A physiotherapist deals every day with stiff backs, sore necks and aching joints — and often the best medicine is movement, not medication. I’ve reached the point where I recommend yoga to clients more and more often. Not because it’s trendy, but because it works.
I once wrote my thesis on the effect of yoga on pain. The results were telling: in many cases yoga helped where stretching just one muscle fell short. In Estonia the topic is still relatively new, but over the past decade interest has clearly grown — and rightly so.
Why a physiotherapist recommends yoga
Hands-on work is good, but it has its limits. Some deep tissue simply doesn’t respond to being worked on from the outside. You have to reach the end ranges of joint mobility through movement — and that’s exactly what yoga does well.
A simple example: stiffness in the thoracic spine can cause neck pain. If you only work on the neck, you won’t get results. You need to open up the thoracic area too. Yoga has a whole range of movements like this, and they do several things at once.
While writing my thesis, I also looked at yoga poses from the fascia perspective. Surprise, surprise — the overlap was bigger than I expected. Working on deep connective tissue takes a lot of time and money. Yoga stretches long chains all at once: the entire back line, the front line, the spiral lines. That’s where the strength of yoga lies.
What a physiotherapist values in yoga
I have a back injury in my own history and I’m constantly trying to keep learning. I spend hours moving, mobilizing, stretching. It often goes like this: I think I’ve discovered something new — and then it hits me that I’m doing a fairly ordinary yoga pose. That’s no coincidence.
A regular stretch usually moves one muscle. A yoga pose demands coordination, balance and attention to your breathing all at once. It’s this combination that makes it therapeutically valuable. One colleague put it aptly: physiotherapy is really about training the brain — often an improvement in coordination alone is enough to get rid of the pain.
Skeptics accuse yoga of mysticism. An honest answer: there are many forms of yoga, and some of them verge on acrobatics. Everyone can find one that’s physical enough for them. And if focusing on your breathing counts as mysticism, then perhaps a little of that “mysticism” is exactly what you need to learn to listen to your body.
Practical tips before you start
Can you get injured doing yoga? Yes. I’ve overstretched a hamstring and a rotator cuff myself. At times I see more yoga-related complaints — the common thread is usually an inexperienced instructor. So here are a few rules I repeat to clients myself:
- Choose an experienced, trained instructor. Preferably one who can demonstrate the pose themselves.
- Don’t learn yoga from a book or from videos alone — at the beginning, feedback is essential.
- If you have a specific injury, first consult a physiotherapist or doctor about which movements you should avoid.
- Listen to your body. Strong pain is a signal to stop, not to “push through”.
Sometimes a couple of well-chosen poses are enough to noticeably reduce pain or improve function. The harder part is finding those poses on your own — and that’s where the instructor comes in.
FAQ
Does yoga go well alongside gym training?
Yes, and it often complements it well. Mobility and coordination improve, which in turn supports lifting technique and reduces the risk of injury.
How often should you do yoga?
For a beginner, 1–2 times a week is enough. If the goal is to improve mobility quickly, you can also do shorter 15–20-minute sessions every day — at home, following a plan given by your instructor.
What should you do if a pose causes pain?
Stop immediately. Talk to your instructor, modify the pose or skip it. If the pain persists, see a physiotherapist — it may be that avoiding that particular movement is the right decision.
Author: Georg Laasik
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