Do You Have Joint Pain?

I finished a private session this past week with a woman who was suffering from chronic shoulder joint pain, and she commented on how surprised she was that yoga has as much strength-building as it does flexibility.

This is a common misperception that I've heard a lot.

The myth that I believed for years was that I needed to stretch out my back pain to relieve it, but not until I was taught by my yoga therapist that I needed to strengthen the muscles around the joint to support it- which is what ultimately relieves the pain- did my chronic back pain heal.

According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), this earth season of late summer is the easiest and best time of year to build strength. Reason being each season's energetic frequency corresponds to a pair of organs that are energetically in high tide, a sense door that can reveal issues in those organs, and a bodily tissue that also holds that energetic frequency.

In the late summer, the Earth element energy corresponds to:

organs: stomach and spleen

sense door: mouth and lips (as cracked lips and canker sores reveal spleen issues)

bodily tissue: large muscle groups of abdomen and legs

Since the energy is strong now in the large muscles, it's the easiest time to build strength and relieve our chronic joint pain.

So after this private session, this new yogi was so impressed by how her shoulder moved much more easily, and her pain had disappeared. We started with shoulder mobility through some qigong sets, then built strength around the shoulder joints by holding planks and modified handstands against the wall, and then stretched the shoulders out with restorative backbends over blocks.

It's the winning combination to relieve chronic joint pain: mobility, strength building, and then flexibility.

And after living with joint pain, it's amazing how freeing it is, both physically and emotionally, when we relieve it with strong muscles that can hold and support the joints that are weighing us down. It literally makes us feel younger!

Hope to breathe with you soon.

From my heart to yours~

Namaste,

Maggie