Managing Yoga Students with Injuries & Pain

Trish Corley Author

Systems and structures create ease when working with yoga students with injuries and pain.

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Supporting yoga students with pain and injuries becomes a lot easier with a systematic approach!

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Welcome back to the series on the benefits of using systems and structures to enhance your yoga teaching skills! In the previous articles, we explored the foundational elements of yoga instruction including sequencing and impactful cues. This week, the focus turns to a challenging yet essential aspect of teaching—managing students with injuries and pain. Read on to discover how using a systematic approach not only simplifies the teaching process but also fosters confidence among yoga teachers.

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Understanding the Benefit of a Systems and Structures

Let's face it, managing students with injuries and pain can be overwhelming, even for experienced yoga teachers. Even with over ten years experience in physical therapy, when I first started teaching group yoga classes I was overwhelmed. I had to figure out how to manage people with various injuries and complaints...all at once!

I was also clear on this. My role as a yoga teacher was different than a physical therapist. I had to figure out how to separate these roles and to speak from the authority of a yoga teacher when I was being paid to teach yoga. I needed an approach that I could rely on so that I could feel confident at the start of each class.

For the last 12 years of teaching yoga, I developed simple and concrete system for managing students with injuries and pain as a yoga teacher.

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In the case of managing students with injuries and pain in a group yoga class, you must first determine how you will approach injuries at the start of class. Will you ask students if they have injuries? What will you say?

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There’s no right or wrong here, but being decisive about this is key to starting class with confidence. As I mentioned in the article titled “Should Yoga Teachers Ask Students About Injuries?", you have to weigh the pros and cons.

If you are systematic in weighing the pros and cons, you can be confident in your choice. Take a look below at the decision chart from the Teach Yoga to Students with Injuries course. 

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Of course, there is more to confidently managing your class than just knowing what you will ask and say at the start of class.

What will you say when a student tells you about an injury or their pain before or after class? Remember, if you teach yoga, it is inevitable that someone will tell you about what their body is experiencing and they will be in search of some answers from you!

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Use Structure in Making Decisions:

You first need to determine if the student has a known injury or simply experiencing pain during particular activities. If there is a known injury, it’s important to understand the phases of healing. If a student has a brand new injury and still in the inflammatory process, you’ll need to encourage a more protective approach to their practice. However, if they are moving through the phases of proliferation and inflammation, they will benefit from introducing more controlled stress to the healing tissues.

If someone is experiencing pain during the practice, you will need to determine what postures or types of movement seem to aggravate the pain. With that knowledge, you can use your skills as a yoga teacher to help them either discover a more healing alignment of the posture or to adapt the posture.

I know what you’re probably thinking. Maybe you kind of understand the value in knowing the healing phases and in determining if a student has a known injury. But you’re still confused on figuring out what to say! Stay with me here.

With a systematic approach to alignment such as the Optimal Postural Alignment principles taught in Yoga Anatomy School, you can rely on what you know to help students discover more healing alignment. I’m often surprised myself at how well assisting someone to realign a posture creates a pain free experience of the posture. And so I continue to rely on first observing alignment.

The systematic approach doesn’t stop at alignment. If a shift in alignment doesn’t do the trick, the next decision is how will you help the student adapt or modify their practice? Once again, there is no single correct way to make adaptations, but there are ways to approach it systematically. For example, you increase the base of support to create more stability and decreased the base of support to make the posture more challenging. If someone is experience pain, play with increasing the base of support. This might look like putting their knee down in crescent lunge.

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Another major aspect of the systematic approach is knowing what you know and what you don’t know; and most importantly knowing when it’s more appropriate to refer your student to a healthcare practitioner or another wellness professional.

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There are a lot of decisions to be made as a yoga teacher working with students who share their experiences of pain and injuries. In truth, there is never just one answer, and that usually makes it even more confusing. This is where decision charts like the one above can be so helpful. 

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In the Teach Yoga to Students with Injuries Course, you will get access to a decision chart for teach of the following:

• How to determine if it's appropriate to ask yoga students about injuries.
• How to systematically support students with pain (including an explanation of the science of pain).
• How to systematically support students with injuries (including the science of the three stages of tissue haling). 
• Four methods to systematically adapt any yoga practice.
• Three key methods to increase or decrease the intensity of any yoga posture. 

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Navigating students with injuries and pain demands a systematic approach that prioritizes clear communication, adaptation, and thoughtful referrals. As yoga teachers, embracing this structured system not only simplifies the teaching process; it also instills confidence in your ability to guide individuals toward a safe and enriching practice.

As we wrap up this series, you are invited to take the next step in your yoga teaching journey by enrolling in the Teach Yoga To Students with Pain and Injuries Course.

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Embrace the opportunity to deepen your expertise, gain confidence in guiding students with injuries and pain, and join a community of like-minded teachers. Your commitment to ongoing learning and compassionate teaching will not only transform your practice and empower you to create a more inclusive and supportive yoga community. Enroll today and embark on a journey of growth, knowledge, and meaningful impact.

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Categories: : Effective Teaching Techniques, Injuries & Yoga, Yoga Anatomy