14 DAY TRIAL // A recent study in the journal BMJ Case Reports details how, not long ago, an otherwise perfectly healthy 39-year-old man broke his leg while doing yoga.
Mind you, the man didn't break just any bone. He snapped his thigh bone, which medical experts say happens not just to the longest and heaviest but also the strongest in the human body.
Doctors usually see such breaks in crash victims
The case report detailing this incident says that, when paramedics got to him and brought him to hospital, the man was unable to put any weight on his leg. Besides, the injury had rotated his lower limb and even made it shorter.
When the patient's leg was X-rayed, doctors discovered that he had a bad fracture to his femoral shaft, which is the body of the femur. Apparently, medical experts usually see such severe breaks in crash victims, not yoga practitioners.
In fact, the doctors who handled this case say that, to their knowledge, this man is the first ever to fracture his femur so badly doing yoga, a supposedly relaxing pastime activity.
The fracture was so bad specialists couldn't just put the 39-year-old's leg in a cast. Rather, they had to rush him into surgery and use a special rod and nails to put his bone in place. It took about five months for the man to recover and walk again.
Certain yoga poses can sometimes lead to injuries
The 39-year-old man is understood to have fractured his thigh bone while coming out of a yoga stance known as the Marichyasana posture B. Although he'd been practicing yoga for about two years when he attempted this pose, it looks like he had trouble coming out of it.
It was when he attempted to get up unattended that his thigh bone gave out. The man heard the bone crack and then pain shot through his leg. “He collapsed to the ground, was unable to put any weight on his leg, and was immediately brought to hospital by ambulance,” reads the case report, as cited by DM.
After doctors fixed his broken thigh bone, the man returned to practicing yoga. However, his doctors say that, following this incident, he made a promise to avoid any stances that might pose too big of a challenge for his body.