Yoga & Pain – Mobility & The Nervous System
- Brainz Magazine
- Jul 16, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 7
Kasturbai Azcona is a traveling photographer and movement facilitator raising her young kids in the farmlands of Guadalajara, Mexico. She specializes in mobility training and the nervous system, intuitive and creative sequencing, arm balancing, inversions, conotortion & more!
Are you a bendy yogi who started with your palms touching the floor in a standing forward fold? Flexibility has always come pretty naturally for me from the start. When I discovered hot yoga in 2010 I remember feeling so embodied within the movement itself, but throbbing pains just hours later. I blamed childbirth for my achy hips and knees, until years later, during yoga teacher training, I stumbled across the term “hypermobile,” and my practice has transformed ever since. I went from collapsed backbends, relaxed splits, and an achy body, to stronger bends, mobile hips, and a painless body.
What is hypermobility?
To put it simply, hypermobile people are the ones who exhibit effortless flexibility without much of a warm up. Some may be able to dislocate shoulders or fingers, others can sit effortlessly in lotus pose for a while. Being hypermobile doesn’t mean you have to be flexible everywhere. For example, half pigeon pose and lotus are my arch nemesis because I lack knee mobility, but that doesn’t take me off the spectrum of being hypermobile.
But why the pain?
The pain is caused by passively leaning your weight on a joint without integrating muscles awareness therefore over lengthening the tendons surrounding the joint. Basically, the pain is caused by relaxing too much within the pose. The hypermobile yogi isn’t really listening to the teacher’s cues to use their strength in a backbend because it’s much easier to rely on their loose hips and poor lumbar spines to passively get into it. The truth is, knowledge of your nervous system in relation to flexibility training is absolutely necessary in order to stay within a deep posture and not feel pain because of it.
You can imagine trying to stretch a plastic bag from the supermarket. The material itself gets pulled, thinned out, and manipulated, failing to return back to its original condition. This is a similar affect to the tendons surrounding the joints of hypermobile bodies. You know that moment when your mind wanders during a juicy, reclined twist or flopped over in a forward fold? A minute flies by and it’s already time to move on to another pose, but you’ve failed to pay attention physically to the pose itself.
I had to let go of bad habits, unlearn, and relearn all over again. The throbbing pain in my lower body disappeared when I started to incorporate breathing techniques and specific muscle flexion within every asana pose. Arguably though, not contracting the muscles is equally as important as contracting them.
Are you hypermobile?
Almost a quarter of the people in the world are hypermobile and most of them have no idea that they are! The Beighton scale is an indecisive test used to see of you’re apart of this passively flexi club. You’re considered hypermobile if you can complete at least 2 from the list below.
Palms stay flat on the floor in a standing forward fold with knees straight.
Thumb can touch your inner forearm when the wrist is in flexion.
Pinky finger can bend backwards towards outer forearm past 90 degrees.
Knees straighten beyond and passed a straight line while standing.
Elbows straighten beyond and passed a straight line while extended.
Hypermobile or not, this knowledge applies to anyone wishing to improve strength, flexibility, and mobility within their own personal practice and teachings. The concept of PNF in relation to the nervous system changed the way I enter into poses, transition within sequences, and weave breathing exercises into mobility training
Active & passive stretching
The range of motion a joint can move into without an external force helping it arrive there is an active stretch, while a passive stretch is the ability to get into a pose using the help of the floor, wall, a bind, etc. You can switch from passive to active by contracting certain muscles at passive range of motion. Another way to describe it is to relax the muscles to find the length, and then contract the muscles within that length. Think soften, flex, and repeat.
PNF stretching is the backbone to my practice and teachings. Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) are techniques used to increase range of motion, strength, and flexibility. Active and passive stretching are the foundations of PNF techniques. I find it challenging NOT integrating this concept into all postures because the results are undeniable! PNF is proven to improve overall mobility and injury recovery. In other words, it’s the vitamin and the medicine. This system helps us move better as a pain preventative, while also aiding in injury recovery.
Yoga without pain
1. Active & passive stretching
Let’s start with letting go of old habits that no longer serve us and finding new ones to weave into the neural pathways of our minds. In other words, integrating more of an active stretch, rather than a passive, is a great way to ensure the muscles can be worked in order to avoid pain afterwards. Through mindful movement, micro adjustments, and PNF stretching we can integrate strength within stretching.
2. Breathing techniques
Pranayama is just one of the 8 limbs of yoga, but it can arguably be the most important one. The breath is a major tool we can use throughout life, but somehow it’s usually forgotten and so easy to lose track of. Try practicing horse breath during a deep hip opener to release the tension from your face and sooth the nervous system. Finding the right breathing exercise to incorporate into your active and passive stretching is a game-changer for how we feel during and after a class .
3. Familiarity with the nervous system
Staying in a deep pose for a while requires a strong body, but also a deep understanding of the nervous system in relation to mobility. Some of us are stuck in fight or flight mode or unknowingly clenching our jaw. Tension can lay dormant in places of our body for years without us knowing. Placing your hands on the parts of the body that’s being stretched is a great way to remind the nervous system that you’re safe and want to be there.
5. Hydrate, rest, and recover
We tend to put these three on the back burner in the fast-paced world that we live in today. I feel most energized when I’m drinking a half a gallon of water a day with plenty of room for electrolytes and I have the biggest breakthroughs in my personal practice after a 2 week resting period. Sometimes we need to fully rest and recover from hard training or consistent practice in order to improve on a skill or deepen our practice.
6. You are what you eat
Need I say more?
Credit: “Mobility & The Nervous System” by Marie Belle PR “Too Flexible To Feel Good” by Celest Pereira & Adell Bridges
Read more from Kasturbai L Azcona
Kasturbai L Azcona, Movement Instructor & Photographer
Kasturbai is a certified yoga teacher and fitness instructor for english and spanish speakers around the world. She teaches with intention for hypermobile yogis and adcvocates for strength within flexibility. She is also a traveling photographer that document reatreats and events of all kinds!
