Hipjoint arthritis

If you breath well,
you will live long on the earth.
-Indian proverb

Last friday I met my lovely australian anatomy teacher Liza Fitzpatrick. A wonderful person who has taught me so much about my body and its bones, muscles, nerves, joints and ligaments. Liza is marvellous, I adore her.

Thanks to Lizas thorough explanations, I got many answers. One, among many, question was to support my ashtanga yogini in Finland who suffers from hipjoint arthritis. Ashtanga yoga has a dynamic flow and you have lots of repetative poses. In yoga we aim at having the same amount of balance, flexibility and strength. Being too tight, too flexible or too strong is not good. We want to be able to practice yoga even after we turn 80, instead of getting injured and not being able to practice at all.

A strong body usually has a lack of flexibility and is vuleranable to injury which can lead to the joints getting affected. A flexible body can also be a problem for the joints. You can overstretch a too tight joint and get a worn out cartilage. Then the joint loses its flexibility.

90% of all of us will by the age of 60 have some kind of arthritis. It may develop in the hips, knees and fingers. But we may be exposed to this hipjoint issue before the 60+ age.

1. People who have a stiff body and haven´t exercised a lot over the years. When they begin exercising they have "an aged body" which suffers from movements they aren´t used to doing.

2. Secondary arthritis develops for people who have traumatised their joints for a long time. Doing the same repetative posture with too much overstretching. We need to be careful, not do too much and push our flexibility.

We can prevent ourselves from arthritis.
Theraphy: heat, warm the body, various exercise to make a balanced way for the body. Swimming is recommended instead of repetative running on a hard surface. Gentle skiing is ok as long as you don´t push yourself too much or end up offpist.

Breathing is the best friend. When you connect with your breath you wont get injured because of the nervous system is adopting the pose nicely. Losing control of the breath makes us loose control with the body and stretching. We need to build a breathing bridge between our flexibility and strength.

A session at the chiropractor isn´t recommended. The joints gets cracked and traumatized which develops the secondary arthritis.

Remember the key for injuries:
24 h of pain is still ok.
A couple of days and weeks of pain is a serious signal from the body;
you have pushed too hard.