Are you addicted to crack? Cracking your joints, I mean! There were years during my 20s when I could not fathom getting through my early-morning yoga practice without popping my shoulders, low back, hips and neck. I was popping and cracking my way through the day like a one-woman band.
Usually these fast internal whacks felt great, a rush that temporarily relieved aches and pains. What I didn’t know at the time was that all that cracking was not only emblematic of my body’s instability, but it was accelerating my own tissue breakdown.
Denial is not a river in Egypt
I have always gone “all-in,” no matter what the physical practice. Yoga was always my mainstay and baseline, but on top of that practice (which I started at age 11) I was also a dancer, runner, skier (horrible skier), water aerobics instructor and rock climber. But yoga had always been my security blanket and my salvation. It was the way I knew that my body was balanced and set (or so I thought) to be able to do everything else I loved.
In my 20s, I was hard-core about my yoga practice. I’d get out of bed for my daily 7am-9am Astanga yoga practice. I was relentless and would not miss a day, even when I was sick or hadn’t slept enough the night before. At the time, I thought my devotion was sacrament and that my dedication to my practice was my righteous purpose. I turned down dates and family functions so that I could show up on the mat.
But all of this — what I now call my “fanatic” phase — was de-stabilizing my joints and causing me to constantly pop and crack, both voluntarily and involuntarily. I’m not sure why I thought it was “normal” to wake up in the morning, unable to fully straighten my knees. It would take me about 20 steps of hobbling towards the bathroom before they would comply.
During an intimate evening with my boyfriend, my neck finally “went out.” I could not turn it and was in insane amounts of pain. My whole body retreated into a vacuum, engulfed with searing pain and silence. My boyfriend pulled away as I disappeared inside my fear and despair. A mammoth fight erupted, which was actually a great excuse for me to leave this two-year relationship that was volatile and riddled with unhealthy dynamics (caused in large part by my addiction to exercise/yoga).
But my neck problems were only the tip of the iceberg of the physical and emotional instability that was literally stretching me to the point of breaking down.
Diagnosis: repetitive stress
I had heard of “Repetitive Stress Syndrome.” It’s something that cashiers get from overusing their wrists all day. When I was told I had the same thing, but all over my body, I was baffled. How could yoga be causing repetitive stress? I couldn’t wrap my head around it … wasn’t yoga supposed to be therapeutic and healthy for anyone? Weren’t yoga poses the equivalent of a body vitamin? Don’t yoga poses ease stress and help with pain, disease and all manner of healing? I pored through my library of yoga books that championed the healing effects of poses and practices. Interesting, none of them listed Repetitive Stress Syndrome.
I did all types of yoga practices: the meditations, the yantras (imagery), pranayama (breath exercises), japa (verbal repetition) — heck, I even did the eye exercises! And of course, there were the poses. I sure did love doing hours and hours of poses. Well, too much of a good thing turned out to be a very badthing for me. Poses are not pills. They can be more potent and toxic than a drug when taken in excess, and I had overdosed.
I had to reckon with the consequences of over-exercising, a new insidious form of bulimia. My eating-disordered past had come back to haunt me in a different form. I had not cleared my need for body control, and I was punishing myself with yoga.
Turning point
With the help of a gifted physical therapist, I learned how I had weakened my body with my yoga practice. All of that clicking and popping was the result of overstretched tendons and connective tissues unable to find points of center or balance throughout my joints. I would have to literally pull myself together if I wanted to heal.
This was a profound metaphor for my soul and psyche. I did not have to push myself so hard, punishing myself with hours of practice a day. It was hostile and showed a lack of respect for myself. I needed to learn to work with myself rather than against. Years of habits were overthrown, and I adopted massive changes in my physical practice and daily schedule. For one, my physical therapist started me on a strength-training program, and I vowed to stop cracking my neck and shoulders. It worked.
Thirteen years later, I continue to explore strength and stability as a major part of my daily practice. Looking for ways to hold myself, rather than turning into runny jello. Yoga is all about balance between strength and flexibility at every level. I had stretched myself to pieces and had become so flexible that I was no longer strong. I now practice for 30-60 minutes, instead of hours. I take days off. And I incorporate my own self-massage techniques to keep my tissues happy and to keep me out of the doctor’s office.
If you are a “crack” addict, find yourself constantly uncomfortable, or are in the process of addiction recovery, have hope! It is possible to rid yourself of unhealthy body habits and address the underlying mental forces that drove you there in the first place.
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[Reprinted with permission from Gaiam Life.]
Thank you for sharing your incredible story. Too much of a good thing can be indeed be a bad thing I’m sorry you had to experience this the hard way, but without that journey, we wouldn’t have your amazing creations — the Yoga Tune-Up and the Role Model. As I understand, they came from your own struggles, and we all benefit from them.
