7 Things yoga taught me about hiking

7 Things yoga taught me about hiking
Bruni has a particular bone to pick with yin classes, which emphasize stretching poses. She says that students often tell her they find the classes relaxing, which is exactly the problem: The classes don’t offer an opportunity to build strength to counterbalance the stretching.
Not to mention, too many students who don’t need additional flexibility are taking the classes. Bruni uses pigeon pose as an example — shin parallel to the front of the mat, hips on the floor and level. In a yin class, you might stay there for five to 10 minutes. “There’s absolutely, in my opinion, no good reason to do that over and over again to your body. You don’t need the flexibility. You’ve already got it. And you’re just weakening your joints by hanging out in those poses.”
And Bruni believes many of these injuries relate back to hypermobility like mine.
“The whole thing about yoga superstar teachers is they’re mostly hypermobile," she says. "And hypermobility is not something we should be encouraging.” She talks about legs behind your head, for example, which used to be viewed as an extreme contortionist pose. Now it’s commonplace because naturally hypermobile people are finding a yoga practice and being encouraged to go as far as possible.
But these advanced practices come with a risk. “Hypermobility causes pain and causes problems," Bruni says. "So many people are hypermobile. They’re overstretching. They’re creating more inflammation and instability in their joints. They’re in pain, but the crazy thing is, they think more yoga is going to help them.”
Still, she’s not suggesting we should all be rolling up our yoga mats forever. “Do yoga once or twice a week," she says. "It’s plenty. Then do your other activities. Cycle, run, walk, go to the gym, swim, go to a dance class, move, do different things. And then your body will likely be less prone to injury doing any of those things. The majority of injuries happen because we do one thing too much.”
Sorry, yogis. It looks like we might need to join the gym after all.