Hi there
I get a pain in my lower back during shavasana.
This usually happens if I spend a while doing inversions, or after attempting to do supta kurmasana.
The pain goes away if I lay on my side, or if I raise my pelvis off the ground, or if I stand up.
Can anyone shed some light on what the problem might be and how I might be able to remedy this?
Thanks!
Y
So then your back hurts after this pose?
I don’t know the nature of your body, the depth of your practice, nor anything at all about you as a human being - which I believe we’ve chatted up in another thread or two. However, this is an extremely intense pose which places a tremendous demand on the lower back especially when the pelvis is not mobile and the hamstrings are not open (I’m skipping over the shoulders since that is not the topic of your post).
Students who are aching in the lower back at the end of their practice often have either a) moved into a pose too deeply or without alignment, b) moved into one their body is not yet ready for or c) have not released the musculature appropriately before moving to Savasana.
gordon
I think Gordon’s 3 observations are right on the mark. I would like to add a fourth. Have you tried different leg positions in savasana? Bent knees - legs on the floor, one leg bent - another straight, legs on a chair.
As with all postures - the function comes first. Modify the form as necessary to preserve the function!
Victw
Hi guys
Thanks very much for responding.
Still new to this forum so my posts might sometimes be a bit incomplete.
Relevant background about me:
I can’t post a pic of supta kurmasana as I’ve not yet made 15 posts - forum rules, but supta kurmasana is the posture after kurmasana in the ashtanga primary series.
I’ve been stuck at this asana. When I cross my ankles I can’t bind my hands. When I bind my hands, I can’t cross my ankles. And I’m no where near being able to put my ankles behind my head while facing down when I have no difficulty doing this posture laying on my back ie, I can wrap my ankles behind my neck and bind my hands when facing upwards but not downwards (maybe this is for another thread)
Anyway, it’s after struggling with this that I feel pain doing shavasana.
Given this description do you think it fits best with Gordon’s explanation no. 3? ie, not appropriately releasing my musculature? If so, how does one release musculature? Should I go into child’s pose after this asana?
I’ve intuitively done what victw has suggested - that is, doing shavasana with legs bent. It doesn’t help. The only postures that help are taking all weight off my lumbar - laying on my side, tilting my pelvis up and resting it on a block, laying face down.
Thanks for your insights again. Much appreciated.
Y
You have an anatomical structure that allows increased ROM or you have laxity in your ligaments?
Here is supta kurmasana: http://de.ashtangayoga.info/asana-vinyasa/primary-series/21b-Supta-Kurmasana.html
How can you tell the difference between ligament laxity and large ROM in joints?
Dear Yonita,
Let me start off by saying that I am not an Ashtanga yogi and that my body will never have the capabilities of being one.
I have looked at the poses in the pictures. Both kurmasana and supta kurmasana require hip flexion and lumbar flexion beyond normal range of motion (ROM). Of the two, supta kurmasana requires about 5 degrees more hip flexion. It also requires more flexion of the upper back. If the upper back cannot accommodate that, even more demands will be placed on the lumbar spine. (When you do the pose laying on your back, perhaps gravity is helping you to flex your upper back, which allows you to do the pose completely.)
Now, back to yoga basic. To be in alignment with yoga means to be in alignment with non-harming (ahimsa). You are causing pain to your body, which is undesirable from both a yogic and a medical point of view. Please stop forcing yourself into poses. Yes, you are doing that since you mention the word struggling!
Your spine is very precious, providing structural support and protection for your nerves. In a worst case scenario, you could cause disc herniation. When you flex your lumbar spine, the front portions of the vertebrae get compressed. As a result, the discs between the vertebrae get pushed backwards. If they are weakened, they may even bulge or rupture, thereby compressing the nerves. The result is very painful, causing numbness in your legs and potentially a loss of bladder and bowel control. Your own remedy for the pain (face down with a block under your pelvis) is very telling. This is my prime recommendation for people who suffer from lumbago or disc herniation. It not only allows the lumbar muscles to relax, but it also gives displaced discs the opportunity to gradually move back into position.
Please be careful. Ashtanga yoga has the greatest potential for injury amongst all hatha yoga styles. I’m sure that injury is not the goal for your personal practice.
Thanks for so thoughtfully looking at this. I’ll certainly take your advice and take it easy on the supta kurmasana. I’m all too conscious of not wanting to over-do it.
That said, I get the same pain after doing the plough position which I don’t need to struggle into at all. Also when I spend a while in shoulder stand I experience the same pain in the lumbar in shavasana. Any insights on this at all?
Many thanks
Y
Yonita,
Does the pain in your low back seem to be in the spine, or in the muscles beside it, or low - over the sacrum area? Is it centered, one sided, or both sides? Sharp and “catching” or disperse and achy?
I’m especially curious that shoulder stand sets off the same pain.
In addition to the disc injuries Willem mentions, you could be straining muscles and fascia, or you could have a condition where a vertebra is actually displaced forward in relation to the one below it (spondylolisthesis).