It takes deep awareness and a strong resolve to let go off old anchors and patterns that hold us down or in this case, break you down. I enjoy learning more about how YTU and the therapy balls work in concert with every day movement and activity. These are tools that compliment one’s lifestyle and inspire curiosity and incentive to want to change to enhance rather than completely avoid the activities that have binded us in the past. Cheers to the next evolution!
How interesting to connect habitual tendency which even give a moment of pleasure with stress which appear in the mind as a result. thank you for the way you presented that one can reflect same time on this and many similar phenomenas!
This is one of those Ah-ha posts. I pop and crack as I move or even getting a hug from my husband, I always have. There are points where my knees hurts during the firs few steps out of bed. Not aging, it’s me causing this determination. Thank you for this. Lots to fix on my end.
Thank you for the honesty of this post. As they say: how you are on your mat is how you are off your mat. And, of course, vice versa. The micro-universe of our mat makes it easier to see our habits, for better or worse, and hopefully to begin to make mini-changes that reverberate into our lives off the mat.
This post can be a wake up call for many, I’ve always said that yoga and strength training was a perfect balance and if you can add ball rolling to it, well you just gave your body some extra love. I always fight with myself to take a day off specially since I often feel like my shoulders are always tired, which is a sign of overtraining so taking a day off and maybe treat yourself with a bull body ball rolling, well let’s just say your body will greatly appreciate it and you may get one of the best night’s sleep ever 🙂
Thank you for sharing your experience Jill. It gives me even greater appreciation for your methods and mindfulness practices.
I love the “work with myself” slogan ! I am my best partner ! Respect and love is so what I read in between all those words. And humility and self love… the aroma of this article, inspiring me. 🙂
It really is all about balance. After having back issues, I was so upset because I lost all my range of motion. Yoga gave me back my range of motion and yin yoga gave me even more. I actually hit a point of too much more. Now over time I not only teach balancing your body to others. I walk the talk too.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, Jill. It’s all about balance, and it’s so easy for any of us to take something we love too far, not recognizing that it’s no longer self-care, but an attempt to have control when life so often seems out of control.
Too much of anything can be bad and we do tend to think if it’s something “healthy” it’s ok…but health is mostly about finding balance…and that applies to all things! Thanks for sharing these words of wisdom!
Love this, I’m still coming to terms with letting go my constant desire to practice vinyasa, but I picked up strength training and power lifting to balance out my hypermobility a few years ago and have seen significant change.
I love this article. Thank you
My dad used to give me a “bear hug” when I was a kid that will crack my back (it did feel good, though), a practice he kept well into my teenage years and early twenties… I often ask my husband to do that… and I do go to a chiropractor that cracks and pops my back and neck… Hmmm… I guess I should think deeply about it now that I know better.
Thank you Jill for sharing this personal story. I am in the thick of “Repetitive Stress Syndrome”. Just last year I started having horrible low back and neck pain for this very reason. NO one had ever warned me that being overly flexible/stretched was a bad thing. I am currently working on building up more strength and tone to restabilize my body. Many of the yoga tune up moves have been very helpful. This is such important information!!!
At first I thought that this was going to be a great article for some of my clients who love to crack..and then I realized that I needed this information too! I thought that I had ceased cracking my body years ago, but then it occurred to me that I interlace and crack my fingers multiple times a day when I stretch my arms up over my head. My future hands thank you for calling this to my attention now, who knows what damage a few more decades of this practice may have done?!?
This article really speaks to my! As a Yogi who has spent the past few years going ‘deeper’ I have found myself Left with little strength and tons of mobility and flexibility! I am currently working to find my balance between strength and flexibility!
This is such profound article for me! I am going to share this with my fellow teachers and this is definitely a reminder of trusting how you feel and the red flags your body is giving you. I practice often but not to the same extent as Jill’s early ages, and I already have constant discomfort and tightness around my neck shoulder and upper back area and I always thought I was doing the right thing in poses. Could it be the correctness of the poses that caused me the pain? It really got me thinking. If the body is put into the same position over and over and over again, over-usage of the same muscles can be caused and if it doesn’t have the moves or stretches to balance them, bad things are going to happen. Vice versa for stretches! If the same ones are always being stretched and not activated, they are going lack strength over time and I would be more prone to cracks, hyper mobility and overtime, pain! I’m so grateful for the work Jill is doing and all the educational information she is putting out. Thank you!
I too am a reformed hypermobile person. I am resolved to stop cracking, bu it is so ingrained I will have to exercise much willpower. Fortunately I have a lot. I used it for many years to drive myself into the ground, but I chose not to do that any more. Thanks Jill!
Thanks for sharing your personal story. I have found myself in a similar place having started you to help heal pain from scoliosis and finding much of what I was practicing was making me hurt worse. Strength training and tune up balls have helped me tremendously.
