This entry was posted on Aug 30, 2023 by Charlotte Bell.
Have you ever ever felt a pinching sensation in your pelvis, a number of inches under your waist? If that’s the 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 without doubt 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: Cellular 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 Might Contribute to SI Joint Dysfunction
What may cause the SI joint to lose integrity? Right here are some things I’ve realized over the many years of instructing 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The outdated, however persistent, instruction to sq.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 resembling Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) or the Warrior poses is considered one of yoga’s most potent SI joint destabilizers. Nobody’s hips are designed to do that. While you attempt to sq. the hips in asymmetrical standing poses, one thing has to offer—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, notably if you happen to 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—have to be secure above all. They’re supporting the load of our our bodies as we transfer via our lives. An excessive amount of flexibility destabilizes the joints by over stretching the ligaments.
Ligaments would not 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 muscle tissues need to kick in to do the job of stabilizing the joint, which truly causes them to tighten. Right here’s one piece of recommendation that would assist everybody protect their SI joints: Disabuse your self of the concept that placing your ankle behind your head is an efficient factor. There’s no cause ever to do that. This pose destabilizes the hip joints and the SI joints and might put on down the cartilage in your hip joints. Even when it feels high quality when you’re doing it, don’t!
So, on this put up, I’ve outlined some yoga practices which may contribute to SI joint dysfunction. In coming posts, I’ll provide some methods to follow asana to assist alleviate the ache from SI joint dysfunction and methods to forestall additional harm.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each printed 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 people sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards in 2010.
