Why are men getting injured in yoga at such a higher rate than women? Read on to find out!
We here at Mann Yoga keep seeing articles and studies describing the dangers of yoga for men. We are particularly disturbed by this reporting trend because we understand the great benefit to men yoga can offer, provided they're exercising caution and not pushing themselves to the point of pain.
We have more than a few men on staff here at Mann Yoga, and all of them have varying degrees of familiarity with yoga. Some found yoga as a result of needing to maintain fitness levels during the off season, some found it through their girlfriends, and other found it as a result of getting injured in another sport, who now use yoga for rehabilitation purposes. How is it possible that the same exercises these individuals use for rehabilitation are the same exercises that inflicts injury in others?
Here are a few statistics for those of you who fancy numbers. Yoga Journal conducted a study in 2008 titled Yoga in America. This study found that 15.8 million people practice yoga, and men make up 27.8% of that number. Yet according to a more recent study on yoga injuries; 20% of the strains, 24% of the dislocations, 30% of the fractures, and 71% of nerve damage occurred in men. The numbers for women were fractions of these numbers, in some instances less than 1%. Why is it that although the vast majority of yoga practitioners are women, men receive the lions share of injuries? We asked our staff what they thought and the overwhelming response was... TESTOSTERONE!
Most men are loaded with testosterone. Some even take testosterone supplements to make themselves even manlier. In plain English, testosterone is what makes men masculine; ladies have estrogen to make them feminine. It's what makes their voices deep, their backs hairy, and its also what pushes them to relentlessly compete with one another, even to their own detriment. Blame it on evolution; masculine men were the best hunters, fathered the most children, and had the largest collection of sabre-tooth tiger furs in their cave. Today, instead of checking all that testosterone at the door (as is required by the unwritten rules of yoga for men), the misappropriation of all that testosterone in yoga class is what causes all these men to receive injuries. They're trying to keep up with that dude in the front who can perform the sweetest inversions and touch his toes without a yoga block. STOP IT!
Yoga is not about competition. Any good yoga teacher will tell you that. Yoga is about listening to your body and easing up BEFORE you hear a snap and feel the burning sensation of a ripped muscle or tendon. Yoga is meant to gently stretch your body and unify the mind, body, and spirit into one harmoniously working unit. If your brain is telling you to push yourself to keep up, its obviously not working in unison with your body and spirit. Similarly, if your hamstrings are aching to the point of tearing all in the name of executing the perfect downward dog, that's your body's way of communicating that you need to slow your roll.
So men, chill out in yoga. Leave your testosterone at the door. It's not a competition (unless you're actually participating in one of the many yoga competitions to pop up in recent years), nor is it about keeping up with the yogi whose been practicing for a decade. Its about listening to your body and mind when it's telling you to to back off that forward bend, or risk being a statistic.
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