I have cracked my shoulders multiple times a day for many years….flexing my shoulders, externally rotating, and extending my arms overhead will do it every time! Loudly. Lately, I’ve been trying to bring my attention to the times when I feel the impulse to crack my shoulders….typically, during periods of increased stress either at work or in my personal life, or after a physically stressful practice. I think the key for me is the stress, or rather, my posture during times of stress and propensity to internally rotate my shoulders and leading to a calling for them to be cracked “back into place” even though that’s not actually what’s happening. A better solution, at least for me, has been to bring awareness to my posture, stabilizing my core (even when just standing around), and bringing awareness to how I carry my stress in my physical body! Cracking much less that’s for sure. Thank you for sharing!
This article hits home for me in many ways…my yoga practice (and my ego!) has lead to severe injuries in my spine to the point I couldn’t get up and down stairs for a week because my nerves were affected by the disc injury. The raw honesty of listening to the body and allowing the body to heal itself is so important not only as a student but as teacher, we must practice what we preach. I also was not aware of the damage of cracking and it’s something I will have to work hard on giving up! Reading that many of these injuries arise from weakness (which I had mistaken for flexibility) is something I need to look further into. I began weight training to help aid with my shoulder issues months ago and knock on wood since then the pain in my shoulders has disappeared! I am hoping to use yoga tune up tools to strengthen my lower body / stabilize my lower body to heal and prevent further injury occurring.
I’m too lax and pop in my lower back from time to time. I want to follow every.single.link because this IS an important message for the yoga community and I’d love to be able to share your insights with others. Thank you so much Jill. Also, thank you for your website. I cannot wait to dive on in and swim in the vastness. But tomorrow. Tonight, I was just curious about my lower back doing pops once in a while (for relief, when i turn a certain way hours after yoga) since I do have SI issues (laxness) and also an old back injury (unrelated to yoga). Thank you again.
Great article! I loved reading your story. I spent time in India practicing and studying yoga and I actually became turned off to yoga for a bit, which is funny because I’m a teacher and I’ve been practicing since age 14. When I listened to my body it was telling me to stop and take a break. I’m glad I did. I had to break up with yoga in order to come back to it with a much healthier approach. Thank you for shedding light on repetitive stress syndrome. I am seriously considering doing your upcoming teacher training in October.
It’s good to find decent posts like this. I actually liked this.
Like so many who have commented, I can relate. It has been a journey to listen to my body and respond accordingly. Being able to do that required a shift in my beliefs, that what I needed to give myself was more compassion and gentleness, to ‘let myself of the hook”. The demands of life don’t always make it possible, like days when i know I’d rather stay at home and just rest, but it’s a work day, so I try on those days to give myself the rest in whatever ways I can…usually it’s having the intention to stay ‘light and easy’ with the day. It can also be frustrating when you have the energy and enthusiasm to ‘do’ something, but some part of your body is saying, “Hold on there! I’d rather not!”. Today is not like yesterday and tomorrow is different than today. To be present with what is and appreciate ourselves in the here and now is a beautiful gift.
It certainly is good to finally find good posts like this. I really enjoyed this.
This article is one that resonates with my life right now. My joints are currently constantly aching to the point where I limp around most mornings, my neck pain leads to brutal migraines, and I can crack nearly every joint in my body (even those which aren’t supposed to move all that much). I’m in pain more days than not and it’s beginning to make me worry for my future; I want to be able to continue doing what I love! By 19 I had my first hip surgery and, by 23, I now have a torn labrum in my shoulder, slight meniscal tear, and constant back pain and inflammation. I can’t seem to stop cracking my joints. They crack and loosen even with the slightest movement now and it’s quite frightening. I’ve been doing more research, trying to strengthen around my joints to become more stable, but a big part of it is letting go of the addiction to cracking joints and taking 2-3 hours of class a day.
Yes!! Love this article! So much wisdom in here. First of all I used to be an exercise addict too, but after an injury and being unable to even walk for exercise for three years I had to make some changes. I didn’t find my sanity in punishing myself with exercise anymore, rather I found meditation. Meditating allowed my body’s inner intelligence to reemerge and to heal me. It also helped me to connect with my body, to spend time in my own silence, with only myself. Learning to love my body and learning to love and accept myself is the greatest thing I have ever done for my health. Thank you for sharing your story and highlighting the importance of not only balance in passion, but the importance of strengthening the body.
Wow! This is incredibly enlightening. I appreciate the honesty shared here and the rawness expressed. So often my ego comes into play and I feel I have to push myself and my body into some pose or position that is obviously not condusive with my wellbeing. I am beginning to understand that awareness, wisdom and limits are invaluable.
I remember a time in my life that I couldn’t go through a day without doing sun salutations. During my practice I would feel great and energized and pleased to have done my practice once again. However having pain in my shoulders finally made me realize that what I was doing to myself was such a disservice to both my body and my mind. I was hurting my shoulders and I was tricking my mind and my heart that I was still doing good for myself. This was the beginning for me to understand that not all postures are good for me and that I didn’t need to practice for 90mins everyday. I love Yoga Tune Up for the constant reminder that stability is just as important as flexibility. Thank you for such a compassionate blog.
