Everyone knows exercise is an important activity that promotes good health. Right? Not necessarily. When inappropriately practiced, any exercise including yoga can do more harm than good.and the risk and consequence of inappropriate exercise is actually magnified for chronically ill, injured, and ageing people.

Although yoga can be a powerful tool for general conditioning, it can also help us to deal with illness and injury; and when appropriately practiced, yoga can also help us to age gracefully. Otherwise, I submit that the harder we try to do our yoga, the more we expose ourselves to liability and the less it provides us with the results we desire.

It works like this: Your body is currently suffering from a current or previous injury.or you've been ill for some time.or your body is simply ageing and is no longer as strong and flexible as it once was. In any event, chronic illness, injury, and ageing cause your nervous system to become chronically stimulated; and as such, many areas of your body's soft-tissue contract (even more so in those areas that were or are currently injured).

You've heard that yoga can help you to recover, so you sign up for a class. There are many approaches to yoga; so you might have signed up for a class that is primarily meditative where you are asked to sit, deep breathe, and perhaps chant. Or you might have signed up for a tough aerobically oriented class that turns up the heat. Or there are numerous approaches in between.

Some of these approaches stress alignment and discipline, while others are much more relaxed. Your yoga teacher might instruct you to avoid pain like the plague; or your instructor might push you by saying: "No pain is no gain." In any event, it seems like the harder you try to do your yoga; the more you hurt.

Instead, I submit that we should not try to do yoga.but instead learn how to do yoga. Semantics aside, trying is competitive and aggressive. As such, trying can further irritate an already irritated nervous system which only serves to further promote stress and injury.

If we can instead learn how to do yoga without stressing an already stressed out body, we can actually enhance our flexibility, strength, and endurance in such a way that relaxes the nervous system; even while exercising. This allows us to further move our bodies toward strength, endurance, and flexibility without forcing and trying; and our bodies will respond in ways we never dreamt possible. 

Although aspects of all yoga approaches can be quite beneficial, it's paradoxical that the harder we try to do our preferred style, the more we increase our potential for injury and the less benefit we achieve. On the other hand, when appropriately done, yoga helps us to increase our strength, flexibility and endurance, while at the same time, it helps to quiet the mind. It's at this point that our yoga practice can be truly called: "Meditation in Action."

The above article was written by Sam Dworkis. This article and others can be seen on his webiste at www.extensionyoga.com