Yoga advice. Tight hamstrings and lower back pain

You we’re over doing it, then you dialed it back and regressed a little. That’s fine. Now just keep going but don’t push to discomfort. Yogas not meant to be that way. If you stay consistent with this approach eventually everything will loosen.

I don't know about your hamstrings, but about your lower back, are you contracting your abs(core) when doing asanas? It should feel very tight, as when you brace them to protect yourself from a punch to the stomach. If you don't you're putting your lower back into unsafe positions and that's why it hurts most likely.

Aquarius wrote:

I don't know about your hamstrings, but about your lower back, are you contracting your abs(core) when doing asanas? It should feel very tight, as when you brace them to protect yourself from a punch to the stomach. If you don't you're putting your lower back into unsafe positions and that's why it hurts most likely.

I figured as much that being in an awkward position is unsafe but so I've been trying to keep my back straight as much as possible but I noticed it didn't feel right either. I started with your advice now and will come back with feed back after a few days or a week of doing it this way. So far it seems to be good! :)

I just gotta let my body recover all day way first and I'm sure I'll feel it more if it works for me or not. I'm still doing yoga but I'm down to doing it only once a day instead of twice until I recover fully which should be in the next day or so. I'll go back to twice after.

Eric13 wrote:

You we’re over doing it, then you dialed it back and regressed a little. That’s fine. Now just keep going but don’t push to discomfort. Yogas not meant to be that way. If you stay consistent with this approach eventually everything will loosen.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not an expert on this whatsoever so feedback from y'all was really needed especially since outside sources were telling me dumb shit like "stop stretching your hamstrings all together and just focus on having the correct pelvic position" which the latter by itself is fine advice but the first part is just completely illogical.

I'll make sure to suck it up and take my time instead of being impatient lol. The time for the yoga session itself isn't the problem since I can literally do yoga for an hour to two hours since I can zone out listening to music or in complete silence while doing certain beginner asanas. Doing asanas that focus on the hamstrings like the straddle and the forward bend along with stretching each individual leg while in those positions takes me 30 minutes since I'm doing it for 5 minutes each. It's the time it's going to take until I reach a good level of flexibility that made me push too hard.

I really want to be flexible and be adept in yoga and perhaps become a master and go on to teach it so I guess I got too impatient like I said lol.

Try these Yogic positions to open up your hips:

Also, assume the Lotus position, and bend forward. This is a big curing Asana for the lower back and lower back pain.

HP. Zevios Metathronos wrote:

Try these Yogic positions to open up your hips:

Also, assume the Lotus position, and bend forward. This is a big curing Asana for the lower back and lower back pain.

I didn't even know my hips were this bad... I can hardly do any of those poses. The one I can relax in for a long period of time is the top pic. The other 2 got progressively harder by a lot lol. I'll be adding all of 4 of the asanas you mentioned though. I had this strong feeling that I was missing something. The only thing I was doing for my hips was an attempt at a split and sometimes I would just roll my hips around like one does when warming up before exercising, playing sport etc. I did notice it was tight and felt it was connected to my hamstrings so I focused on that first.

Silly of me I know but I tend to do this unfortunately.. but anyways thank you very much!

It's very tight there at the moment but dang does it feel good after and a little during so I'm excited and happy to continue doing these asanas.

hailourtruegod wrote:

Any advice on how to properly do asanas that aims at the hamstrings without having sore hamstrings afterwards OR the lower back being in pain after coming out of that asana. The latter I can compare the pain and the cramps to that when you sit on a hard floor for too long and try to stretch out your spine straight once you stand up. Hope that makes sense.

Seems to be the only area I'm personally having trouble with.

I turned the dial down a bit and don't stretch as hard anymore but now my hamstrings just feel tight again and if not tighter. If I want to get a deep good stretch I end up hurting my lower back which is another problem.

Is my hamstrings being sore like my body fighting back from wanting to be in a familiar state of stiffness? And am I just doing something wrong all together when I stretch too far in those asanas which is why I get the lower back pain?

Do you have any physical health symptoms as well? Chronic tightness or soreness from a region usually indicates an imbalance with that organ or meridian. In this case, the lower back houses the kidneys, and their meridian runs down the back of the legs, similar to where the hamstrings are.

In this case, you will want to look at your health and see if you have any kidney symptomsExternal ↗. This website is good for diagnosis, even if the coloring makes it hard to read. Try to see if any of the symptoms of kidney yang or yin deficiency apply.