I LOVE this, especially in light of the recent WAWADIA work that Matthew Remski is doing. Can we do too much yoga? Yes. Can yoga hurt us? Yes. I’ve definitely changed my practice a lot in the last year, and YTU has been a big part of that!
I am just starting to acknowledge that as much as yoga has helped to heal my body, more recently (within the past 3 years) it has also hindered healing. For a long time, I have not wanted to face this because yoga is such a significant part of my life and the thought that it could be harming me is hard to contemplate. However, my body is telling me that I cannot ignore it any longer. It’s time to face up! The hyper-mobility and hyper-flexibility that I have developed in some of my muscles and joints through yoga, especially in my hips, have made my hips unstable and weak. Also within the past three years, I’ve been experiencing more pain, tightness, imbalance, and misalignment in my hips which has created pain and imbalances in other parts of my body (e.g., low back) as well as in my life. Right now I wonder if it’s contributing to the ankle and foot pain that I have been experiencing over the past 2 months. YTU has helped (and continues to help) me to identify areas of my body where I hold tension, areas that are strong and areas that are weak and need to be strengthened. I love how it is teaching me to be a better student of my body and to explore and practice yoga in a way that gently guides my body back into balance. I love how YTU focuses on building strength and stability in the muscles and joints, even if this means reducing flexibility to some extent. I am beginning to see how too much flexibility can be a real PAIN, whereas building and maintaining strength and stability together with flexibility encourages more balance in the body (and mind) and reduce injuries.
This is exactly what I need to read right now.. and re-read. I am also a dancer-yoga-teacher-crack-addict, who is literally learning to pull myself back together after tearing my Semimebranosis.. It’s been nagging me for a number of weeks, and of course my first reaction was to stretch it out more- despite the pain it caused. There is a lot of physical work to be done, but it’s amazing how much emotional junk comes up when someone tells me that my “flexy-bendy” tendencies are working against me. It’s like a badge of honour I wore in my profession and a part of myself that I identify with so strongly that it’s hard to hard to let go of.
Thank you, Jill, for sharing your experience and all of the wonderful tips you learned during your journey. I have a few private yoga students with osteoporosis who have had hip replacements and other conditions. I feel so blessed to have the wonderful Yoga Tune Up(R) poses and techniques I recently learned in my YTU Level 1 training at my fingertips to help them feel better in their bodies! Some have come to me not understanding why they have this “clicking” going on in their joints, and it is exciting to see their progress when I teach them how to do a pose, like Asymmetrical Warrier 2, on the block closed chain at the wall. Whenever I ask them how they feel after trying new poses and they tell me they feel great it’s extremely rewarding. With my chronic low back condition, although I am a dedicated yogini and have been pain free for a couple of years, these innovative ways of approaching my asana practice and tools make me feel even better as I become stronger in my core and more flexible in my hips. I can’t wait to take the rest of theYTU immersions and hope to study with you soon!
Thank you for sharing your journey into strength, Jill. Over the last few years I have been working on slowing down my yoga practice, changing postures to emphasize strength and stability where hyperextension had become the ‘sign’ of a good practice and discipline. It’s a paradigm shift to realize that part of why I may have tightness in, say, my hip flexors, is because my body is trying to stabilize hypermobile joints. I feel an empowering paradigm shift through Yoga Tune Up that I can reorient any pose, go to the wall, close the chain to find a way to emphasize strength in any pose
Thank you so much for being so open and honest. It is true that something that is supposed to be so healthy can be overused and begin to hurt. As Americans we are so focused on the product that we glorify success at all costs in everything. Ala, no pain-no gain. Learning to listen to your body when it requests a break is challenging when you are so used to “powering thru”.
I had never even though of repetitive stress syndrome being a yoga injury, but it makes SOO much sense! Sometimes the things that are right there in front of us, so simple to see, we miss because of our tunnel vision (same thing happens when i’m trying to find something on my messy desk).
It always drives me a little more nuts when i have the ‘pro yogis’ in class, who can barely lower themselves in a push up, but can wrap their feet behind their heads. Forsaking strength for flexibility doesn’t make any sense…. but so many do. It’s like selling your soul to the yoga devil.
While this article begins with joint cracking I love how it morphed into the emotional side of doing more than what your body needs to lead a healthy life. I think I found Yoga Tune Up at the perfect junction in my life as the emotional and physical are colliding sometimes but I am constantly growing and learning to appreciate these feelings good and bad.
I’ve had teachers in the past tell me that cracking joints are actually a good sign. I didn’t really understand why. What I’m learning is that it’s not always good and it’s not always bad. The important thing is to pay attention to it and sensation around those joints. Is the joint truly unstable? Does pain accompany it? Does it happen often or is it a one off? I figure when you start asking questions you begin to create a lens through which you can view potential blind spots.
