Popping Joints In Yoga Practice? Here’s What It Means
![With regular yoga practice and other movement modalities joints can work better.](https://media.yogauonline.com/app/uploads/2023/08/07214525/0-With-regular-yoga-practice-and-other-movement-modalities-joints-can-work-better.webp)
Article At A Glance
Has the sound of popping joints ever surprised you? Cracking and popping, even sounds like grinding, can be disconcerting. Don’t worry! These sounds don’t mean your body’s falling apart. Let’s look at the science behind why this might happen—and what you may do about it.
Has the sound of popping joints ever surprised you when you move? You may wonder if anyone else can hear it. Cracking and popping joints, even sounds like grinding, can be disconcerting. Don’t worry! These sounds don’t mean your body’s falling apart. Let’s look at the science behind why this might happen—and what you may do about it.
Why Do Our Joints Make Noise?
Your joints and muscles are always at work. They have to remain flexible and strong enough for all the bending, lifting, and straining our daily activities require from us. Unfortunately, joints wear down over time and muscle imbalances occur with continuous use, leading to a common issue: joints making noises.
If you hear a noise coming from a joint, it’s usually because the two bones coming together don’t sit quite right for several reasons. Under most circumstances, these noises can be completely normal, signifying nothing more than your joints needing a bit of tender loving care.
The Science Behind Popping Joints
The fluid in your joints comprises a gel substance and gas, including oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. If you compress your joint and move close to the end of your range, there is often enough pressure to release this gas, resulting in a popping sound. Bones rubbing against each other will make a grinding sound.
And if your muscles and fascia are tight or there is an imbalance in muscle length or strength across a joint, you may hear clicking or even a pop as your tendons move over your bones or if your bones aren’t aligned during movement.
While joint noises like popping, clicking or grinding may seem concerning, especially if it is a new sound or occurring more frequently, it’s usually nothing to be alarmed about—unless you have pain.
What If There’s Pain in Your Popping Joints?
If you’re experiencing physical pain alongside a strange noise, that’s a different story. This means you’re irritating either the soft tissue surrounding the joint or the joint itself and you should probably get it checked out.
Joint Care 101 in Yoga and Movement
Regardless of whether you have pain with your joint noise, having a professional assess the way you move is great preventative medicine. Physical therapists are a great place to start because analyzing movement is what we do! An assessment may include muscle testing, range of motion testing, and a functional movement screen. A functional movement screen is a quick and thorough way to determine if you move ideally or have developed compensations that could result in strain to your joints..
Once you learn where you compensate or move non-optimally, you can begin to focus on key areas to maintain muscle balance and flexibility across your joints. There’s no guarantee the noise will go away, but at least you’ll know you’re not setting yourself up for injury.
Yoga and Joint Health
Yoga practice can help you keep your joints happy, as long as you don’t try to push beyond a healthy range of motion. In yoga practice, we often think that more stretch is better. But it’s important to remember that stretching our joints too far can destabilize them. When we overstretch the ligaments that connect the bones at joint sites, they tend not to bounce back. This can cause long-term destabilization that can lead to noisy joints.
Our shoulders and hips are the most mobile joints in the body. Yoga for healthy hip joints can help you maintain the balance between stability and mobility. Yoga can also help keep our shoulder joints balanced, again, as long as we approach practice with mindful care.
Keep Moving: Prevention Beats a Cure
To stay on top of your fitness and health, don’t underestimate the value of movement. Moving in a variety of ways—yoga, walking, dancing, etc.—is a great way to challenge your body and maintain a healthy balance of strength, flexibility, and motor control. It’s equally important to do other things you’d consider healthy like staying hydrated, getting quality sleep and eating well. Because if you don’t feel good, you won’t feel motivated to move!
Seek Professional Guidance for Solving Popping Joints
Joint noise doesn’t always mean you’re in trouble. But if you have concerns about strange sounds coming from your joints, seek professional guidance.
Remember, staying active and maintaining muscle balance are important for keeping your joints healthy throughout your life. Although there’s no perfect exercise prescription for maximal joint health, variety is the spice of life (and also good for your joints). So keep moving in lots of different ways to keep your joints happy!
Also, read...
The Anatomy of a Backbend: How to Prep Your Spine for More Easeful Backbends
Dec 18 – Jennie Cohen, E-RYT 500
Easy Pose in Yoga: How to Sit on the Floor Comfortably
Nov 13 – Joe Miller
Should You Square Your Hips in Warrior II?
Nov 02 – Joe Miller
Related courses
Journey to Center: A Yoga Guide to Unlock the Full Potential of Your Core
With Judith Hanson Lasater
Yoga for Healthy Hips: Principles for a Safe Practice
With Doug Keller
The Essential Trinity of the Body: The Role of the 3 Diaphragms
With Leslie Howard
Need an Energy Makeover? How Yoga Can Help You Boost Vitality
With Olga Kabel
Reprinted with permission from trptwellness.com
![christine carr](https://media.yogauonline.com/app/uploads/2022/06/06031818/Christine-Carr-1-150x150.webp)
Christine Carr, c-IAYT, eRYT 500 has been a physical therapist for over 20 years. In her youth, she was constantly hurting herself. This motivated her to learn how to recover from injury and heal herself, naturally. She loves to learn. Studying the human body, and mind and how they function together is exciting to her. She has a diverse academic background with experience that includes orthopedics, yoga, and functional medicine. She enjoys teaching others how to recover from injury, manage their condition, and improve their function and performance.
Christine enjoys any and all sports available in this beautiful area or kicking back with a good book in her spare time. She has recently started gardening, though she said she has much to learn!
Recent articles
Yoga Modifications for Pregnancy: 4 Ways to Safely Modify Savasana
Jan 29 – By: Karina Norton
Yoga Pose Photos: The Yoga World Has a PR Problem
Jan 27 – Alexandria Crow
Categories
Upcoming courses
Journey to Center: A Yoga Guide to Unlock the Full Potential of Your Core
With Judith Hanson Lasater
Yoga for Healthy Hips: Principles for a Safe Practice
With Doug Keller
Free Download!
Recent articles
Almost there...
Sorry, we couldn't find anything...
Back Pain
Low Back Pain or Sacroiliac Joint Pain? How to Tell the Difference and Why It Matters
How do you tell the difference between low back pain and SI joint pain?…
Jan 31 – By:
Prenatal
Yoga Modifications for Pregnancy: 4 Ways to Safely Modify Savasana
Yoga modifications for pregnancy are important to keep in mind, even for seemingly passive…
Jan 29 – By: Karina Norton
Yoga News
Yoga Pose Photos: The Yoga World Has a PR Problem
Yoga pose photos are inescapable in the yoga community. Scroll through a hashtag or…
Jan 27 – Alexandria Crow