The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Injuries, Restrictions, Ailments, Pose Modifications › Injuries › Lumbar problems so
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I have chronic, intractable migraine and have finally gotten to the point in my treatment where I can do more than go from bed to recliner. I’ve started physical therapy for TMJ problems and they’re really working with me on my posture. I thought doing my Hot Yoga Doctor at home would really help with posture. I have both the smart phone app and the Master Class videos but no hot room. I get my sweat on by wearing sweat pants and a jumper. My hips have been hurting for a couple of months and I can’t stand for more than 10-15 minutes so I’ve been focusing on the floor exercises. However, my lower back has started hurting and really flares up along with my hips when I’m on my feet too long. I would like to fix this and prepare myself for my hysterectomy later this month. How can I do this?
Hi Eagerbeaver
From the date of your post you have probably had your procedure. I hope you are feeling better and have recovered well and easily. I would like to help you with this problem. Are you still willing for me to do that. I will await your response and then get back to you with some questions.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hello, Gabrielle,
I have, indeed, had my hysterectomy and have had a go for exercise. I’ve also started PT for my lower back problems. I would like more help if I can get it. Also, while I was recovering, I blew out my rib coughing and was told I have costochondritis. My rib does seem to be moving back into place and that pain is greatly reduced. Thanks so much for your reply.
Eagerbeaver
Hi Eagerbeaver
What’s up? How has your recovery gone? Don’t know how I missed your post. Humble apologies, particularly as you were asking for more help. 🙁 You probably had to take it easy while your ribs were healing. It will help me if you can state what the issues are now and we can deal with that rather than me work with the original issue which will naturally have morphed somewhat given the passage of time.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Thank you so much for getting back to me. I really appreciate it. It took me a while to respond because with a couple of exceptions I’ve not been doing yoga as I’ve been concentrating on my physical therapy exercises. I think it is a good idea to start from now and work forward. I thought about going back and starting from the time I broke my arm the day before my 13th birthday, but a 40 year history of injuries seems a bit excessive, doesn’t it? However since many of those injuries are still affecting me today, please forgive me if I refer to them. I did the 60 minute Hot Yoga Doctor video today and I thought I’d go pose by pose and describe how I felt through them. I won’t do them all, just the ones I have especial trouble with or cause pain.
Half Moon Pose – I have found this helps quite a bit with the rib I injured while recovering from surgery. However, my left shoulder hurts and it is difficult to keep my arms above my head. I do know that stretching my arms above my head is good for that shoulder pain. I include this when doing my PT exercises.
Awkward – I’ve developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot. This has led to pain in the outside edge of the foot and my Achilles’ tendon. It is very difficult to hold this pose as a result. PT has me doing deep knee bends. When I’m at home I substitute this for that.
Standing Separate Leg Intense Stretch – My left hip began to hurt during this pose and continued through the rest of the standing series. I pushed through but almost gave up after Triangle because of the pain.
Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee – I absolutely cannot get my forehead to my knee.
Tree – I have found that this really stretches out my hip muscles so I figure it’s probably good for rehabbing my lumbar area. I include this when I do my PT exercises.
Cobra – I have tried this and the full arm variety as part of my PT routine for my lower back as you recommended in one of your e-mails. I do Child’s Pose between. The other way I stretch my lower back is by laying face up on my giant exercise ball for two minutes then laying face down on my giant exercise ball for two minutes.
Floor Bow – When I was doing this pose at the Hot Yoga studio, I pulled the muscle in my bad (left) shoulder so badly, I cried through the rest of class and rendered that arm almost unusable for some time after. I am afraid to try it again.
Head to Knee – I absolutely cannot get my head to my knee nor my leg between my arms
Hello eagerbeaver
So you said:
Half Moon Pose – my left shoulder hurts and it is difficult to keep my arms above my head.
Try: Right arm extending vertically up from shoulder, shoulder down, palm in, thumb to back wall. Now, bring your left arm up and use your left hand and grab the upper arm (below elbow and above shoulder) with palm forward and thumb with fingers. The left arm is pretty much at a right angle here and you will find it much easier to keep the left shoulder down, create space in the neck and shoulder, stand tall and feel the traction working. As your shoulder heals (and maybe even now) you’ll be able to switch it so that the left arm is vertical and your right arm is bent!
Awkward – I’ve developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot. This has led to pain in the outside edge of the foot and my Achilles’ tendon.