What a moving article, thanks Jill! I love the very direct metaphor here, physically as well as emotionally, finding the saving graces of both strength and stability. As a once die-hard exercise-junkie (to the core) myself, I recognize the power in salvation through reconciliation. Amazing truths can be revealed through the process of letting go of the need to control and contain.
I’m curious to know more about the relationship between loose connective tissue and joint cracking. What’s going on there mechanically? And does that have something to do with the fact that my hyperextended elbows crack with almost every first chaturanga of the day?
I completely relate and have been working with my body’s need for strength. I have incorporated different fitness styles into my practice. But not until this year have I discovered how much I need to tone it down. And actually it wasn’t even an active choice but a natural progression. Still I live with joint pain and now am fine tuning and yoga tuning my movements to eliminate pain.
This is such a great article. We were discussing joint cracking in Yoga Tune Up class earlier today, so when I stumbled upon the blog Trina mentioned, I thought I would read it. It’s amazing to read such an honest account of how you pushed yourself and what your body did in response to let you know it was not happy. I tend to often be ‘all-in’ as well so I know how important it is to make sure everything is being done in moderation. Thanks for the insight!
Jill, I love and appreciate that you’re part of the small (but growing) movement of Yogis who speak boldly about issues that have either been unacknowledged or whispered about secretively to a trusted confidant, for a very long time. While many people discover body awareness and a sense of balance in body, mind, spirit through asana practice, there are those of us who bring our strong samskaras of ego, neurosis, etc. to yoga and use the practice to further ingrain those patterns.
My first teacher in Los Angeles, Maty Ezraty, raised a few yellow flags for me regarding these patterns. But, like you, the first person to really clue me in to the destructive nature of my practice was an amazing physical therapist (David Fabrizio – I bow down to this man. IMHO – a great physical therapist is worth their weight in gold, an adequate P.T. is worth their weight in beans, a mediocre therapist probably isn’t worth the time it takes to get to their office and a bad P.T can really hurt you). He patiently showed me how hyper mobile I was in some places, and overly tight in others (compensation). He then taught me what I could do to create new patterns that supported balance and health in my body. It was hard and humbling work; among other things, he demanded that I, Queen of the oh-so-flexible hamstrings, keep my knees bent in every hamstring lengthening pose I did – for a year!
Through my work with David I was able to detach from much (but not all – still working on that) of the non-sensical dogma (if you practice more, if you practice better, if your intention is clear, if you can breathe fully, etc., your injuries will heal and you’ll be at peace, bla bla bla) that’s pervasive in the yoga community. Given all of this, I’m inspired by and extremely grateful for Jill, Jill’s teachers, and the opportunity to take the YTU training.
I have a much milder version of the same story. I think one of the reasons I initially got into yoga was because I was naturally flexible. I would never have admitted it then, but looking back it was nice to feel like I was good at it. I never had a big injury as a wake up call. Eventually all the introspection that came along with my yoga practice made me realize that I was out of balance and so I decided to get stronger. Over the last 4 years my focus has been on stabilizing my body rather than getting more flexible. I started lifting weights and that eventually led me to aerial silks to strengthen my hands and forearms. I still struggle with my motivation for stretching and question – do I really need to go to the end of my range? There is so much pressure within the yoga community to do fancy poses and I find myself getting caught up in the ego trip of it all – like somehow I’m worthy if I can do a certain pose. For the most part, I find that avoiding classes & workshops with that sort of approach is best for me and to keep questioning my motivation for WHY I practice.
Getting comfortable in an unstable life… Your post had made me realize the extent of my addictions. Not to one thing but to many. I have a reputation for always having to be doing something – working, Crossfit, yoga – teaching and practice, painting, gardening, reading, cleaning (?), and yes, the list goes on. There is a critical point when things begin to break down and I become withdrawn, crabby, tense, completely exhausted at which point I try to find a remedy (B12 iron, anyone?) so I can push forward and keep all the balls in the air. There is something here (which I need to explore further) about the focus turning entirely inward and becoming constricted, not just in my body, but my entire being. Its as if perhaps I can hold onto all the pieces very tightly, no one will notice how raggedy, unfocused and crazy I feel. Wow, a revelation – Thanks.
PS Thank heaven you addressed this years ago instead of dealing with laxity issues now!
I have a friend who in her late 50’s is still pushing or perhaps I should say punishing herself through an extreme Ashtanga yoga practice that she probably should have modified years ago. She is both super flexible and very competitive which can be a dangerous combination particularly in Ashtanga. Last year she experienced her most recent of many serious injuries, all of which may have been prevented had she applied some of the YogaTune-Up principles to her practice. I started forwarding her information on how to increase joint stability and will include this blog as well.
Balance means everything.
