Newsweek: Common Yoga Injuries, and How to Avoid Them:

But to reap the benefits, you have to do it right—as all too many people are now discovering. Do it wrong, and you could end up as one of the growing number of casualties. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, there were more than 5,000 yoga-related injuries in 2005 that resulted in visits to doctors' offices, clinics and emergency rooms—up from 3,700 in 2004. Those numbers are largely a function of more people, especially aging boomers, taking up yoga.

Newsweek interviews Dr. Johnny Benjamin, chief of orthopedic surgery and a spinal specialist at Indian River Medical Center in Vero Beach, Fla. Most of the patients seeing Dr. Benjamin are novices who are overexerting themselves. The most dangerous pose is lotus because people think it's easy and they'd done it when children.