Iyengar Yoga and Low Back Pain

In my most recent email newsletter to students and friends of Harmony Yoga of Ann Arbor (HYAA), I included information about a study that came out showing that the practice of  Iyengar Yoga provides significant improvement of chronic low back pain in individuals with mild disability.

One of the HYAA students (thanks Deb!) also pointed out that there's an article on the IYNAUS website (Iyengar Yoga National Association of the U. S.) that gives a brief overview on this research --  Research on Iyengar Yoga and Chronic Lower Back Pain.   This includes a link to a pdf file, "Therapeutic Application of Iyengar Yoga for Healing Chronic Low Back Pain".  

The overview and the article may be of interest to any of you who have low back problems.   The article includes a section on the philosophy of yoga and some of the key aspects of Iyengar Yoga.    Sequences of poses that are used to aid in healing low back problems are shown in drawings and photos.   Many of the poses that are shown are much more prop-intensive than how I normally teach them in class (I don't have all the props, and it wouldn't be time-effective to work on poses this way in a regular, general class), but the actions and the aims are still the same.  

I'm happy to work with any of you HYAA students who'd like extra help with low back issues, in private or semi-private sessions.   If you're interested, you can talk to me next time you're in class, or contact me through our Harmony Yoga website