What a revealing and profound post – I love the description about the over stretched connective tissue not having “a point of center or balance within the joints” from overuse. This is such a clear image having just completed the YTU Anatomy course! And having very flexible joints and being able to easily work my way into certain poses but not have the strength to transition out of them over the years – I can honestly say, that my body is responding so favorably and in a balanced manner to the YTU protocol!!
I had a similar experience with my “addiction” to yoga. I immersed myself in it to the point of dismissing so many people and opportunities; getting to yoga each day was my main goal and no obstacles would get in my way. This went on for about three years until I started to feel some aches and pains in my knees and neck that just wouldn’t heal – even the yoga wouldn’t heal it and in fact made my situation worse. These pains made me step back and look at what I was doing to my body. I was pushing myself too hard. Now I practice in moderation, I listen to my body and I am slowly beginning to heal.
It is comforting to hear that the full guns yoga practice isn’t necessarily the best thing for a body. I frequently struggle with the “I’m a yoga teacher, I should be able to do more” self-depracating thought process. As I am aging and seeing and hearing about the paths of other practitioners and teachers, I am beginning to let up on myself and see that I need to figure out what is right for my body, not just what the rest of the crowd is doing.
I am often told that a part of yoga practice is to eradicate the habits and bring new insights into our mind and body. Alas, when there are blind spots in the body, what ended up happening is that the practice reinforce the blindness. Aware or unaware, that is the question!
Jill, Thank you for sharing your story. Two years ago, my left hip was feeling some pain. I thought I need to stretch it more, but it only get worse. I went to see Physical Therapist. She told me that because my right hip is tight and less flexible, my left hip ended up been pushed around as a compromise. The imbalance and compensational relationship between the stronger and the weaker (between the stiffer and the more flexible) was the cause of my hip pain. The solution is to strengthen my left hip instead of stretching it. I had to work through to pain to get to the other side of the hill. It is sometime confusing to find out what is the originator of the problem and find the most effective solution to restore balance. This make me comtenplate about the problems in the world!
Jill, I really appreciated your sharing your personal story of stabilization. I can relate to having a bit over-doing-it devotion to practice, and even though I’ve come a long way I am still popping my shoulders (and toes). I didn’t realize how much more flexible then strong I was, until a Physical Therapist pointed it out and suggested it was because of “too much yoga”. At first, I was really angry that she was calling my practice into question. Then I got over being angry and started noticing that just because I could bend myself a certain way didn’t mean I should. Now I am working on strengthening my mind and body and re-building my practice from a new perspective.
Thank you. I don’t know when I stopped cracking my neck….but I do know that it was a frequent activity in highschool. Boy am I glad I stopped. And, I will make an effort to resist cracking my sacro-iliac joint. I am in the YTU Teaching Training right now with Todd and Amanda and for the first time, I’m really seeing how much work my shoulders need. I am hyper-mobile pretty much everywhere in my body, and although I recognize this as a gift, I also see how it has led to many injuries. I’ve been noticing how my shoulders are actually, most often, almost hanging out of the sockets. Teachers (dance, voice) have often recommended that I open my chest but I have always believed (subconsciously) that my humerus bones were just naturally internally rotated and that my shoulders would never be like other peoples’ shoulders. Now, it’s click and I’m seeing how important it is for me to loosen the pecks and strengthen anterior deltoid, supraspinatus, teres minor. I’m already feeling the benefits of a more open chest and belly and I can feel my psyche shifting into a more confident and comfortable me…. embracing the world with a wide and strong chest, belly and sacrum. I’m looking forward to what unfolds. Thank you Jill!
It’s a hard pill to swallow that our yoga practice can cause such grief, and your post reminds us that too much of any good thing is not the way to go. Balance is an ‘on the mat’ and ‘off the mat’ lesson. Like Rachelle, I too have hyper mobility issues, specifically in one SI joint and need to work on strengthening the muscles to support this. It creates a series of involuntary, horrendous ‘piano key like’ cracking sounds when I do twists to one side. Thank you Jill for the reminder to balance flexibility with strength, and the fact that we need to listen to what our body is telling us.
Hi, Jill. I found this blog made me think….. ” Thats sound very familier……” I crack my joint frequently to ease the tension around my lower back, just like you said “Taking a pill” Also I’ve been working as much as I can. My occupation is a massage therapist so my posture is always bending forward positions and it’s physically demanding, yet I don’t pay enough attention to my body…..
As you mentioned, Yoga is balance of strength and flexibility (physically and mentally) I appreciate your message.
Thank you Jill. I am grateful to have found Yoga Tune Up. A neophyte, just beginning day 3 of YTU TT I with Sarah Court and Trina Altman, it was no coincidence that my back went out 40 hours before I began this training. I had been working without a day off for almost 3 months, teaching every day at my new yoga studio in East Pasadena, and amping my own practice up at the same time. I love to move, and though I have not been in denial about the real aging process in my 57 year old body, WELL, MAYBE I HAVE BEEN IN A BIT OF DENIAL… (I check the five Buddhist remembrances on my refrigerator), “I will grow old, This body will know sickness, There is no escape from death, Everything and everyone changes, All I have are my actions.”
