Within the past five years yoga therapy has gone from something hippies and housewives did to a clinically viable treatment for hundreds of medical conditions and used in health care centers around the country.
For those of you looking for a long-term solution for chronic lower back pain treatment rather than taking pain pills as a quick fix that only masks the problem, using yoga as physical therapy could be the solution you’ve been looking for.
What Is Yoga Therapy?
Yoga therapy has become a primary treatment for medical conditions rather than a supplement to more traditional physical therapy approaches over the past few years because of the growing number of people that have started practicing yoga regularly.
Yoga has doubled in popularity in the last five years and 50% of the people who start a yoga practice say they started for health reasons like chronic lower back pain.
If you have strained a muscle or herniated a disc in your vertebrae then it is very likely that you will develop chronic lower back pain from things like sciatica if you don’t allow your injury to heal properly.
Many doctors will tell you that physical therapy will be necessary if you want to have a chance of healing your injury completely. A lot of people, myself included when I injured my back when I was younger, don’t spend the necessary time doing the physical therapy that is needed for your body to heal the injury.
Because the sample size of people practicing yoga has grown so much, the amount of data that medical professionals now have on the health benefits that yoga therapy can provide is unquestionable and are starting to prescribe it as a treatment to their patients.
As more people see how yoga therapy can help them, they decide to give it a try and that is all that is needed. Once a regular practice is established they’ll never want to quit because of how good their body feels, both physically and mentally.
Chronic Lower Back Pain Treatment With Yoga
So you’ve done your research and have decided that you are going add a yoga practice to your life as a way to relieve your chronic lower back pain. What now?
If you have an debilitating condition and have trouble even standing or kneeling on your own, you might need to get some more information from your doctor before you start doing yoga therapy. But if you’re like I was before I started practicing yoga then you are able to move around just fine but have aches and pains that won’t go away and just want to get in shape without having to do a high-impact workout like running or lifting weights.
There are many different lower back stretches that you can start with if you want to start slow but if you want to start healing your lower back pain as fast as possible then a regular yoga practice is the best option.
Moving through a set of yoga postures that are intended to elevate your heart rate and build heat from within your core will open up space within your muscles and start to heal the root cause of the pain.
After practicing for a little more than a year, yoga has increased my overall muscle strength, flexibility, balance, and range of motion while also clearing my mind. Because I use yoga as a high-intensity workout as well as a therapeutic exercise for my chronic lower back pain, my cardiovascular health has never been better and my chronic lower back pain is virtually non-existent compared to when I started.
Find Your Own Yoga Practice
Any type of yoga practice can be considered yoga therapy whether the intention of the practice is for physical therapy purposes or not. Many of the recent yoga therapy programs used by Universities and medical centers are intended for those who have an extreme condition and need one-on-one guidance for their specific condition.
However, it doesn’t matter whether you are severely disabled and need a low-intensity yoga therapy program designed specifically for you by a medical professional, or you’re ready to start more of a high-intensity vinyasa yoga practice, or you’re somewhere in between, consistently practicing some type of yoga will help heal your chronic lower back pain.
Whether you’re starting a home practice or have decided to join a studio and take classes in person, as long as you you are willing to stick with your practice for as long as your body needs to rehabilitate you will see the results you are looking for.
How can yoga therapy help with your chronic lower back pain?
Stick With It!
Thank you for your informative posts on yoga. I started doing it in highschool after experiencing pretty bad hamstring issues. By practicing yoga once per week, I saw that many of the issues I had not just in my hamstrings, but also lower back and knee from lifting weights went away. So I definitely believe in this. As I am still very active, Could you recommend some of the best yoga workouts for athletes in terms of building strength?
That’s one of the things I love about yoga – you start because of a specific issue, like your hamstrings, and end up benefiting your entire body.
There are a few weight lifters that I see in yoga class very regularly and they say the increased range of motion they get in their muscles has increased their max sets even only after the first few weeks. If you’re looking to build strength then poses that work your hips and shoulders are going to give you that range of motion as well as build strength in the muscles holding you in the postures.
Practicing yoga by itself is going to build strength, especially if you’re taking a high-intensity vinyasa yoga class, but the flexibility and balance that you gain is going to dramatically increase your ability to gain more strength while weightlifting as well.
Thanks for the comment!
I learned a lot of things about yoga that I never even thought about before. For starters, when I think of yoga I thought of it as a peaceful sort of workout to lose weight. I never thought about the benefits it would have on the overall way I feel. I am always having back pain for awhile now and I’ve just been taking medication but I would love to be able to get rid of my back pain naturally. I bookmarked this page so that when my daughter comes home we can try it together. Thanks, I’m really looking forward to trying this.
Hi Brenda, I’m glad you found the site helpful!
There are so many different levels of yoga, just like there are different levels of any type of exercise. The thing I love about yoga is anyone can start practicing no matter how out of shape they have gotten or how bad the pain is. It might take a little while for your body to get used to the postures that you put it in during your yoga practice, but as long as you stick with it, it is very possible for you to find natural relief from your back pain.
Thanks for the comment and let me know if you have any questions!