Yoga and Osteoporosis

More and more people are practicing yoga because of its health benefits. I became a Certified Yoga Instructor in 2011. Over the past two decades, I have attended many yoga classes across Canada and the United States.

Unfortunately, my experience has been that many yoga instructors (and practitioners) are not familiar with the challenges presented by osteoporosis, osteopenia, and low bone density. 

As a result, practitioners put themselves at an elevated risk of a fracture during their practice. Instructors mean well, but most need to learn better.

My Yoga Journey

Over the years, I have noticed that there are as many different styles of yoga as there are styles of yoga teachers.

As a young physical therapist, I didn’t think about the poses presented during a class. But once I considered yoga classes for people with osteoporosis or low bone density, my life changed. I knew I had to become a yoga instructor to understand what yoga teachers were learning. 

How much knowledge of anatomy and physiology do they receive? 
Are they being taught about osteoporosis?

Most of my classmates were falling asleep during the little bit of anatomy that we did have. I did my training through a reputable center in Canada’s capital city. One of the best teachers included nothing about osteoporosis in her Yoga teacher training classes.

When I asked my teacher what she knew about osteoporosis, she and her instructor (a very experienced teacher visiting from New York City) beautifully defined the contraindications for osteoarthritis.

They confused osteoarthritis with osteoporosis. After all, both conditions start with ‘osteo’. 

Combined, these two experienced Yoga instructors had taught thousands of older adults. They were kind and caring and knew how to teach every possible pose, but neither understood the forces the yoga poses place on the human body. They unknowingly increased the risk of compression fractures in their class participants.

The fact that these two highly regarded instructors knew nothing about osteoporosis motivated me to write and publish my second book, Yoga for Better Bones.