My actions will re-educate me about how to work in an aging body. I am aging but at least I can age elegantly utilizing healthy methods of strengthening and being willing to give up some of the old no longer satisfying (the day after) poses and learn more about stability. Several of the YTU exercises yesterday helped alleviate this current low back spasm.
Thank you for this post! The therapeutic and healing aspects of YTU, in addition to the intelligent, anatomy driven teachings are what attracted me to YTU. I’ve been to workshops and classes over the years and the YTU practices that I’ve incorporated into my own practice have made me a healthier and happier yogini! I’ve just started my Level 1 Training and am so excited to move forward in my practice and teaching with a more compassionate, intelligent way of moving. So many of us (msyself included) push to the point of injury, exhaustion and over-doing it. I had never heard of “Repetitive Use Syndrome” before I read this but am pretty sure that I’ve had it in my wrist and my shoulder. I hope to use my upcoming knowledge of YTU to help others avoid the same pitfalls. Thanks for the post – your story is so inspiring – and thanks for putting this amazing tool out there!
And I have a similar story with some different very personal twists. I was and am a very thin, boney gal. Growing up had it’s share of comments and ghastly looks at my thinness in a quilt. Passed down in the gene’s, my grandmother used to tell me she was called beanpole, and my father never wore shorts. In my teens I discovered weight training and muscles started to form making me appear a little more shapely. I was addicted. Everything about the gym became my life, as I gained more muscle my body took on a completely different form and soon was unrecognizable. I was also addicted to the protection these muscles and appearance gave me. My mother started to freak out thinking I was going too far as my arms became bulky and ripped which she thought was too “masculine”. All this was at the expense of my knees which weakened with patella fermoral syndrome, and some of my femininity which I was also rejecting (another blog post for another day). This time period was also filled with major body image and food issues- I was completely consumed with my body and what I ate.
I eventually moved to Victoria, BC for University and started to ride my bike almost 2 hours outdoors everyday, and this took over my gym obsession. Along with being more connected to nature, my food and body obsession seemed to be morphing into normalcy. A few years later I started a regular yoga practice, my food obsession was completely eradicated (it seemed that moving to the west coast shifted something deep inside of me), and again my body became it’s natural thinness as my relationship to my body became increasingly healthy. Despite this, my joints started give away. Slowly and one at a time, wrists, elbows, ankles, knees, and neck (which I am convinced is not sourced from yoga alone at least). And boy oh boy, does this neck crack, shockingly loud. While I can lift my own slight body weight, I can barely lift a heavy box, and try helping to carry a kayak! Not happening!
I am told I am hyper mobile, and the joints that crack are hyper mobile which of course is not very stable and can lead to things like acute attacks of lying in bed completely immobile with the slightest tilt of the chin causing excruciating pain (which has happened to me twice in 6 months).
So, despite my not wanting to go back to the days of being obsessed with my body, I am recognizing that I need to create some strength, because I am being told my massage therapist that there is a lot of weakness in my body which is why I keep getting injured. Hence one of the reasons I am drawn to Yoga Tune Up. I see it as a way to do yoga-ish things but also get stronger to support these boney vata joints. Otherwise, I’m going to keep ripping my body to shred’s and will forever desperately be doing prolotherapy, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture. And thank God for the yoga therapy balls! Another huge reason I am drawn to Yoga Tune Up!
I am looking forward to a healthy journey of re-strengthening my body, so I can do yoga without pain, and still have savasana and pranayama.
I also relate to a lot of what you’ve written here.
I came from a background of gymnastics and was studying to become a personal trainer when I started practicing yoga. I thought that it was the perfect practice and stopped doing a lot of other forms of fitness because I had discovered this “magic pill”. After years of dedicated and repetitive practice I also turned into a one woman band of cracking and popping joints and bodily discomfort. Eventually the ligaments in one shoulder gave out, my back went into periodic spasms from years of easy deep backbends and very little core support and my bobble head of a neck would tense up after every shoulder stand.
It wasn’t until I started I was introduced to Yoga Tune Up that I realized that I had body blind spots that had been made worse from the practice that was supposed to be so full body informing and holistic. I also loved the moment when I had my first assessment with a leading local chiropractor. He said if it hurts you pretty much every time you do shoulder stand, why do you keep doing it? Hmmm. well it’s so beneficial for your endocrine system and it’s just one of those things that yogis do…..
The concept of the tubular core has been instrumental in my healing process. So has the idea that my movement practice is here to serve the rest if my life not the other way around! I think that it is so important for students of yoga to learn about the nature of their own body’s tissue status and how their practice could actually be taking them out of balance. More is not better, better is better!
