Quick Question: Why Do My Bones Crack When I Do Tai Chi?

Once you start to get into tai chi, you will probably find that snap, crackle and pop are not just part of a nutritious breakfast - they are sounds that accompany almost every workout. Where do these sounds come from? And is it okay to be snapping, crackling and popping?

Before I answer the question, I just want to caution you that cracking, snapping, and popping in your joints is not okay if it is accompanied by sharp pain - or any kind of pain, really. Ask your teacher for help if you ever experience any kind of pain during tai chi. If the popping is painless, then you are experiencing something totally normal and even great. 

According to a rather old article published at Scientific American online, cracking sounds can relate to one of two causes: a release of gas from the fluid that naturally cushions your joints, or a snapping of tendons and ligaments back into their correct places as you move the joint. I tend to think that the snapping and crackling you get during tai chi is much more likely to be the latter rather than the former. 

The thing to understand about your joints is that over time, the ligaments that connect bone to bone in your skeleton and the tendons that connect your muscles to your bones become tighter. A small degree of tightening over time can be the result of aging, but it is more usually related to sedentary behaviour. When you don't acheive a full range of motion in each joint on a regular basis, the ligaments and tendons naturally get shorter. Reason number one million that your body is a use it or lose it proposition.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, take a look at this x-ray of a healthy human hand:

  

See the black spaces between the joints of the fingers?  Those aren't empty: they are occupied by cartilage, which doesn't tend to show up on an x-ray. This spaciousness between the joints is what you want. With that cushion of cartilage in place, your bones won't rub on each other, and chances are the joint will remain healthy and pain-free. 

When your tendons and ligaments get tight, they draw the two ends of the bones together. Eventually, what you get is compression of the joint. The cartilage thins, and you end up with rubbing between the ends of the bones. 

This is an x-ray of the finger of a person with osteoarthritis: 

The official word on osteoarthritis to date suggests that it is of mysterious origin, but I've been taught that the major cause is the drawing together of the joints because of tendon and ligament tightening.

When it comes to the spine, this tightening can be quite dramatic. Here's a normal cervical spine - aka neck. Look at the spaces between the vertebrae. Each of those spaces contains a cushion of cartilage that contains fluid to ease the impact of any jarring that occurs to the spine. These cushions are also called "discs."

You've probably heard of "herniated" or "slipped" discs. These occur when the spaces between the vertebrae become narrow, and the disc is squished out of place, or tears and the fluid leaks out. This is an MRI image of a herniated disc (source).

See that bulge? That's the edge of the disk squishing up against the spinal cord. Yikes, right? This kind of squishing occurs because the tendons and ligaments along the spine become tight over time. The medical community will tell you that this is a consequence of aging, but more properly it is a consequence of a lifetime of not moving enough.

The whole point here is that if you stretch the tendons and ligaments, you can increase the space between the joints. Tai chi is great for all your joints - I've used it to stay pain free despite some extremely serious joint injuries. It is especially wonderful for achieving increased range of motion through the hips and shoulders, and for stretching out the spine. I'd be willing to bet that the bone cracking you experience during tai chi is most intense in the shoulders, hips, back and neck.

That cracking is the tendons and ligaments popping back into place as you elongate your joints. It can also be the bones themselves popping back into correct alignment - the tendons and ligaments can pull them out of place when they are tight. 

At first, these noises can be a bit disturbing. Over time, though, you'll come to look forward to them. Hey, people pay a lot of money to chiropractors to achieve the same effect! Once you get the hang of stretching in tai chi, you can put yourself back in alignment fairly reliably. If your back or neck feels out of whack, a quick tai chi set will usually remedy it.

Your joints will thank you.

Can I Learn Tai Chi from a DVD?

There are so many fitness DVDs out there. They seem to offer all the benefits of a gym in the comfort of your home and with ultimate convenience. Just pop in a DVD and you're on your way to learning pilates, yoga, a new kind of strength training, or the latest, most innovative aerobic technique.

The question seems inevitable: can you learn tai chi from a DVD?

The short answer to this question is no, you can't, and it's not a good idea to try.

