo Clinic about yoga and Osteoporosis. https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(18)30940-6/abstract
Hope you can attend one of my private or group sessions and learn more.
Kindly,
SAM
sam@dogwoodstudioyoga.com