I feel like this might also relate to hyperextension in terms of working a joint without supporting it properly. After doing some lifting at a grocery store at the age of 16, I woke up in the night unable to move my hyperextending arms because of intense pain that was occurring since I had repetitively put so much pressure on that joint in the wrong way! To deal with this, my physiotherapist said I needed to develop my strength there, and avoid crunching that joint together in weight bearing positions or situations. I’ve also had the neck cracking issue as a means of relieving pain there for a few years, and it makes sense to me to avoid that if I parallel that to my previous experience… hard to resist though! 😛
Hi Jill,
Thank you for sharing about your cracking joints and your transformation from working against your body to working with/for your body. I can absolutely relate to the feel good of cracking a shoulder, hip, wrist, ankle and neck. As a former dancer & current yogi – I understand. Also, I can relate to the idea of escaping into the addiction of getting a good sweat (workout) & not being present with honoring your body at the same time. What mostly resinated with me was “the clicking, popping was a result of overstretched tendons and connective tissues unable to find points of center or balance through my joints” and “…stretched myself to pieces and became so flexible that I was no longer strong”. I actually began to think about the times when I choose to crack my body or the periods of time where I am working out almost everyday (or twice a days sometimes) and the impact that has had on my life and body. I’ve actually had some sacroiliac joint pain in my lower back due to my lack of awareness to my body. When I bring awareness into my mind about what I am doing with my body, I will more inclined to honor and be gentle/loving with my body and find a healthier way of “releasing” and care for this amazing and beautiful vehicle I get to live in. I appreciate the awareness this brought back into my body, practice and life.
Jill, great article, I’m very glad that you have added strength exercises to your weekly exercise schedule.
We all need to learn to live in moderation, when it comes to yoga, strength training, running… Everything is healthy in healthy doses. I’m grateful that you shared your experience, as it shows that we are all vulnerable to doing too much, providing that we listen to our bodies when they speak to us we can all stay much healthier. Too much of a good thing IS too much, as well as too much rest is not good either. A happy medium, and some inner listening to our own voice…. Health is wealth!
This article was the thing that first attracted me to studying with Jill. There are so few people in the yoga world talking intelligently or openly about the potential for joint instability/overstretching issue as it relates to a yoga practice. Thanks for being brave enough to share your experience with the world and offering methods for creating a balance between solidity and suppleness in the tissues of the body.
Yes. the balance between strength and flexibility, Strengthen the muscles that are week and relax the ones that that are strong.
Wait a minute. A tight muscle is a week muscle. Be careful not to think that a tight muscle is a strong muscle. The first time I was successful at forearm balance I was able to do it with tight week muscles. The ability to have control with the movement is where the strength lies. And it is more than one might think that is making them tight. I am thankful we have Yoga Tune Up® to help with the process.
Jill; i have had so many moments of clarity from reading this article. Many of the excesses you speak about are a reality in my own life. I had no idea when I came to training that the healer would heal myself. The honesty in this article is very needed in the yoga community and i will certainly share it with others.
I find that there’s two types of cracking that I go through. One is a stress reliever (particularly in my neck and back) and the other is involuntary. The involuntary comes in my right ankle. I have heard different answers as to whether cracking is bad, and it’s still very hard for me to stop (especially the stress reliever). Other than perhaps being a sign of over doing it, as you suggest, is there any other medical evidence as to whether it is harmful to your joints?
I completely relate to this blog post Jill. While I have never pushed my flexibility to the limit through yoga, I have in fact pushed my body to extremes in running. I thought was freeing myself through running, but often I was just disconnecting. I would push myself to run even when my joints ached and when my body was tired. I often pushed through pain, instead of listening in and using pain as information to guide me in my healing. Through yoga, and most specifically Yoga Tune Up, I have started looking at pain as valuable information, and I no longer push myself to exercise harder, or create shapes in yoga that don’t work for my structure. During Embodied Anatomy I was so excited when Ariel started describing her hip ROM, and why she has no attachment to ever getting into lotus pose. Her femur & hip bones wouldn’t accommodate for that shape. So she embraces her double pigeon, knee-high & all! And that is exactly what YTU has helped me understand. Through YTU I have found real freedom in my body, a kind that doesn’t come from pushing myself to extremes.
I love this post. I often find myself going “all in” with my practice (and many things in my life), even when it’s not best for me. I also was a joint cracker, but maybe not as addicted to that as I have been to getting into a pose even when it feels like it’s not good for me. I’m learning to recognize and surrender to the idea that going all in can mean doing myself in…which obviously is not what yoga is all about (nor is it safe). Thanks for sharing your crack addiction as a lesson for all your readers!
Does this apply to all kinds of joint cracking? Even the unintentional kind? I often crack the knuckles of my fingers and my toes, but sometimes (more frequently as of late) during my practice my hips and knees will crack as well. Is this something worth investigating and working on or is this natural?