practicing yoga with low bone density?

I had the opportunity to teach a yoga workshop for osteoporosis, “Safe Practice,Strong Spine” to a group of wonderful students. Many came with the question of how to practice yoga with low bone density. We took time to workshop a few favorite poses, talk about poses we like and those we dislike when we have low bone density, and practiced a sequence to pull it all together with modifications. There was an emphasis on lengthening the spine, strengthening the upper back to limit the risk to the vertebra of the spine. And we reminded ourselves that fractures are more likely to happen with movements that are fast, repetitive, and with force, so it is important to be intentional as we transition in and out of poses.

There were concerns about:

❓Bending and Twisting

❓Preventing falls while finding strength in balance poses

❓How to modify poses to limit bending especially when twisting

Don’t Bend, Don’t Twist

For those with osteoporosis it becomes a question of how to practice yoga without bending and twisting because these movements are part of so many poses, right? The easy answer is to focus on alignment and to practice with intention. What I mean by this is that we take time to set our foundation, activate the feet, the legs, and the lower abdominals, then lengthen the spine and neck and position the shoulder blades. We do this in every pose. We do this through every transition, leading with the chest, the heart, to keep the upper back out of the kyphotic rounding that often comes with osteoporosis and lower bone density. And yes, it can feel as intensive as it sounds, but it keeps us safe.

Șo we lead with a long neck and lifted chest when we move in and out of poses. Twisted triangle appears to be a pose that research suggests is one of the best for building bone in the vertebral bodies.

So as we squat to bring our hands to our props we bend at the hips keeping a long, straight spine, looking forward to encourage a mini back bend in the upper back. Bending the knees recruits more gluts to better support the spine. Then we revisit the foundation of the feet and legs before rotating the navel and adding the upper arm. The squat is also a movement we are likely to do quite often off the yoga mat as part of our daily activities. So we practice to reduce the risk of injury.

In case you are curious Body in Tune would love to collaborate with you to find your perfect movement practice.

Props for better balance

We all practiced balancing together. We paired up and one partner put up a flat hand, the other partner put one finger into that palm and then stood on one foot. Eyebrows raised as they all noticed and felt the increased ease of balancing on one foot. For low bone density we teach a finger touch on something; a chair, a wall, or a block. It’s about having one more contact point from which our balance systems can draw input and then respond faster and better to keep us safe. What many don’t realize is that we will gain strength, balance and faster reactions when we do lose our balance by first practicing with an assist.

Good news! Body in Tune would love to collaborate with you to teach you this precise yoga practice and to support your ongoing practice so you can enjoy your life off the mat with confidence.

Modifications

In my mind yoga is all about practicing meeting our bodies where they are in any given moment. One day the hamstrings or hips might feel really stiff, another its our lower back or neck. So our practice may not look the same every day, meaning we may not go as deeply into a warrior pose one day because our hips feel stiffer than the last time we practiced.

When we have osteoporosis we want to be intentional about our transitions and the alignment in our postures. I love using a chair! Using the seat of a sturdy chair (no wheels) in place of blocks helps us to avoid too much bending of the spine as we prepare to add a twist.

Examples include triangle and twisted triangle. In the former if we are reaching too far towards the floor we may end up in a side bend or even slight forward bent before we rotate the upper back to look towards the lifted arm. With a chair seat instead of a block we can find more length in the torso and spine before twisting, thereby limiting any bending.

Twisted triangle is the second example. I prefer to practice by standing facing the seat of my chair, squatting to place my hands on the chair seat and then stepping one foot back to set our feet and foundation. This helps us maintain a flat spine before and as we begin to twist across the front leg simply by limiting how far we bend forward. Additionally, we can use the hand pressing into the chair to increase the work we are doing into the twist. To stimulate bone growth in the spine it’s the twisting the puts the needed stress through the bones to create change. But if we are also bent forward, we are compressing the vertebra together and this creates more risk.

Other modifications might be do use a chair to stabilize the pelvis when performing twists so that we can better isolate the spine. Or a seated warrior II or extended side angle pose can be surprisingly challenging and fatiguing by intentionally pressing your feet down in the floor. The chair seat helps us know exactly what our pelvis is doing and because we are not challenging our balance quite so much, we can find and activate the deeper hip stabilizers to stimulate more bones.

With osteoporosis it is more important to find as many muscles as we can rather than see how far we can stretch. Something amazing about the human body is that by practicing in this way we do find that we gain flexibility. It’s called reciprocal inhibition. When you contract one muscle, it’s antagonist is told to lengthen. So by tightening the front of the thigh muscle (the quads), the back of the thigh muscles (the hamstrings) lengthen. The end result of this way of doing yoga creates both mobility and stability in the muscles around the joints of the body.

I have always loved yoga because it moves our bodies through all three planes of motion just like we do in our everyday lives. Our yoga practices, as you know, help us improve our strength, flexibility, coordination, posture, balance, bone density, and decrease our stress and anxiety. It has been shown to be a safe and effective means to improve bone density when we keep in mind where we bend, how we twist, how we improve our balance, and how we modify poses with the use of props to keep ourselves safe.

Body in Tune, LLC was born from a belief that quality of life matters; both life and physical balance matters.

I would welcome the opportunity to be part of your support team with regards to women’s health, your muscles, joints, bones and osteoporosis. The goal is, after all, to help you feel confident in your body so you can play with your grand children, take that long-dreamed of vacation and get outside and enjoy a walk with friends.