Why is that?

There is more - much more - to tai chi than what you can see on the surface, especially if you've never had instruction before. What goes on inside the body of a tai chi practitioner is much more complex than you would think. With each movement, the spine turns and stretches, the organs shift, and the feet connect with the ground in a much more profound way than most people ever experience. On the outside, you might see the practitioner turning his or her hand so that the palm faces outward. On the inside, there is a whole series of techniques at work to make that turning happen. The hand is connected to the spine and foot, and nothing moves independently.

In order to begin to see the connections - and most importantly, to feel them for yourself - you need an instructor who can see what you're doing and tell you how to deepen it. You need someone to explain it to you.

An instructor is also there to help make sure that you don't injure yourself as you learn tai chi. Every body is different, and everyone has a different set of physical limitations. It is easy to injure yourself, especially in the beginning, by doing the movements incorrectly.

I'll say that again: it is easy to injure yourself if you are doing tai chi incorrectly. Many people think that tai chi is "gentle" and "simple." But if you really go for it, it can be a wonderfully challenging workout. And a movement that's just a few degrees off of correct can result in muscle strains and tears.

Even a small difference in a movement can translate into an injury. An instructor will answer your questions about any discomfort you may experience, will watch to make sure you're not doing anything that will hurt you, and will show you the correct way to perform each step in the tai chi set.

When you find a good teacher, you have an invaluable resource for information and help as you learn tai chi. You have someone who cares about your wellbeing, and will work with you to make sure you reach your goals. You'll need that as you continue down the tai chi path, which is, after all, a path of self-discovery. That's much more than a DVD can offer.

Tai Chi as Meditation

These days, calling tai chi "moving meditation" is pretty much a cliché. If you've never tried tai chi, or you've learned from an instructor who hasn't gone beyond the superficial levels of tai chi, you might be wondering how moving slowly and stretching your body translates into meditation.

My experience with tai chi is that the meditation part of the exercise - uh, like the exercise part of the exercise - takes time to develop, and tends to go in stages. 

At first, when you're learning tai chi, it's a matter of getting your limbs to go in the right place. There is something about beginning tai chi practice that can take a perfectly well coordinated individual and turn him into a crazy, limbs-akimbo mess. Flailing through your first beginners lessons is common - and it's also the beginning of meditation, believe it or not. Your mind is so focused on not falling down, and maybe even on cursing yourself out for not getting it right away, it's impossible to focus on anything else! You've forgotten the argument you had with the person of your affections. You've forgotten the dry cleaning you're supposed to pick up after class. Gone are the worries about whether you look fat in your workout outfit. You've got bigger things to worry about now. At least you're worrying about whether you'll ever be comfortable doing tai chi instead of the things that normally bug you.

No, this is not true meditation. But in some ways, a change is as good as a rest when it comes to taming monkey mind.

Source: National Geographic Monkey Gallery

Once you do get a bit more comfortable doing tai chi, your mind becomes more focused on achieving certain goals: memorizing the set so you can do it at home; refining your technique; trying to keep the flow going from one movement to the next. Focusing on these tasks can bring you much more peace than wondering if you'll ever "get it" (you never will, by the way, because there's always more to learn). It's still not real meditation, but it should help you to calm and centre yourself.

After a while - for some people, a few months, for others, a few years - you'll start to feel that the tai chi set is part of your muscle memory. You'll learn to sink deeply into each movement, and you'll feel waves moving in and around your body as you work. That's qi - vital life energy that flows all around you and through you. When you first start to feel qi, it can be distracting. But the more you return your body to performing correct technique, and the more you focus your mind on the purpose of each movement, the more it will flow.

You're on your way to doing tai chi meditation.

As you practice, you'll begin to feel a deep calm. It will happen from time to time at first, but the more you can access that inner stillness, the more you'll feel like you're standing at the centre of a hurricane when you do tai chi. That still centre comes from relaxing, focusing the mind, and all that technique you've absorbed as you practiced. The hurricane is one you're creating, and it's your qi that's moving around and through you.

