Rising Tide Yoga

Osteoporosis Part 2

Dee Buckingham — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:35:17 +0000

I’m still having trouble posting photos. I’m working on it.

Part 2

Many yoga poses put significant healthy stress on the hips and lower back, which are areas that are measured for bone density. Yoga practice includes both the dynamic tension used to go in and out of poses, plus the sustained resistance of holding poses, often with two parts of the body working in opposition to each other. Both types of healthy stress improve bone strength.

Dr. Loren Fishman addressed the benefits of yoga. When asked about the impact of yoga on bone mass and osteoporosis his answer was: “The big thing about osteoporosis is that most people focus on bone mass, but it’s really fracture risk you have to worry about. And when it comes to fracture prevention, yoga is extremely beneficial in so many ways. Yoga improves your sense of balance, it improves your range of motion, it improves your general dexterity and grace of movement. All of these things reduce the likelihood of you falling and incurring a fracture.

“The earlier you start preventing osteoporosis, the better. The best time for building strong bones is really when you are in your 30s. Most people reach peak bone mass somewhere between 30 and 40. So you want to get enough deposits in your bone bank, so that as you age and begin to lose bone mass, you start from a place of maximum strength. You don’t want to be in the position of having a balance due, which is what happens if you don’t put anything in and start taking stuff out.

“So, get yourself a regular exercise regimen that you like, which may not be the same every day. Get that working and let it evolve with you over the years. Then when your bone mass does begin to decline, it will decline much more slowly with the yoga than without it.”

From my teacher training at Duke Integrative Med, I am very aware of some positions as being contraindicated for seniors, especially seated twists. Fishman warns of some poses as being contraindicated. He, too, asks teachers not to teach seated spinal twists (I love seated spinal twists but never teach them.)

Fishman says, “Avoid spinal flexion poses (traditional forward bends, with the spine rounded), and teach healthy alternatives. Back bending poses, if paced appropriately, will increase stimulus to the vertebral spine and improve posture. Since falling is the greatest danger with osteoporosis, balancing poses that facilitate steadiness and good coordination are important skills to work on.”

Loren Fishman, M.D. has written a book on the topic. “Osteoporosis and Yoga” which is available on Amazon.

Yoga and Golf?

Dee Buckingham — Sat, 18 May 2013 01:17:59 +0000

Ladies, paint your toe nails!

There’s yoga and there’s golf. It may be a leap of faith to connect the dots between the two of them, but truly, they’re not that different. It takes focus, flexibility and strength for both. But—and here’s the key–practising yoga gives you focus, flexibility and strength.

Like golf, yoga begins with a stance. The basic stance in yoga is Mountain Pose, Tadasana.

That place where the body touches the earth is the foundation in yoga. Most of the time, we’re on our feet, so let’s get started there.

Ladies, start your engines. Paint your toes! Men, just look down and admire your feet.

Begin your stance by placing your feet hip width apart. That’s hip width at the bone. To figure that out place your fists side-by-side in between your feet. OK, you say, if I could bend over and touch the floor with my fists, I wouldn’t need to go to yoga. I agree, get a friend to do it and try to remember the stance distance. Close your eyes. “Feel” the distance, yes, “feel” it—oh, how yoga we’re becoming!

You’ll need that same friend to help you stand with your feet straight. Have them put their index finger about 2 inches above your ankle on your shin bone. Remember the song’s lyrics “the shin bone’s connected to the ankle bone, and the ankle bone’s connected to the toe bones”? Well, the lyrics are not exactly correct anatomically, but it doesn’t matter.

Your friend will put his/her finger on the front of your shin in that little channel and slide it down your foot to your toes. If your feet are straight your SECOND toe will be in straight line with your ankle and that shin “channel.”

Try that. Just stand there and close your eyes. For many people this feels like you’re angling your toes in, for a few it feels like you are angling your feet out, for the very few perfect people among us, this will feel quite natural.

You are now standing with your feet hip’s width apart with your feet straight. Congratulations.

Stay tuned and we’ll work ourselves up from our feet. Now, go relax

Osteoporosis, Part 1

Dee Buckingham — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:26:06 +0000

I’m having trouble uploading my photos. I’ll keep trying. The image for this is supposed to be a woman’s skeleton. It ages from 20 to 65. I’ll keep trying.

Here’s a quick repost of excerpts of an interview with Dr. Loren Fishman (Harvard Med) on his article, Yoga for Osteoporosis: Prevention, Rehabilitation, Tips for Teachers

According to Fishman, “Osteoporosis is one of the most widespread chronic conditions in the Western hemisphere. It’s hard to exaggerate its health effects. It affects 44 million Americans, more than half of everyone over the age of 50. It is 50 percent of all women over 50 and 25 percent of all men.

We worry so much about breast cancer in women, but in actuality, the risk of a hip fracture is equal to the combined risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer! And it’s not just women who are at risk. Men over 50 are actually more likely to have a hip fracture than prostate cancer. [Bold text is mine.] Fully 25 percent of the people that have hip fractures die within a year. Another 25 percent enter a nursing home never to leave. So half of people who contract a hip fracture have a very significant life change. So this is big time.”

While weight-training is the traditional exercise regime suggested to strengthen bones, Dr. Fishman has an ongoing study to see if yoga helps grow stronger bones. He did a preliminary study on a smaller sample over a two-year period and looked at the before and after bone density measurements of people who practiced yoga regularly versus a group who did not (the control group). He found that the control group lost about .1 of a unit on the T-scale for bone density. The yoga group, on the other hand, gained .75 of a point in bone density for their spine, and more than .9 of a point for their hips. So the study really did suggest that yoga is a strong stimulus for building bone.

The logic for yoga helping strengthen bones is that it causes a compressive stress on the bones, like weight-bearing exercises. Yoga creates a tensile strength (Ah, remember the tensile strength article when I read Paul Grilley’s books?)

Fishman says, “When the bones are stimulated by the pull of working muscles, they extrude more protein and strengthen to adapt to the demand. This is tensile stress. What yoga does is provide a wide range of options for both compressive and tensile stress, in positions that are far more varied than daily life.”

I’ll continue this topic next post.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Dee Buckingham — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:38:40 +0000

Click on photo box to see complete image.

Happy Mother’s Day!