“YOGA” – Focus on shoulders & wrists.

Our shoulders and wrist take a fair beating with daily life, if you are at a desk all day, texting, or driving your wrists and shoulder get A LOT of repetitive stains, if you are a sporting person and depending on the sport your shoulders take a beating regularly.

So what happens in yoga when we have injured these areas and how can we strengthen these areas?

Our wrists rely on the strength and tone in our upper arms, shoulders, and forearms for ultimate performance and also how we take weight on these areas.

Our shoulders need the flexibility of our necks and the health of our necks for ultimate performance.

With these two being so close to each other they can often be related in how, what, and why an injury occurred.

There are a few common injuries for both wrists and shoulders and If I had been smarter would have done two different posts on them.

However, as I have started I will group them together because some of the modifications are used for both these areas.

So what are the most common injuries?

1. Arthritis – Yep, this fella made the top of the list again for both wrist and shoulders, and the same reasons I have stated the last three months have caused it… Moving on!!!
2. Tendonitis – Just like in our knees, inflamed tendons cause pain, it is caused in the same way as the knees where injury from trauma or from repetitive strain injuries.
3. Carpal tunnel – Repetitive usage of the wrists with flexion and extension over time cause the nerves in the wrists to be compressed and squeezed creating this… Back when knitting was big, a lot of women suffered from carpal tunnel and needed surgery to help this, these days office and computer work will do the same for men and women alike.
4. Sprained wrists – All these are the top ones on the wrist front. – Sprained wrists are the same as sprained backs, it happens when the ligaments are stretched beyond their limits – accidents or falls will impact this greatly.
5. Rotator cuff tears – This is caused by Injury, wear and tear over an extended period, and also degeneration of the muscles and tendons. The rotator cuff sounds fancy but is literally the tendons and muscles that hold the top arm bone (humerus) to the shoulder socket. This hurts like hell, personal experiences on both shoulders and, one twice… It can cause problems sleeping, weakness in the shoulders and arms, constant pain, and just general misery if not handled correctly.
6. Frozen shoulder/s – This happens when the shoulder has been immobile for a period, like after surgery.
7. Dislocation of the shoulder- The upper arm bone separates from the shoulder socket. This can cause torn ligaments and tendons around the area causing severe pain.

The best prevention for these are??

1. Stretching – always a top on, stretching the wrists and shoulders, and making sure the muscles are warmed up completely before continuing practice is a top priority. Before moving into any practice start with some simple rotations of the wrists and shoulders one way and then the other for a time to warm them up.
2. Strengthening – Once warmth is in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons we need strengthening as mentioned in all the other blogs, this helps to gain balance and support for the area. Core stabilization will also help to take the pressure off those areas.
3. Distributing the weight evenly – Spreading fingers wide on the mat, and feeling the weight distributed through the natural arches of the hands (between the thumb and pointer).
4. Keep shoulders away from the ears – Big thing for the shoulders and neck area is o keep those shoulders down and back so that pressure isn’t on those areas causing pain. We don’t want tension in the area of the neck and shoulder so thinking of your shoulders down and back will help to alleviate pain in this area.
5. Don’t do repetitive moves – When we do our home practice we really need to make sure that if we follow an online teacher, or do our own programs we don’t want to do repeated moves too often that these areas take a beating. Chatarunga dandasana, this pose if repeated too often can cause the shoulders and wrists to become sore, or injury prone.

The best modifications for these problems on a few well-used poses are!!

1. High Lunge – Keep hands in prayer instead of moving through.
2. Upward facing dog – move into cobra or sphinx to relieve strain on shoulders and wrists.
3. Lizard – Try to move onto elbows with a pillow, block, or bolster if this is possible.
4. Chaturanga – To reduce wrist pain, move onto knees instead of plank then chaturanga or use fists, blocks, or wedges to reduce pain.
5. Downward dog – Reduce strain on wrists and shoulders with this pose by either moving into dolphin which is taking it down to forearms or utilizing blankets or blocks for stability.

That brings is to the end of our wrists and shoulders for this month.

I hope that the information is helpful and remember if you practice with me you can join our private facebook group to explore some different modification options..

Next month we take a dive into Neck injuries.. Hope to see you than.

Keep smiling and enjoy the journey that you are now on.

Namaste – Shine brighter with every passing day until the stars in the heavens can see you on the earth ❤️🦋