You can try using a double layer of mat. That worked for some of my students. It also let them step out widely with more comfort. Also, when you’re sitting on a real chair (not the imaginary one in the pose! 😉 ) you can do a pretend Part 2 of Awkward. That’s the best way I can describe that for you. You can do this on a couch or when on the toilet. Move your feet up and down and gently lean into your ankles. You can increase the pressure of your lean over time. Without the issue of balance and holding up your body, and with your ankles as high as you hold them (or are supposed to hold them) in Part 2, you can make tremendous progress. You can also do this exercise while standing at the kitchen bench and taking as much of your weight through your arms as you need to.
Standing Separate Leg Intense Stretch – My left hip began to hurt during this pose and continued through the rest of the standing series. I pushed through but almost gave up after Triangle because of the pain.
Try stepping out a little less far. Remember to bend your legs. Are you doing that and keeping your back straight as the priority? Or are you focusing on straight legs?
If you have my book then you MUST do this wonderful adjustment for Triangle. Bottom right corner, page 151. If you don’t have it I will explain it in detail next post to keep this one of a reasonable length! Just make the foot distance small and build it up over time.
Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee – I absolutely cannot get my forehead to my knee.
What are you doing with your legs? Straight, bent? Feet completely flat on floor? Where is the weight? Any sense of the alignment of your hips?
Tree: If you need to, you can do pigeon pose on the floor as you may occasionally have plantar issues.
Cobra: Nice work. I assume you do the limited support variety with hands on the floor and placed back away from the shoulders.
Floor Bow – When I was doing this pose at the Hot Yoga studio, I pulled the muscle in my bad (left) shoulder so badly, I cried through the rest of class and rendered that arm almost unusable for some time after. I am afraid to try it again.
Yikes, that’s terrible. Before I get into any solutions for this, I really want you to try the Half Moon fix up the top of this post. You can apply that to a number of poses by the way. The aim is, of course, to facilitate healing in your shoulder. The speed of healing may be surprising to you because you’ll actually feel that what the regular Bikram pose will do, or your actions to try and straighten arms, and glue hands together, has been tightening up your neck and shoulder and it’s no doubt been preventing healing.
Don’t try Floor Bow until the fear is gone. And frankly, once you feel the progress in your shoulder, you’ll be more willing to try Floor Bow. May I please ask you to let me know this: When you lie on the floor, resting between poses with belly down, arms by your sides and palms up, how close can your arms be to the side of your body? If you bend your legs up, can your feet touch your buttocks? And then, can you easily raise your right arm up to touch your right foot with an open palm? How about your left arm/hand to touch your left foot? I am wanting to get a sense of your abilities.
Anyway, that’s a lot to focus on. Meet you back here 😉
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Standing Separate Leg Intense Stretch: Try stepping out a little less far. Remember to bend your legs. Are you doing that and keeping your back straight as the priority? Or are you focusing on straight legs? If you have my book then you MUST do this wonderful adjustment for Triangle. Bottom right corner, page 151. If you don’t have it I will explain it in detail next post to keep this one of a reasonable length! Just make the foot distance small and build it up over time.
I do, indeed, bend my knees. Even with that the best I can do is grasp my ankles. I do have your book and I’ll take a look at p. 151. When I read it before it did help me understand the poses better and assure me that some of the modifications I’ve been doing are absolutely correct.
Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee: What are you doing with your legs? Straight, bent? Feet completely flat on floor? Where is the weight? Any sense of the alignment of your hips?
My front knee is bent, and my rear leg is straight. My feet are flat on the floor. I believe the weight is on the front foot and I believe my hips are facing front. I think part of my problem is that I can’t get that front leg between my arms and so it is on the outside of my arms. I think that if I could get my leg between my arms, I could get my head to my knee. I do keep my chin down so as to compress my thyroid.
Tree: If you need to, you can do pigeon pose on the floor as you may occasionally have plantar issues.
What is pigeon pose? I’ve only ever done Bikram poses and the ones on the Wii Fit.
Cobra: Nice work. I assume you do the limited support variety with hands on the floor and placed back away from the shoulders.
Oops! My hands are close to the shoulders. I’ll have to work on that.
Floor Bow: May I please ask you to let me know this: When you lie on the floor, resting between poses with belly down, arms by your sides and palms up, how close can your arms be to the side of your body? If you bend your legs up, can your feet touch your buttocks? And then, can you easily raise your right arm up to touch your right foot with an open palm? How about your left arm/hand to touch your left foot?
