Healthy Joint Stress: Through the Hands of a Yogi

The purpose of some yoga postures is to stress the joints in a beneficial manner. We'll explore the different forms of stress that can be placed on a joint so that your students can make the appropriate choices when practicing.

By Paul Grilley

Try this exercise and remember that we apply these same principles to the other joints of the body as well: Extend the fingers of your right hand. Try to extend them so that your first knuckles are extended or “bent” back toward the back of your wrist. For many people this movement is very subtle.

Now, keep the fingers extended and also use your left hand to push them back further. Using the leverage of the left hand, you can bend the knuckles farther back. But to bend the fingers back as far as possible, we need to relax the muscles of the right hand completely. With the right hand relaxed, use your left hand to push the fingers back as far as you can. This is usually a much greater range of motion than when the muscles are tensed.

Muscular passivity not only allows the greatest range of motion, it is also the least compressive to the joint tissues. This is why a chiropractor or osteopath often prefers to make sure the muscles surrounding a joint are relaxed before attempting a therapeutic manipulation.

Balancing Yin and Yang

We can use this simple experience to compare the benefits of yin yoga, yang yoga, and such regular yang exercises as weight training. In our simple experiment, we would classify the attempt to bend the fingers back using only muscle as regular yang exercise. Using the leverage of the left hand while the muscles are tense is a yang form of yoga. Using the leverage of the left hand while the muscles are relaxed is a yin form of yoga. Yang exercise is always accompanied by compression of the joints. Compression is good for joints and stimulates the bones to healthy growth. This is one reason why vigorous yang exercise is prescribed to prevent osteoporosis. But yang exercise doesn't allow the full range of motion. Yang exercise develops strong muscles and bones but can leave the joints contracted and stiff. This is common among athletes.

Bending the fingers using leverage and muscle tension is a yang form of yoga. It develops strength and increases the range of motion. This is why yang yoga leaves a practitioner feeling more stretched and relaxed than yang exercises such as weight training.

Bending the fingers using leverage while the muscles are relaxed is a yin form of yoga. Yin yoga safely—even pleasantly—develops the full range of motion of a joint. This type of practice leaves the practitioner feeling relaxed, light, and free.

Yin yoga by itself won't develop the strength and stability a joint needs. Yang yoga by itself will not exercise the full range of motion. This is why different forms of yoga can and should be practiced as supplements to each other.

In conclusion, while joint stress is useful, it is not always desirable to stress a joint to its full range of motion. It is possibly dangerous to stretch a joint to its full range of motion when standing or moving. While yogis can explore the full range of motion of a joint, it should be done very slowly, patiently and with only moderate force.

Paul Grilley has been studying and teaching yoga since 1979. His special interest is in anatomy. He teaches regular workshops on physical and energetic anatomy. Paul lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife Suzee.

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