Back pain and iyengar yoga

inner_peace · March 10, 2017, 7:42pm

I was reading that iyengar yoga is helpful for people with chronic back pain

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effect of Iyengar yoga therapy for chronic low back pain.

KA Williams, J Petronis, D Smith, D Goodrich, J Wu, N Ravi, EJ Doyle, R Gregory Juckett, M Munoz Kolar, R Gross and L Steinberg, Pain, May 2005

Low back pain is a significant public health problem and one of the most commonly reported reasons for the use of Complementary Alternative Medicine. A randomized control trial was conducted in subjects with non-specific chronic low back pain comparing Iyengar yoga therapy to an educational control group. Both programs were 16 weeks long. Subjects were primarily self-referred and screened by primary care physicians for study of inclusion/exclusion criteria. The primary outcome for the study was functional disability. Secondary outcomes including present pain intensity, pain medication usage, pain-related attitudes and behaviors, and spinal range of motion were measured before and after the interventions. Subjects had low back pain for 11.2+/-1.54 years and 48% used pain medication. Overall, subjects presented with less pain and lower functional disability than subjects in other published intervention studies for chronic low back pain. Of the 60 subjects enrolled, 42 (70%) completed the study. Multivariate analyses of outcomes in the categories of medical, functional, psychological and behavioral factors indicated that significant differences between groups existed in functional and medical outcomes but not for the psychological or behavioral outcomes. Univariate analyses of medical and functional outcomes revealed significant reductions in pain intensity (64%), functional disability (77%) and pain medication usage (88%) in the yoga group at the post and 3-month follow-up assessments. These preliminary data indicate that the majority of self-referred persons with mild chronic low back pain will comply to and report improvement on medical and functional pain-related outcomes from Iyengar yoga therapy.

does anyone know how different this is from regular yoga, is it any better or is it the same

namaste
inner peace

Chandra · March 10, 2017, 7:52pm

Namaste Inner Peace,

Iyengar Yoga is the method of yoga taught by BKS Iyengar, a student of Krishnamacharya. One of the characteristics is a focus on alignment, another is the use of props.

Yogasana (the practice of yoga poses) serves the body to release tension and increase strength. Many forms of practice have been designed and labled in America, and a decent overview of them can be found at:

http://yoga.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=yoga&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yogajournal.com%2Fnewtoyoga%2F165_1.cfm

This is an article from Yoga Journal (a magazine founded by Iyengar Yoga teachers).

While Iyengar style yoga may have been the form used for this study, the results would apply to a well constructed yoga practice which increases strength and does not strain the back, and is performed with ahimsa (nonviolence) and mindfulness. Depending on the severity of the condition, yoga therapy in a one on one environment may be appropriate.

Chandra