The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › The Hot Yoga Poses › Ustrasana › Elbow Pain
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Hi,
I am relatively new to Bikram… I’ve done maybe 10 classes over the last 3 years (mainly in the last 3 months)
To explain my problem I need to explain my elbow injury (I’ll shorten it considerably). When I was 11 (I’m now 28) I broke & dislocated my Radial Head (in the elbow) I had surgery to repair the damage. since then I have had 6 surgeries to try and repair the damage. I’ve had a bone spur removed, the radial head removed, a prosthetic Radial Head put in, the Ulna Nerve translocated, and a ganglion cyst removed from my wrist.
After all this surgery I’m left with a elbow that is about 50% of normal. I have a lot of limited movement and I have to edit a lot of the positions to deal with my elbow. The problem I have with this posture is the putting pressure on the elbow when you lean on your arms. As I did Gymnastics for many years I’m overly flexible and without the elbow injury would find this posture very easy.
Can anyone suggest any ideas for helping with the elbow pain?
Rhiain
Hi Rhiain
Thanks for the descriptions. So let me confirm: You are OK with your arms outstretched in Camel but it hurts when you have your hands on your feet.
You did mention that you lean and this is when you feel the pain. Would you please try something for me? Grab onto your heels and then PULL on them instead. This should be a relief for your elbows plus you would be practicing correct technique because in this pose you are not supposed to put your weight through your arms onto your feet.
Let me know how you go and if I can help with anything else
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi,
I did a Bikram yoga last night and had a thorough look at how I am doing this posture. The starting point where you are kneeling with your hands in your lower back and bending backwards is fine, putting my right hand on my foot is okay, (with the thumbs on the outside) its twisting my left arm to get the hand on the foot with the thumb on the outside that hurts. Once it’s there and I’m pulling on my feet pushing my hips forward its uncomfortable and I have a large twinging pain in my left elbow.If I could put my arm so that the thumb was on the inside (eliminating the twist of the elbow) it would be much better but I’m unsure of doing the position incorrectly?
Rhiain
Hi Rhiain
Thanks for doing that because I am much clearer. The issue with bringing your thumb to the inside is the internal rotation that would be occurring in the shoulder which in turn would work against opening the chest and shoulder and neck areas. I would really need to see how this is affecting you to be totally definitive.
The other issue is the symmetry of the pose. I would think it unwise to externally rotate the right arm and internally rotate the left. So you would have to internally rotate both! I don’t like the sound of that and the tension it sets up in your neck and shoulders particularly if you lose focus and come out in a less than mindful or harmful way.
I would like to know if you feel that the regular way of doing the pose is helpful for you. Do you think that with the surgical work that has been performed there that the yoga is opening it up (despite the pain/twinging) and perhaps helping you rehabilitate it or do you think that it is more likely to cause problems, pain or damage? Where else do you get this opening movement in your practice or in your life? Do you sense that the traction on the arm is a good thing for you? What would you surgeon say to this movement? And oh, another question, is the sensation the same if you simply get your hand into position as when you pull with varying degrees of energy?
OK, now for suggestion time: 😉
You could avoid the hands to feet stage completely and simply bring your hands into prayer position instead. Depending on your answers to the questions posed in the last paragraph you could choose to do 2 sets hands in prayer, or one set with hands on feet and one set with hands in prayer.Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Sorry for the late reply, I fell out of Yoga practice for awhile, but am back again (as I always seem to find myself)
I am now day 3 into a 30 day challenge, and haven’t been putting my hands to feet at all, mainly because of the fear of pain (I’ve finally got my arm to a good place pain wise and I’m scared to do anything to aggravate it) I will over the next few classes look at moving to putting my hands to feet in one set, and see how it goes.
The other positions i have trouble with (with my arm) is the standing bow, being that my arm doesn’t rotate as fully as the right, i find this position uncomfortable, I try to do one set of this one.
also, the Cobra & Locust Positions, my left arm is almost sticking right out and just won’t go any further. With my right arm i can get it to parallel to my body but not under, I’m worried that it isn’t helping being so uneven with my arms?
In general is it better to stand a position out rather than do it just on one side?
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