As far as yoga goes, like others mention, take it easy. The pose itself should not hurt or harm you in any way. What I would recommend is holding these specific poses for longer, giving the tissues more time to stretch, and adding more energy back into the meridians.

Blitzkreig wrote:

Do you have any physical health symptoms as well? Chronic tightness or soreness from a region usually indicates an imbalance with that organ or meridian. In this case, the lower back houses the kidneys, and their meridian runs down the back of the legs, similar to where the hamstrings are.

In this case, you will want to look at your health and see if you have any kidney symptomsExternal ↗. This website is good for diagnosis, even if the coloring makes it hard to read. Try to see if any of the symptoms of kidney yang or yin deficiency apply.

As far as yoga goes, like others mention, take it easy. The pose itself should not hurt or harm you in any way. What I would recommend is holding these specific poses for longer, giving the tissues more time to stretch, and adding more energy back into the meridians.

Pinched nerve (sciatic nerve pain) and flat feet. For the first one it's way better than when I first got it 5 years ago. There's times where I go days or even weeks without feeling it and only sometimes I feel a slight pain and pressure and I think it's actaully on the days where I feel the most tight in my lower body. I could be wrong tho.

The beginning of this year I started treating the flat feet and have been doing feet stretches and rolling the middle part of my feet on a tennis ball for both feet Also been focusing on having a way better posture since the flat feet was the cause of spine problems. A quick and easy example of the spine shape I was getting was that on like Trump. There's photos of how he stands pointing this out and I think it's cause he has flat feet and never did anything about it.

Anyways I noticed I was getting that type of shape even if I tried to stand straight but since finding out flat feet causes other problems I've been having way better posture in a natural manner instead of forcing myself.

Sorry for the rant but I feel this might relevant.

Thank you very much for the link. I looked and saw I do have kidney yin deficiency and looked up treatments and all I got so far is some good everyday advice like not smoking or what types of foods to eat or not eat for my body type.

I was planning on visiting a TCM doctor irl and was considering acupuncture for my hamstrings. Looks like I might need to focus on the kidney though. It's comforting having some more insight on what's wrong before I go.

My fire element is weak at the moment too. I've done things to better it over the years like kundalini yoga. Once I'm done with the current 90 day working I've been doing then I was planning on empowering my fire element with some sun squares focusing on my solar chakra and another working with the words of power you've recommended to others to empower their fire. I feel like this might contribute to it somehow? Regardless I'll be making another post asking for some help on this working once I have the chance to start it which will be in about 3 weeks.

Alright it's been a few weeks and yes it's been going well. It took a while to get rid of the annoying tight feeling since I take it easy now but the results seem to becoming permanent and also I'm not experiencing that lower back pain anymore.

On the hips, my intuition (I'm finally realizing this) has told me for years my hips were tight. I look back now and some things make sense now as to why certain things popped in my mind that had to do with my hips. I feel way more loose and there's a big spring in my steps now that I haven't felt in decades or if ever. Maybe when I was a bebe since we're more flexible during that time. I can start running with a fast start instead of building up and I can throw certain kicks way easier without stretching first. (Which is something I had a problem with because I didn't ever want to get into a street fight where I had to stretch first to do the kicks I know how to do or get tight half way thru which happened twice during a sparring match and I ended up falling on my own after doing a high roundhouse kick lmaoo. Good thing I was on a soft mat)

Thanks again fellas for helping me reach this milestone. I could literally cry right now :lol: but I won't >.> .

I'll give another update at a later date.

HAIL ZEUS!

HP. Zevios Metathronos wrote:

Try these Yogic positions to open up your hips:

Also, assume the Lotus position, and bend forward. This is a big curing Asana for the lower back and lower back pain.

I didn't save these pics like I should have. They're not visible for me anymore even if I go the desktop version on my device. I also wanted to ask if anyone can do me a favor and name these positions for me so I can look them up on youtube to make sure I'm doing them 100% correctly or at least attempting correctly. For example I want to make sure I'm not spreading my legs too far or not far enough apart on the crouching-like asana above.

hailourtruegod wrote:

For example I want to make sure I'm not spreading my legs too far or not far enough apart on the crouching-like asana above.

Malasana. I found the name of one so far.

