Your low back in a hot room, what I tell every new student

If you've ever rolled up your mat after a hot flow with a quiet little ache low in your back, I want you to read this before your next class. You haven't done anything wrong. You're in good company, about four in five adults in the UK will have low back pain at some point, and we walk in with desk jobs, school runs, ten-hour shifts and a body that's been waiting all day to move.

Heat is wonderful, but it lies a little. At 38°C your muscles are more pliable and your nervous system is calmer, which is exactly why people fall in love with hot yoga. The catch is that the same heat dulls the small signals your body normally uses to say that's enough range, thank you. So we end up reaching a centimetre further into a forward fold than we'd choose on a cold morning, and the lumbar spine takes the bill.

Here's what I cue, every time.

Bend your knees in your first forward fold. Always. Even if you can palm the floor. The hamstrings attach onto the sitting bones, and when they're tight they pull the pelvis into a tuck, which rounds the lower back. Soft knees keep the pelvis free.

In standing poses, think "long" before "low". Warrior II is a posture, not a competition. If your front knee is collapsing inward or your tailbone is jutting back, you've gone too deep. Lift the back arch of the foot, draw the front hip back, breathe.

Updogs and cobras come from the upper back, not the lower. This is the one I repeat most. Press the tops of the feet down, lengthen the tailbone toward the heels, and let the bend live between the shoulder blades. If you feel a pinch in the lumbar spine, you've dropped the chest instead of lifting it.

The research is reassuring. A 2017 Cochrane review of 12 trials found yoga produced small-to-moderate improvements in back-related function and pain compared to no exercise, with effects similar to other exercise interventions (Wieland et al., Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2017). NICE guidelines for low back pain in the UK explicitly list yoga as a recommended group exercise option (NICE NG59).

So practise. Just practise honestly. Tell your teacher on the way in, every one of us would rather know than not, and if something pinches, back off two inches and breathe there. The pose will still be there next week.

If your back has been grumbling for more than a few weeks, please see your GP or a physio before adding heat to the mix. We can build around almost anything once we know what we're working with.

, Linzy