Hello! I am very new to yoga. I've been a distance runner for several years, and I started yoga to strengthen my body and to give me flexibility. I really thought I was taking it slowly, but I hurt my lower back quite severely while I was doing yoga. I've hurt my back a few times in the past, but never as severely as I did this last time. I was barely able to walk, and couldn't even run for over a week. My question is, how can I ensure that I am being careful with my back. I know that yoga if done properly is so good for me. But now I'm afraid I'm going to hurt my back again. Does anyone have any general advice or guidelines? I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, so any yoga that I do has to be from videos, website, books, or something such as that. I don't have any knowledgeable instructors that are near to my home. Thanks so much for any advice.

Sondra

Please read our info on back pain at:
http://www.yogabasics.com/learn/back-pain.html

It sounds like you need to heal your back first and then work on strengthening your core as well as having good alignment. Make sure you are not straining in your back bends or forcing your twists. In backbends you can "tuck the tailbone under" to help prevent strain.

Before doing any exercise, you will want to do low impact back stretches. Here is a video on how to do this: http://www.dahnyoga.com/what_is_new/dahnTV/details/1480/Back-Legs-and-Kidneys

Hope it helps.

Pam

I would not recommend the exercise Pam linked to for someone with an injured back. It seemed inappropriate since it wasn't a yoga technique or a "low impact back stretch" and the video itself was not coming from an therapeutic approach to healing back pain.