In any case, I certainly agree with the cautions against overdoing, and struggling into poses.
Another thought related to technique: you approach deep flexion in a pose like kurmasana, try balancing the action by actively tucking your tailbone toward the floor, even as your pelvis tips forward.
You asked about the difference between large ROM and laxity in joints. You can have a body wherein the joints happen to permit a large ROM because of the way the bones are shaped and fit together, but the joints themselves are quite strong and stable. When the ligaments are lax, the ROM comes more from hyper-extending the joints due to an innate instability. Typically, people with lax joints (“double jointed”) have them throughout the body, so you can often see that their elbows and knee hyper-extend easily.
With lax joints, extreme-looking postures may come easily, but those people are much more likely to have joint problems. A yogi with lax joints needs to really be conscious of stabilizing and integrating their body in their asanas. Using balanced muscular action around the joints to maintain good alignment is not a true substitute for having stable joints, but it helps a lot.
hi , not sure if this helps.
Could that be [B]Lordosis [/B]? that cause u the back pain.? i have known few of my fellow trainer teachers in my class who has this problem.
The solution to this is to strength the abdominal muscle and hamstring and less stress on the lower back.
Hope this help.
Love and peace.
Braxton
Firstly, thankyou for considering my post.
The pain I experience is difficult to describe. It’s located in the lower back, lumbar region. It’s not sharp at all. It’s like there’s no blood circulating there.
Over the last few days I’ve been experimenting with the condition. When I lay in shavasana and feel this ache, I get up and hold a seated forward bend for about 10 breaths or so, then I get back into shavasana. This seems to help for about 10 seconds… then that ache comes back.
I feel the ache with bent knees too. But when I hug my knees it goes away. And the moment I stand up, the ache disappears.
I’m positively baffled!
Having learnt that flexibility can be caused by lax joints rather than bone formation I’ve been googling, trying to determine whether I have lax joints. Result? I still don’t know.
I take it that Gordon raised the question because if it IS the case that I have lax joints I could dislocate myself in all sorts of crazy places in the process of struggling into supta kurmasana (and indeed many other asanas) and therefore I face a heightened risk of injury?
I’d like to know if I have this condition for obvious reasons. Should a good yoga teacher be able to tell me? Should I be consulting a medical specialist?
As a kid I did gymnastics. In my teens, I trained in karate. In my early twenties, I climbed rocks and hiked quite a bit. Through this process I’ve sprained my ankles badly several times over and have dislocated my shoulder. At no stage has any doctor mentioned lax ligaments.
Many thanks again.
Y
Yolinda,
My quick test for general joint laxity is to see if the elbows and knees lock in a straight position, or are hyper-extended. If they hyper-extend, probably most of your joints are on the lax side. In that case, I would expect you to have a higher propensity for joint injury and even dislocation. (Numerous sprained ankles and a dislocated shoulder would fit with that pattern, of course).
Because naturally loose joints are often more prone to injury, I think it’s especially important to help stabilize them by engaging the muscles around the joints while weight-bearing, and try not to lock them out completely. For example, in a forward standing bend, you would engage the muscle groups in the backs of the legs, and slightly back off the fully locked position of the knee joints. (Actually, I believe this practice of engaging the muscle groups being stretched and “micro-bending” the joints is appropriate for pretty much everyone).
Some teachers say the joints should not be allowed to hyper-extend at all, in a pose, so that the limbs are straight. While esthetically more pleasing, I’m not sure how important this is - you are using muscular action to replace the function of the ligaments in stopping the ROM of the joint, and it’s just not the same thing.
As for your back pain, I don’t think I’m ready to try more diagnosis with the incomplete information that a written forum allows. As I mentioned, a variety of things could be going on with your back, from mild to possibly serious. Someone would need to see what’s happening in various movements/positions, perhaps examine you by palpation and even do some imaging (such as x-ray) if the problem isn’t otherwise clear.
A yoga teacher may be able to help you get to the bottom of the issue, but in my experience, many otherwise excellent teachers may not be great at biomechanical diagnostics. Although I’m trained in acupuncture and tuina, a lot of what I know comes from my work as a neuromuscular therapist, from training with chiropractors, and yes, from a couple of excellent yoga teachers. Perhaps a physical therapist or chiropractor with an understanding of yoga would be a good start.
Just joined the forum and came across this thread… and thought I would let you know that I suffered with exactly the same for nearly a year of my yoga practice and whilst I was doing my teacher training. A visit to the chiropractor confirmed lordosis(although I already suspected), an uneven pelvis causing one leg to be longer than the other, upper abdominal weakness combined they all gave me sacro-iliac problems from basic not being able to lay down comfortably to occasional bouts of chronic pain. I have since had pelvic re-alignment from kundalini yoga therapist which was so simple and gave me the tools to help myself and gave me dramatic improvement within a couple of weeks.
Your pains sound very similar to the ones I had but as advised it’s a good idea to get a therapist yoga or physical to diagnose if you haven’t already.
Candice
