Sluyter - Yoga For Low Back Pain: A Science-Based Approach

Reviews of The Low Back Yogi program

I started going to group yoga classes a few years ago to complement my normal routine and help prevent injuries. I am quite happy to have been introduced to Justin's series, as the sequence is far more tailored to my needs. Quite usefully, Justin explains the logic behind the poses chosen, as well as the reasoning behind why you might be better off skipping some of the poses included in typical group classes. I recommend the course to anyone who has dealt with back pain in the past as well as anyone who wants to improve core strength and stability.

-Jacob Mays

I think he did a great job of presenting the material. He focused on a specific therapy (yoga for the low back) instead of trying to teach all yoga for all body parts to everyone and that was a wonderful thing because it delivered exactly what was promised in the title of the courseHe seems to CARE about the practitioners too which is nice. He gives reasons why you should do things a certain way and he gives advice as to how to approach the practice and what to do for your back pain when you're not practicing. His goal really seems to be helping people in pain. There were some non traditional moves that were new to me and that says a lot because I'm always studying exercise and constantly searching for variety. I find anyone who can inspire me with something new very refreshing!!!

-Sky Nicholas

This feels revolutionary. I think with continued practice this could help relieve lower back pain for many people familiar with yogaThe instructor is obviously very knowledgeable and yet also has a gentle, encouraging tone. He is a joy to watch and listen to. I don't think this course needs to be changed in any way. It does exactly what it says, and I believe it would provide great results over time for dedicated students who proceed with the caution the instructor recommends.

-Patricia Smith

I don't know anything about yoga but this helped me and it's one I'll watch again and again and take notes.

-Lovely L. Jones

Acknowledgments

I found the keys to solving my chronic back pain in three books written by Dr. Stu McGill: Low Back Disorders, Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance, and Back Mechanic. I would like to thank Dr. McGill for his years of dedicated research as director of the spine biomechanics lab at the University of Waterloo. I would also like to thank my many yoga students over the years who encouraged me to write this book, particularly those students who participated in the video version of this yoga course on Udemy and provided feedback. You have been instrumental to the success of the Low Back Yogi program, and I am deeply grateful for your contributions.

A Yoga Teachers Journey Out Of Yoga-Induced Back Pain

Yoga has somehow managed to get itself a great reputation for helping to improve back pain, but heres yogas dirty little secret: most group yoga classes are absolute murder on the back, and can do far more harm than good in many cases.

Heres the science:

The middle of your spinal discs are made up of a liquid gel, called the nucleus, which is surrounded by rings of collagen fibers that keep the nucleus in place.

What happens when you repeatedly bend forward into spinal flexion, as you so often do in yoga poses, is that you create hydraulic pressure in the nucleus.

Every forward-bending cycle causes the collagen fibers to loosen and, over time, to slowly delaminate.

All this forward-bending produces hydraulic stress of the nucleus, posteriorly, on the fibers that are slowly delaminating.

As a result, repeated spinal flexion will slowly pump the nucleus through the delaminating collagen fibers, to create a posterior bulge in the spinal disc.

As Dr. Stu McGill has been known to say, life isnt fair, and ones ability to withstand repeated cycles of flexion depends greatly on the discs you inherited from your parents. Some people can get away with spinal flexion for longer, and under much higher loads, than others.

As a yoga practitioner turned yoga instructor, I got away with aggressive yogic flexion exercises for about two years, feeling no ill effects. Then, when I did suddenly feel the onset of chronic back pain, it was too late. The damage had already been done.

You do not feel the delamination process happening in your spinal discs, you only feel it when its too late, when the disc material bulges through the delaminated collagen fibers and causes nerve irritation.

If you go to a yoga class already experiencing low back pain, this delamination process has probably already begun perhaps from an injury, too much sitting, aggressive exercise, etc. and most yoga classes will only make the pain worse in the long term. If you start a yoga practice without back pain, chances are your group yoga classes will give you back pain if you keep at it long enough.

The confusing thing about this is that yoga stretching will almost always provide some short-term relief of back pain symptoms, even if the postures are exacerbating underlying structural issues. This happens because the stretch reflex is a neurological phenomenon that reduces pain sensitivity, but unfortunately it only lasts about 15 to 20 minutes. (See https://www.theptdc.com/2017/04/back-pain-myths/ for more from Dr. McGill on this issue.) Like most things that feel good, the pleasure we feel from stretching can make us feel like all we need is more of that feel-good-thing. But if you have back pain, the last thing I recommend you should do is go to a yoga class and engage in aggressive spinal-flexion and spine-twisting postures, to loosen up. Chances are, youre already doing too much rounding and slouching in your day-to-day life. Going to yoga class, and rounding and twisting your spine even more, isnt going to do you any favors.

Trust me on this.

Yoga made me feel so good at first that I decided to dedicate my life to teaching itbut then, suddenly, I found that I was in so much pain that my life began to revolve around how much my back was hurting.

Youd think that suddenly having crawl to the bathroom on my hands and knees would make me re-evaluate my yoga practice, but all my teachers and gurus were telling me that yoga was good for my bad back, and my whole life was tied up in yoga, so I couldnt conceive that it was hurting me. I just thought, Wow, if my back is hurting this bad while Im doing a lot of yoga, imagine how much worse it would be if I werent doing any yoga at all! I couldnt let in the notion that the thing Id based my career on was actually hurting me.

Students often come to yoga thinking that if they can just open up, improve their flexibility, their range of motion, they will feel relief from their locked-up backs.

But what if our central nervous systems are smarter than we are? What if our back muscles are locking up for a reason, to prevent us from engaging in harmful movement patterns? What ifas has been shown time and againimproved flexibility is an increased risk factor for back pain, rather than a preventative measure, as is so often assumed?

What if improved strength, stiffness and stability in our spines is what we need to lead more pain-free lives? This would fly in the face of what I like to call Yoga Logic, which says that more flexibility is always better. But this is what the science bears out:

THE MORE FLEXIBLE YOUR SPINE, THE MORE YOU ARE PUTTING YOURSELF AT RISK FOR BACK PAIN.

When it comes to most back pain, the fact is that there is no known benefit