How do we stay injury free in our Yoga practice?
Physical Therapist and YTT Graduate, Jen Wardyga has been addressing this question every day with her patients at Girl Fit Physical Therapy, where she says, “Our mission is to empower athletes to own their body and feel confident managing their symptoms and preventing injury or re-injury through patient education.”
As a college soccer player she experienced multiple ACL tears and a series of challenging recoveries that offered her the experience and empathy to approach her field in a new way. Beyond her personal experience with traumatic and chronic injury, Jen recognized a need for approaching a patient as whole person rather than just the physical components that comprise his/her injury.
Her passion to pursue this approach began during her clinical rotations in PT school. She says: “During my orthopedic rotation, I co-treated a teenaged girl with a repeat ACL tear. My clinical instructor did a great job of recognizing that the patient was completely deflated, demonstrating depression-like behavior. But the emotional intervention stopped there. After my own complicated ACL injury recovery, I realized there is a huge psychological recovery process associated with physical injury that often takes longer than the physical recovery process, and they are very much related. As PTs, we can help our patients cope with their injury and achieve better recovery outcomes if we can optimize the mental and emotional support we provide. It is completely within our scope of practice to ask the questions about what else is going on in our patients’ lives. There are so many factors that can impact mental and emotional wellbeing, like big life changes, stress at work, stress at school, support from family and friends, pressure from coaches and teammates that cause athletes to feel guilty and ashamed, pressure from coaches and team training staff that might cause the athlete to feel rushed in returning to sport. All of these things increase risk for re-injury and add even more stress. All of this stress (emotionally and physically) feeds back to their physical rehab progress.”
Injury prevention and helping people understand how to strengthen their bodies is one of Jen’s passions. And she believes that the key to a healthy physical practice is through education, understanding how to listen to your body, how to recognize indicators of injury, and how to modify activity to meet your body where it is. In doing so, Jen believes that you not only honor and protect your body during vulnerable times, but you also are more likely to build better and more sustainable long-term results.
We share some of her tips later!
“It’s easy for us to neglect something that our body is telling us. Physical activity is highly demanding on the body, and so many people think that exercise is supposed to hurt. It’s not! Maybe we aren’t educated enough to know when to stop or why pressing pause is beneficial. One of my goals is to help patients become more receptive to that conversation. I want to empower people to embrace modified practice that still incorporates physical challenge but also honors the body’s limitations and needs.”
Jen says that YTT furthered her appreciation for the emotional and mental component aspect of injury and how it relates to recovery. She believes that there is great opportunity for physical therapists, yoga teachers, and students to ask more questions that target pain and injury from a total-person perspective. She believes that pain and injury are more than just physical symptoms—they are often associated with significant emotional and psychological brokenness that is equally important to address during the recovery process.
“I am getting many more opportunities to bring yoga into my treatment sessions,” she says. “A lot of research shows that chronic pain or hypersensitivity are influenced by factors beyond the physical system. There is a constant feedback loop. If you are stressed out about your pain, you’re more likely to have more frequent or more intense pain. If you’re constantly on high alert that your pain will return, your pain is more likely to return or be exacerbated. It is amazing how powerful the brain and the mind are. They can trick your body into perceiving the presence of pain in the absence of true physical symptoms. Let’s capitalize on the fact that we know this and be willing to dig into it more with our patients.”
“I have only become more passionate about the work that I hope I am able to do with my patients after my yoga teacher training experience. I have already performed my own research regarding the relationship between psychological/emotional wellbeing and physical rehabilitation success. But yoga continues to show me more clearly how my own fears, stressors, and anxiety can feed into my physical symptoms. It also gives me the tools to approach my recovery differently in a more positive, self-loving, and efficient way. By cultivating the breath and restructuring the mind’s perception through meditation techniques, I have seen significant improvements in physical progress and emotional satisfaction during my own recovery process.”
Just like any other physical activity, yoga, with its challenging poses and long holds, can strengthen and stretch our bodies, but it can also create pain and sometimes injury. I sat down with Physical Therapist and YTT Certified Yoga Teacher Jen Wardyga to get some useful tips to help you approach your practice and how you listen and respond to your bodies indicators of pain or risk of injury, more intelligently, so you can practice what you love for many years to come.
#1- Stop doing what you are doing! Right away, if something causes you pain, defined as sharp, shooting sensation (so basically anything that is not dull and achy), stop that action immediately. Journal the progress over the next 7 days. If resting from the activity that caused you pain reduces your pain, then your body is telling you that rest is necessary and important!
#2- Keep a journal! And track what was different in your practice. Think about the modifications you take in class and how they change your pain levels. What did you feel for pain or aches before, during, and after that specific class, how does it compare to your pain patterns before initiating the rest/modifications?. We are looking for persistent pain. Yes, if pain persists, then the next step would be to see a PT or doctor for an evaluation.
#3- Warm Up & Recover! This is a big one but overlooked by many. Warm up your challenging areas before class and then recovery after. Lots of people believe that warming up before a yoga class is silly. But sometimes the teacher moves right into challenging poses or quick transitions when the body is not fully warm, which increases risk for injury. If a student knows that they have an injury or is feeling particularly tight in a certain area, he/she should spend additional time warming up the body before class starts. This warm-up is an active warm-up that gets the heart rate up, sending more blood and oxygen to the muscle to better prepare them for activity. Examples include jumping jacks, jogging in place, push-ups, etc.
*If you are looking for more details about specific warm-up and recovery strategies for pains and injuries, keep an eye out for our upcoming workshop at YogaWorks Watertown, where we will address frequently taken postures and provide targeted modifications.
You can also find Jen teaching Evolution classes at YogaWorks in Watertown or treating patients at Girl Fit Physical Therapy in Newton. Girl Fit is a clinic designed to educate, empower, and treat pediatric, adolescent, and adult female athletes and active individuals.