The answer to this is yes. Big yes :/

Every single symptom except for the one for females,
of course. I have also been looking up symptoms before finding this thread again and it was leading to kidney related things and I finished on reading your reply again. Even repetitive dreams I have had over my lifetime seems to be tied to this as well.

At the time of this thread being made it was summer and these problems always become worse during the winter time. I can remember having this even as a teen and probably before.

Idk if it's worse or if I'm more in tune with my body than before, a lot more, but I do feel all these symptoms even more now.

I'm way more flexible and fitter than even when I wrote this thread a 1.5 years ago.

Most bad habits have been stopped while a few I have barely stopped but I know I can stop these bad habits from now on and going further thanks to workings and meditation which has got me feeling my body out better and thus stay away from junk that are bad for my body or doing bad habits.

I'm not sure if I writing my history with Kidney Yin deficiency is necessary but I rather do some of it privately (which I have make another email as I lost the password to my proton I emailed you with before) if have to.

I was searching the health forum on kidney topics and have learned about the spleen 6 and kidney 3. I pressed these for several minutes last night and they did calm the symptoms down. I still felt them as lately the symptoms have been pretty bad but calmed slightly after pressing those points.

I have a Sun Square planned once the opportunity comes around for general better health. I'm guessing it has to be a physical one?

Looked into the foods to help raise kidney yin and will do my best to eat these.

If you or any other member can add anything else I would more than appreciate it.

Blitzkreig [JG wrote:

" post_id=275150 time=1629051722 user_id=21286]
Do you have any physical health symptoms as well? Chronic tightness or soreness from a region usually indicates an imbalance with that organ or meridian. In this case, the lower back houses the kidneys, and their meridian runs down the back of the legs, similar to where the hamstrings are.

In this case, you will want to look at your health and see if you have any kidney symptomsExternal ↗. This website is good for diagnosis, even if the coloring makes it hard to read. Try to see if any of the symptoms of kidney yang or yin deficiency apply.

As far as yoga goes, like others mention, take it easy. The pose itself should not hurt or harm you in any way. What I would recommend is holding these specific poses for longer, giving the tissues more time to stretch, and adding more energy back into the meridians.

It's been a while since I've been on the health forums and looked thru the topics and so I barely saw centralforces pinned thread. I'll be looking into his services as that seems to be better instead of making it difficult trhu here.

hailourtruegod wrote:

....

The yang power of the kidneys is primarily ruled by Mars. Venus impacts the yin side, although it is the vital aspect of Mars which powers the health side of the kidneys, both yin and yang. The Sun empowers everything, including both one's Mars and Venus energies, but working on your Mars will give the most direct results as far as kidney weakness goes.

For health, HPS Pythia has listed vitality as a spiritual aspect, but I have seen it go either way. I know of members who have done material squares for health, and I have done spiritual ones for health and have gotten good results.

Mars is currently in Gemini, but this would still give some result if you used it specifically for health. Otherwise, either use Thurisaz on a good date. March 6th is a great date, and March 5th is also an example of a good date.
Mars in Leo can also be used, starting on May 23rd.

Both Jupiter in Aries and Jupiter in Taurus can be done as squares for the purpose of health. I had done an Aries one for vitality and it helped, although it seemed liver focused, rather than kidney focused. This is fine though, because the kidneys and liver are connected in TCM philosophy.

Jupiter in Taurus, and other energies like Venus/Moon in Taurus, and the Sun in Taurus, are useful for health, but these impact mainly the yin side of the body and soul. These are definitely useful in their own ways, but don't ignore the pure fire energies in regards to health.

-------------------------

The acupressure points are a great way to mitigate some of your symptoms, although acupressure does not raise your total vitality, but it does direct it into problematic areas of the body.

I would look into other yang yoga like the Tibetan 5 Rites, which stimulates both the stomach and the kidneys. This would be a big complement to hatha yoga. Exercise is always the best way to generate more yang energy. You can also look up Kidney/Water element (TCM's element philosophy) - style yoga.

If you ever feel too hot from yang style yoga, then use the acupoints to cool off first. Speaking of cooling off, although the winter time is associated with increased kidney activity, it is ultimately a season of contraction and reduced vitality. This can aggravate existing yang deficiencies.

Blitzkreig [JG wrote:

" post_id=423594 time=1676100250 user_id=21286]

Thank you brother I will start the Tibetan rites asap and will mark down the date to start a health working. Glad it's right around the corner. I should be done with the current 90 day working around that time as well.