The number of yoga injuries is on the rise with record numbers of people taking up the exercise in search of health and tranquility.

A 2002 survey by IDEA, an international fitness organization, says yoga has had its greatest rate of growth over the past seven years.

The survey says 85 per cent of fitness facilities in North America had yoga classes in 2002 compared to only 31 per cent in 1995.

"I believe that people want to be more at peace with themselves since September 11," says Julie McNeney, vice president of marketing at The Fitness Group in Vancouver.

But popularity has its price. Yoga injuries are becoming more commonplace, according to family physicians.

Sports doctors and physiotherapists report a surge in muscle and ligament sprains, disk injuries and cartilage tears. They say it's similar to the wave they saw when high-impact aerobics became popular in the 1980s.

"Yoga is low impact, but that doesn't mean no impact," says Dr. Nicholas DiNubile of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine. DiNubile says he's treating a yoga injury every week compared to almost none five years ago.

The Kennedy Brothers Physical Therapy centres in Boston reports a quadrupling of patients with soft-tissue and joint injuries connected to yoga in the past year.

Yoga instructors say the increase in injuries is both a fault of students and bad teachers. Some students are overextending themselves and trying out difficult moves before they are ready. But some teachers aren't properly certified either.

No regulations of yoga teachers, schools

There are no regulations on yoga instructors in North America. Some may have certificates from yoga schools but the schools themselves aren't regulated either.

"There are some really bad teachers out there who have not had the proper training and don't understand what the spine is about," says Elizabeth Bunker who runs a yoga school in New Hampshire.

'I needed to go through a certain amount of painful stretching'

Bunker says she was horrified when she brought in a visiting teacher to an advanced class. During the session, the visitor sat on a student in a split position and broke her pelvic bone.

Some yoga teachers now require students to fill out a medical questionnaire. It's to help teachers determine how to modify yoga poses to accommodate the students' physical problems.

While some teachers err on the side of caution, others believe pain is part of the process.

Ashtanga yoga, known as power yoga, is especially difficult.

Teacher George Whiteside says he's suffered from wrist pain, hamstring pulls and most recently, a disk injury.

"Ashtanga yoga is very intense, rigorous," says Whiteside. "I needed to go through a certain amount of painful stretching...I have faith it'll be O.K."

DiNubile says people are pushing themselves too hard. He says too many Type A personalities and baby boomers are putting stress on the "weak links" in their bodies.

He advises people to take it easy, to participate in one class a week and to realize one of the major tenets of yoga is relaxation and stress reduction, not perfection.