I am very inflexible and have been for most of my life. If I work hard at it I can get my arms right close to my body. However, if I truly relax then they’re a good bit away. I can get my feet to touch my buttocks when I’m standing if I hold on to them with my hand (like one would to stretch out the muscles in the front of one’s thighs,) but I’m not sure if I can do it without that assistance. It’s been a while since I’ve tried. I have to work hard to touch my feet with my hands, either of them, while lying on my belly. I have to do quite a bit of scootching and rocking in order to do it.
Thank you so much for trying to help me with this.
Namaste, Beverly
Hi Beverly
Standing Separate Leg Intense Stretch: Ankles are fine for the grip as long as your thumbs are near your fingers and grasping around the front. 🙂
Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee: As long as hips are in alignment and flat to floor or ceiling and square to wall, you’ll be fine. The weighting is such that it only FEELS like it’s in the front leg because of the mechanism of weight-shifting that occurs in walking. So, if your attention is on your hips and their alignment the weight distribution will be perfect. Swivel dem hips to make the adjustments. Many people cannot get their head to knee. Another question for you, have you ever tried to put your feet in position (ie back foot at 45 degrees and front foot parallel to side of mat) BUT with your heels NOT lined up back to front? Try this experiment and get back to me: Step out to the side, pivot on heels to get perfect alignment, then introduce lateral space so that you have about 3 inches between the imaginary parallel lines that run through your back heel and your front foot. Tell me what happens to your pose. Tell me what happens to your legs, front knee, hips, hands, head and proximity to knee. I am wanting a better sense of your pose.
For pigeon pose, check Dr Google. Actually, I am pretty sure I have written instructions within the ‘walls’ of this forum. Get a photo through on online search. Then before you try it, look on the forum for the written instructions.
Floor Bow: Wait until you have some runs on the board with the Half Moon arm technique that you apply to other poses. I want you to feel some improvement there before you try this pose. However, please answer this: Can you reach ONE arm back at a time? If so, what can you reach, touch or grab on your leg ankle or foot? Recognising that your hip may lift as you grab that part of your leg, can you tell me if, after you settle into a grip of that part of your leg, both hips are on the ground?
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂I did think of an additional question about Half Moon. Am I correct when I assume that I’m using my right hand to grab my left arm when I’m bending to the right and vice versa?
I was thinking about the Standing Seperate Leg Intense stretch. I think I may have misled you by my comment about my ankles. That’s the best I can do. Usually, however I’m grabbing my calves. I do have my thumbs toward the front and my fingers toward the back.
I’m not sure I understand what you are asking me to do on Standing Separate Head to Knee. Am I to have my feet three inches apart but still in a straight line heel to heel? Or am I to separate them so they’re more at an angle relative to the mat? I have no idea how clear my question is. I usually use the length of the mat to do this pose rather than have my feet on the floor. With this in mind, should I have my feet closer to the narrow edges of the mat?
As far as Floor Bow is concerned. It has been some time since I’ve attempted this pose, but at one time I could manage one foot at a time. I think I could initially grab the foot then wiggle down to the ankle. I believe that once I managed to grab the ankle, my hips would be on the ground.
Beverly, it really doesn’t matter. If your shoulder hurts with your left arm straight up, for example, you would not do that. You avoid the pain by this modification and allow healing. So to answer your question specifically: If you can manage to have your arms in both configurations, then do 1 whole set with your right arm straight up, and second set with your left arm up straight. If you can only do one side, then keep your arms in the single easier position until you have healing sufficient to make that change.
Sep Leg Stretch: That’s fine. Ankles works. Calves work. If you’re grabbing calves, then little by little you will be able to move hands towards the feet. It will take time, but now you have a modification for your shoulders, all sorts of seemingly unrelated improvements will occur for you.
Sep Leg Head to Knee: Step out the normal distance. Turn to the side. Everything is normal, and your heels are lined up from front to back. That’s all as it should be. So, if you have turned to the right, keep your back foot exactly where it is and pick up your front foot and while keeping it parallel to the mat edge, shift the foot to the right about 3 inches and then try the pose. Report back and tell me what changes for you.
Floor Bow: Again, once you have some improvements in your shoulders, this pose will be more simply accomplished.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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