For back pain, yoga poses such as shoulderstand or headstand wouldn't provide the same kind of spinal traction as a table, and learning to do them could aggravate a person's pain, says Baxter Bell, a physician and yoga teacher who teaches back-care classes in Oakland, Calif. Gentle, strength-building poses are best for people with back pain, adds Dr. Bell. A simple gentle inversion called "legs up the wall," in which a person lies perpendicular to a wall with the legs flat on it, he says, reduces swelling in the legs and feels great.