Yoga Stretching Soreness & Relief
Stretching exercises and yoga poses can make you sore. Sometimes really sore! This is nothing new. As a yoga teacher, one of the most common questions I get goes like this:
“I so sore from yesterday’s class… should I practice again or just rest?”
Before we answer that question, let’s take step back and answer another, simpler question: why are you sore to begin with?
Well, stretching exercises and yoga asanas involve the intentional lengthening of the body’s connective tissues. When you bend forward, you stretch the backs of your legs. When you bend backwards, you stretch the tops of the legs, the abdominals, and intercostal muscles.
Basically, it works like this: TISSUE DAMAGE CAUSES SORENESS.
Ok, but damage is a bad thing, right? Well, yes and no. Obviously, we don’t want to tear our bodies’ connective tissues to shreds, but at the same time, it’s impossible to drastically increase your flexibility with out some soreness.
In this way, increasing your flexibility is all about DAMAGE CONTROL.
Let me be honest with you: yoga and stretching can sometimes be very uncomfortable. So here’s what you do when you get really sore from stretching.
1. If you are so sore that even 10 minutes into class or practice you still feel pain, then you should stop and rest for at least 2 days.
2. If the soreness goes away after 10 minutes of yoga practice, then you’re OK, but go slowly and don’t try to make any flexibility gains. Go into all your poses at about 80% of your max, and be very careful not to aggravate the affected area.
3. When you’re really sore, the goal is not to improve flexibility, simply to maintain and massage sore area.
Here are two things you’ve probably never heard about stretching:
Get this: Stretching exercises are believed to stimulate the production of a gel-like substances called glycoaminoglycans (GAGs). These GAGs, along with water and hyaluronic acid, lubricate connective tissue fibers, maintaining a critical distance between them. This prevents the body’s fibers from touching one another and sticking together. So basically, the more you stretch, the more your body prepares itself for flexibility on a biological level.
And this is even weirder: there is another theory that stretching and resistance training may affect the way genes express themselves. In other words, the actual act of using and muscles and connective tissues to their full capacity EXTENDS that capacity by influencing your body on a genetic level.
Don’t get it?
Look at it like this: The more you stretch, the easier it is to do yoga postures, and the easier it is to do yoga postures, the more you’ll stretch and the quicker your body will responder. Get it? Ok good, now stop thinking about it, and start doing some stretching exercises right now!
