This entry was published on March 14, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
I regularly offer hip workshops in various teacher training courses in the region where I live. As a recipient of bilateral hip replacements, I learned a lot about poses and ways of approaching asanas promoting a healthy yoga practice, and what does not. Being a bone bone in your hip joints provides an undoubted signal to know when to proceed or back.
In a training, a student who had taught in a fitness studio asked a very important question. She explained that one of her students became unusually flexible before ovulation. This occurs in many women due to the presence of “relaxin”, a hormone that relaxes ligaments that maintain the various joints of the pelvis joints, sacroiliac joints and pubic symphisia. The teacher said that she had encouraged the student to go further in the poses at this period of her cycle because she was already more flexible. “Should I continue to do this?” She asked.
Thirty years ago, I would have said yes. In fact, I encouraged women to enjoy their flexibility induced by relaxin during pregnancy. No more.
Ligaments are not supposed to be flexible
Fortunately, the third (!) Time I took the anatomy, the importance of understanding the structures of ligaments and stretched tendons. Ligaments are dense fibrous fabrics designed for limit the movement of our joints.
Please repeat this three times: the main function of ligaments is to limit the movement of our joints.
This is also very important: ligaments and tendons are avascular, that is to say containing any blood flow. Oxygen and other nutrients diffuse into ligaments and cell tendons outside the tissues. Because these structures must be strong, they are mainly collagen fibers with a certain elastin to create a small amount of stretching.
Don’t get into your body!
Have you ever walked the ankle? How long did it take to heal and never returned to its old stability? When you enter the ankle, you have overcome ligaments. Because the fabric is avascular, it does not heal as quickly as the muscle. Ligaments do not have the “memory” of what muscle tissue has. When you have exaggerated the ligaments, there is a good chance that they do not bounce over their old length.
If the ligaments are supposed to protect the joints by limiting their movement, the continuously stretched joints can cause joint instability over time. I know a number of serious practitioners who now have her fifties, including myself – who regrets having overloaded our articulations at the time. Too many long -standing practitioners now have artificial joints to replace those they have overused. These fanciful people are back when they were not worth their consequences.
Flexible people have a much stronger tendency to overcome joints than more rigid people. Armed with omnipresent philosophy “no pain, no gain”, we tend to continue to stretch until we feel pain. Because we do not feel much in the normal amplitude of movements, we collapse in our joints where there is a lot of sensation. Not only has this exceeded our ligaments, but it leads us to hang or push in our joint capsules, which can carry the cartilage which protects our joints and keeps them gently.
The counter-intuitive answer for a healthy yoga practice
My advice to the student’s question was to encourage his student to protect his joints, to do less rather than more. Counter-intuitive, I know, especially when many Asana lessons encourage people to go beyond their limits and to rock these fantasy poses. If a person’s ligaments are unstable due to a relaxin infusion – or by excessive heat or any other external factor – this creates an imbalance in the joints.
You would not encourage a yoga student linked to the muscles to try to stiffen. Likewise, an overly flexible student does not benefit from becoming even more flexible. Too much flexibility is just as unhealthy, it’s too stiffness. The balance is what we are looking for in the practice of Asana. Familiarize yourself with what the normal amplitude of movements looks like.
Gently stretch for a healthy yoga practice
By all means, practice to maintain flexibility in your muscles, and remember that it takes 30 seconds of continuous stretching for your muscle spindle neuron to allow your muscle to get used to a new longer length. So take your time and be sweet. When you feel tissue stretching along the bones – as long as this stretch is not extreme – it’s probably healthy. When you feel discomfort in a joint, stop doing what you do. And please protect the future joints of your students by teaching them the difference.
If you want to explore this further, my book Asana Hip-Healthy provides anatomical information, practical advice and a Hip Health Pose list.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and started teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyding Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. His third book is entitled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Pratitioner’s Guide to Protect of the Hips and Avoid Si Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly chronicle for Catalyst Magazine and is online Yoga U publisher. Charlotte is a founding member of the board of directors of Greentree Yoga, a non -profit organization that brings yoga to poorly served populations. Musician for life, Charlotte plays an oboe and an English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and the Sextuant Folk Red rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy Awards.