standing
strong Yoga can help those with osteoporosis and osteopenia maintain bone mass, build strength, and prevent injury. by Carol Krucoff | photography by David Martinez
Halfway through an eight-day teacher training, I began to feel
it: a dull throbbing in my right hip. For hours, I’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of 40 students, discussing how to make yoga safe and effective for older adults. In such a supportive environment, you’d think I’d have switched to a different position—or maybe even sat in a chair. Yet I stubbornly continued to return to Easy Pose, which I began to think of as Painful Pose, until getting up became so agonizing that I had to walk in circles to straighten out my hip. Welcome to my late 50s. Aging comes subtly. The risks and changes sometimes have a harbinger, like the pain in my hip, and sometimes they don’t. Signs such as graying hair, the softening underbelly of a chin, and joint stiffness are easy to see and feel. Yet other changes are completely hidden. Just after my 50th birthday, my physician suggested a bone-density scan since I had many risk factors for osteoporosis—including being a thin, postmenopausal woman with a family history