This entry was posted on Aug 30, 2023 by Charlotte Bell.
Have you ever ever felt a pinching sensation in your pelvis, just a few inches under your waist? In that case, you’re not alone. From my expertise, and that of a pair internationally touring lecturers I do know, ache within the sacroiliac, a.okay.a. SI joint is likely one of the most typical complaints of yoga practitioners of all expertise ranges.
The SI joint is the assembly place between the sacrum and the ilium. The sacrum is a triangular-shaped bone that extends off the lumbar backbone and ends within the coccyx (tailbone). In different phrases, it’s the bottom portion of your backbone. The 2 sides pelvic bones make up the ilia. The place the sacrum and ilia meet within the ilia is the SI joint.
The SI Joint: Cell Stability
Donna Farhi calls the SI joint a joint of “cell stability.” What this implies is that whereas it does have some mobility—about 1 to three millimeters of motion functionality—its major perform is stability. The SI joint is the hub for the transmission of power from the decrease to the higher physique and the higher to the decrease physique. To ensure that power to maneuver via the joint easily, the joint should be in integrity. Which means the sacrum should be firmly seated within the ilium for max stability.
3 Yoga Practices that Could Contribute to SI Joint Dysfunction
What may cause the SI joint to lose integrity? Right here are some things I’ve realized over the a long time of educating yoga, and experiencing my very own continual SI joint ache:
Tucking the Tailbone
The sacrum seats firmly into the ilium when it’s tilted ahead at roughly a 30-degree angle. Once we tuck the tailbone, the sacrum strikes right into a extra vertical place, which causes the sacrum to lose its agency contact.
Squaring the Hips
The outdated, however persistent, instruction to sq. the hips in asymmetrical standing poses reminiscent of Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) or the Warrior poses is one in all yoga’s most potent SI joint destabilizers. Nobody’s hips are designed to do that. Whenever you attempt to sq. the hips in asymmetrical standing poses, one thing has to provide—the knees, the hip joints and/or the SI joint. Variations within the placement, depth and orientation of particular person hip sockets makes this instruction much more fraught, significantly for those who or your college students have hip joints that don’t externally rotate simply.
Too A lot Deal with Hip Opening
Fashionable yoga appears to fetishize hip hypermobility. If you consider it, the hips—which embrace the hip joints, SI joints and pubic symphysis—should be steady above all. They’re supporting the burden of our our bodies as we transfer via our lives. An excessive amount of flexibility destabilizes the joints by over stretching the ligaments.
Ligaments shouldn’t have the blood provide and due to this fact, the “reminiscence” that muscle tissue has. In different phrases, after we over stretch ligaments, they don’t get well their authentic size; they keep overstretched. Then the muscular tissues must kick in to do the job of stabilizing the joint, which really causes them to tighten. Right here’s one piece of recommendation that might assist everybody protect their SI joints: Disabuse your self of the concept placing your ankle behind your head is an efficient factor. There’s no motive ever to do that. This pose destabilizes the hip joints and the SI joints and may put on down the cartilage in your hip joints. Even when it feels advantageous whilst you’re doing it, don’t!
So, on this publish, I’ve outlined some yoga practices that may contribute to SI joint dysfunction. In coming posts, I’ll provide some methods to observe asana to assist alleviate the ache from SI joint dysfunction and methods to stop additional harm.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third e book is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and folks sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards in 2010.