Now you're meditating.

And you aren't just the eye of the storm. You're the storm itself. And that is awesome. That's tai chi meditation.

Tai Chi and Diet

When you do any kind of exercise, it will change your body composition: that much is inevitable. In the long term, tai chi has an incredibly profound effect on your entire body, from the inside out. Your muscles and tendons become softer -- and, paradoxically, stronger. Your bone density will increase. You'll find your emotions are more balanced, and you'll be able to achieve a stronger mental focus. All of these changes are based on moving your body and focusing your mind in entirely new ways. To make the most of your tai chi, it's important to follow a few key dietary principles.

The diet recommendations I'm making here are based on my experience as a tai chi practitioner who works out six times a week, sometimes for three hours at a time. Your mileage may vary. You probably have different body composition and different energy tendencies than I do, so nothing here is absolute. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners recommend an incredibly wide variety of different foods and cooking styles, depending on your basic disposition and any symptoms you might have. As Victoria Dragon notes in her article on TCM & Diet for Acupuncture.com, one of the beauties of TCM is that it recognizes individuality in everything, including diet.

Needless to say, you shouldn't eat a food to which you are allergic or sensitive. If you think you have a food allergy, go get tested by an allergist.

In TCM, one of the core notions is following what's called a "pure, clear diet." This means natural food. It means whole food. It means that you won't get what you need from a frozen cube of tastelessness that you stick in the microwave each night. My tai chi classmates--the people who I've been training with for years now--have noticed that slowly, their tolerance for any processed foods has dropped way down. If you want to feed your body well, you need to cook.

When you're especially starving after a workout, it's tempting to grab the fastest, easiest source of calories. Back at the club where I first learned tai chi, people routinely ate cheap storebought cookies along with their tea during class breaks. But it's important not to gravitate toward simple sugar. A cookie or piece of cake will only leave you feeling draggy if you eat it after a workout, and over time, sugar stresses your entire energy system and causes spleen qi depletion. Don't deplete your spleen qi!

When I was first practicing, I craved pasta and other carbs after a workout. I would head home after the end of class at 10pm, cook a big pot of noodles, and eat them with some bread. Needless to say this was not the best idea, for my digestion or my energy level.

So what's ideal? As a baseline, you'll want to focus on lean proteins, whole grains, lots and lots of vegetables, and some fruit.

In TCM, eating raw veggies is generally speaking not considered the best idea. Raw veg makes your body work extra hard to digest it. I know there are a lot of raw foodists and general nutritionists out there who think it's a great idea to make your body work harder. If it wants calories, the logic seems to go, it has to slave to get them!

But the TCM approach suggests that the best way to keep your qi levels high is to give your body food that it doesn't have such a hard time with. Lightly steamed veggies are great. In the depths of winter, when it's absolutely freezing out, a hearty, root vegetable-laden stew is terrific for you, and will help you stay warm. When it comes to doing tai chi, which warms you greatly on the inside, a good rule is that warming foods are best.

Whole grains are the foundation of a good diet according to many TCM practitioners. I've been experimenting lately with starting my day with a bowl of porridge of some kind--whether it's brown rice porridge, oatmeal, quinoa, millet, or some other mystery grain, and I've found I have energy to burn and I stay full for hours and hours.

You'll find varying opinions on meat among TCM practitioners, but if you're going to do tai chi intensively, it's best to include some in your diet. I know, I know. A lot of people who are vegetarian are also attracted to activities like tai chi. But as a former vegetarian, I can tell you that it's next door to impossible to do tai chi and stay healthy on a vegetarian diet. Meat protein relaxes and nourishes your muscles and tendons in a way that vegetable protein sources, like beans or tofu, and even eggs and dairy, just can't accomplish. I speak from experience on this: I was vegetarian for 13 years before I started experimenting with adding a little bit of fish or chicken back into my diet, and the difference was incredible.

Generally speaking, you'll find your digestive tract is happier when you drink and eat foods that are room temperature or warmer, especially right after a workout or if you've been spending a lot of time meditating.

Good luck with your tai chi, and happy eating!