Ages and Stages: A Yoga Perspective on How the Body Changes as We Grow - And What Can Be Done About It

The initial concept for Ages and Stages was developed from my study of anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology and through studying fascia's characteristics and its properties. 

With over 25 years of experience as both a yoga student and teacher, and as a hands-on neuromuscular therapist, the Ages and Stages theory has been confirmed and reconfirmed through the survey of countless numbers of yoga students and therapy clients.

We all age at different times and in different stages depending upon a multitude of different factors such as genetic makeup; extrinsic environmental factors such as the air we breathe and the food we eat; the amount of physical stress that we experience from life's accidents both big and small; and intrinsic factors such as how we assimilate work and family stress; and the amount of appropriate exercise we do (or don't do).

It is undeniable that our bodies change as we age and that eventually, the body dies. Notwithstanding the principles of normal ageing, I have theorized that the average human body goes through physiological "ages and stages." After reading this material, you might ask yourself if the Ages and Stages theory applies to you.

There is a nifty little mechanism in your body that helps to facilitate your  healing process. When ill, but especially when injured, your body tightens up in order to protect itself from further injury. This mechanism contracts the fascia of your body; which is basically, the connective tissue surrounding your entire body from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. Fascia is directly under your skin and also surrounds and encapsulates virtually every muscle and muscle group, and every organ and every gland in your body.

The first "transition" in human physiology occurs somewhere around the age of 28-32. Prior to this first threshold, your body is fairly resilient. When your body has been traumatized whether from injury or illness, your body quickly heals and you get on with the business of life. However, after the age of about 28-32, and about every ten years thereafter, there is a natural contracting of your overall fascia. The “bag that holds your body together” begins to tighten up; it becomes less resilient. 

 Have you noticed that after your first “transition” (that is, as you moved through the age of 28-32), you began to “re-experience” injuries you thought were long-ago healed? As you go through additional ten-year thresholds, you might notice that you experience more and more of these older injuries. Not withstanding old injuries, have you noticed that as you go through these ages and stages, your body does not respond as quickly or as lithely as it once did before that last ten-year “transition.”

The very same mechanism that protects you when you are injured is the very same mechanism that causes you to re-experience your old injuries as you age. Notwithstanding actual injury or illness, about every ten years after the age of 28-32, your fascia contracts even more. Additionally, emotional stress also contributes to fascia's contraction. 

 Here is another way to look at this phenomenon. When an animal in nature is injured, it simply looks for a dark and quiet place in which to lie quietly and to allow nature to take its course; for it to heal or die. Assuming the animal was reasonably healthy before its injury, there is every reason to believe that it would heal and get on with its life. 

Another thing about animals in nature; they are always stretching. They stretch when they first arise from sleeping and they stretch often during the day. Overall, animals in nature take pretty good care of themselves. With the exception of some higher primate species, including humans, animals live pretty much “in the present,” seemingly wanting to avoid personal and extraneous environmental stress. 

 Not so with us humans. When injured or ill, we almost always prematurely  resume our active and busy lifestyles before we fully recover. And in so doing, fascia will continue to contract in order to protect us from further damage. In addition to illness and injury, the stress from our daily lives also causes our fascia to contract. Thus, as we age and as we both take on life's responsibilities with its multitude of physical and emotional trauma, fascia contracts.

When we can appreciate that fascia will contract when it is stimulated; be it from injury, illness, stress, or from the natural process of living and ageing, we can begin to appreciate why an effective and appropriate yoga practice can have such a profound affect upon our body and mind.

 When we recognize that stimulation only contracts soft tissue (remembering that fascia is a soft tissue which responds to stimulation in part due to Hilton’s Law), it makes absolutely no sense to force our yoga, or to “try” to get our body to become flexible; especially if our body is injured, ill, or after it has gone through one or more of the age transitions. I ask you if even the slightest "forcing" or "trying" further traumatizes an already traumatized body, where is the "yoga" in that?

This is not to say an appropriate yoga must be always be passively or softly practiced. An appropriate practice must be performed in such a way that appropriately challenges a person's "current" or "present" physiology. Obviously, an appropriate yoga practice would be considerably different for a physically fit person as compared to that of a chronically ill or injured student.

When you, as a yoga teacher offer a student an yoga exercise or routine, the operative questions remain: What is yoga and How does it feel? Both ExTension and Recovery Yoga are all about learning how to appropriately practice and teach in a way that supports changing physiology; be it through illness, injury, or just the natural process of growing older.

Appropriate practice and teaching are not done by rote. Appropriate practice and teaching is based upon the knowledge and application of neuromuscular principles and laws which moves you toward nature's balance of strength, endurance, and flexibility. And through that balance, you will also move toward enhanced spirituality.

This article was written by Sam Dworkis, author of ExTension Yoga and Recovery Yoga Books available on the right. See his site at www.extensionyoga.com .