Paola Loriggio Special to the Star

It can help ease anxiety and insomnia, relieve back aches and arthritis pain, nurse injured limbs back to health and prevent them from getting hurt in the first place.

But yoga, often touted as a gentle workout and an alternative to more intrusive therapies, can cause as much damage as it is proclaimed to heal.

And those who most need yogas restorative effects older people with underlying conditions, for example are often the most at risk, some experts say.

Many forget that yoga is, first and foremost, a form of exercise, one with the same dangers as any other sport, says Angela Growse, a Toronto physiotherapist who has experienced firsthand the unfortunate consequences of a misstep.

People completely underestimate the potential for injury, she says.

Its easy to move beyond the physiological range of the body while performing postures, which can aggravate muscle imbalances and other weaknesses, she adds.

Torqued knees, snapped ligaments and pinched spinal discs are some of the agonizing results of a yoga class gone wrong, leading to months of misery and rehabilitation, possibly even surgery, she says.

Some damage is irreversible: for example, overstretched back ligaments cant always bounce back, Growse says. That laxity can limit the ability to do other activities, she says.

Part of the blame lies with a competitive culture that spurs people to shun beginner classes in favour of more hardcore advanced and intense sessions, she says.

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Yoga has healing and hurting powers