Yoga for Knee Pain

Namaste, I'm Pallavi Rajankar. Welcome to Yoga & You. Today's practice will focus on how to manage knee pain. This is something that is so common these days — I come across, every second person I meet has some sort of a knee issue, some sort of knee pain going on. This could be due to multiple factors: age could be one of the factors, weight gain could be a very, very crucial factor, and also some other health conditions — you know, arthritis — or even people who have flat feet tend to have this knee pain issue.

So in today's practice we will look at some drills specifically to manage this knee pain — of course, consult with your medical practitioner and take the necessary course of action that you need to for your knees, but this practice will help you with respect to managing some of the discomfort that comes along with it. I know that a lot of people who suffer from knee pain find it difficult to sit down on the floor or lie down, so all these practices that I'm showing you today can be done either sitting on a chair, or you can lie down on your bed as well and do these practices, okay. So grab your mat, let's get started.

One of the main things that results in knee pain over the long run is improper balance while you're standing. I don't know how many of you notice how you actually stand — everybody has different patterns, we all stand, sit, walk differently. So next time you're standing, or if you're standing right now, try and observe the patterns. How is it that you stand? Do you shift weight towards one side? Do you find yourself constantly shifting, moving from one leg to the other? Do you find yourself constantly taking the support of the wall or something? Do you find your toes pressing down into the mat? Do you stand with your toes pressed like that into the mat? Just observing these patterns will help you understand, first of all, whether you're standing right.

How should we be standing? We have our feet — our feet are wonderful little creatures which have these three points, okay. We have two points at the balls of the feet and one point at the heel, and these are the three points on which we must be placing our weight while we stand, okay. A lot of us forget that — either we have flat feet and our entire foot gets pressed down, or a lot of us have the tendency of pressing down into our toes, okay. So what I want you to do first of all is to try to get the balance on the three corners of your feet. Just stand with the focus on the three corners of your feet, draw a mental triangle in your feet, and then, to enhance that feeling further, lift all 10 toes up. When you lift all 10 toes you will notice the inner arches of your feet begin to engage, and that is very important, especially for people with flat feet or fallen arches. This is extremely important for you to practice standing this way in order to engage the arches of your feet more — that arch of your foot is your shock absorber, which helps in the long run to prevent knee pain, okay.

So keeping this in mind, we are going to move on with our next practice drill. Grab a chair for this one, and I'd like you to sit on a chair and practice this. So the same thing that we did standing up, we'll do sitting down — place your feet on the mat, okay. Press down into the three points that I spoke about — the two on the balls of your feet and one at the heel — and then lift your toes high up, really flexing your foot like this, okay. We're going to press into those three points, really lift the toes up, and we're going to hold this for 10 seconds — 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — relax. I'll practice a few rounds of this. Again, lift the toes up — 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — relax. Pick it up again — 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — relax. Continue with the same practice and do about 10 rounds of this, with 10-second holds each time, okay.

Moving on to the next one, you can either sit down on the floor if you're comfortable, or you can even sit on a chair or on your bed or your couch — anything is fine. Sit down with your legs extended like so. We're going to practice simultaneously flexing and pointing the feet, okay — we'll hold each of them for 10 seconds. This will really help to engage the calves as well as the shins — important muscles that help support your knees, right. So you can take your hands back, and let's flex the feet — toes pointing towards you, and as you do that, already try to press the backs of your knees down towards the ground: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Point your toes and count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Flex: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Point: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Relax. Continue this for about 10 sets — you can do about 10 sets of this, and then move on to the next one.

Now for this next drill you need either a bolster — if you don't have a bolster you can use a pillow or a cushion, make sure it's a little firm — slide it under your knees like so, and make sure the backs of your knees are pressing into the bolster, okay. Now what we're going to do is lift the legs up — inhale and lift the legs up, we'll hold it for about 5 seconds, and then exhale and drop it down, okay. This exercise really helps to build strength around the ligaments and the tendons as well, okay, around the knees. So let's do about 5 rounds of this. Let's go: inhale, lift — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — relax. Inhale, lift — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — release. Third round, lift — 2, 3, 4, 5 — relax. Fourth round, lift — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — and relax. This round, lift — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — relax again. Continue to do this as many rounds as is comfortable — at least 10 rounds you should be able to do this comfortably. This is a great exercise to strengthen the tendons and the ligaments around the knees — please make sure that you're able to do this, okay.

Move the bolster away and lie down on your bed or the floor or your mat, whatever you are on. Now lie down on your back, extend both your legs out, okay, with your hands by the side of your body. Inhale and lift the right leg up, without using your hands as much as possible — if your leg is somewhere here, that's fine, but try to keep the knee as straight as possible by engaging the quadricep muscle, which is your thigh muscle, okay. So engage the quad and keep the leg lifted — stay here for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — slowly release the right leg down. Inhale and lift the left leg up, same thing, engage the quadricep — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — relax the left leg. Inhale, take the right leg up again — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — exhale, relax the right leg. Inhale, lift the left leg — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — relax the left leg.

Now inhale, pick up the right leg and bend the right knee, bring the knee closer to your chest, and you want to hug the knee from behind — so when I say hug, I want you to hold opposite elbows, not just hold with your hands like this, don't do this — I want you to really hug the knee, so you're holding on to opposite elbows, all right. What this does is that it keeps the knee in place — you don't want to be moving your knees in this position, keep the knees stable, and you're only going to straighten and bend the knee, okay. So let's go: inhale to try and straighten the right knee — for a lot of you this might not be possible, it's okay, even if you're somewhere here and the knee is bent, it's okay, just that effort itself will strengthen all the necessary muscles and help you strengthen this joint as well, okay. Let's go: inhale to straighten the knee, exhale and bend — one. We'll do five of this: inhale straighten, exhale bend — two; inhale straighten, exhale bend — three; inhale straighten, exhale bend — four; inhale straighten the knee and stay here for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, exhale bend the knee, and slowly release the leg. Let's repeat on the left side: inhale and lift that left leg up, exhale bend the left knee, hug your left knee from behind, and from here inhale straighten the knee as much as you can, exhale and bend — one; inhale straighten, exhale bend — two; inhale straighten, exhale bend — three; inhale straighten, exhale bend — four; inhale straighten and stay — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — exhale bend the knee, release your hands and release the leg as well. Notice how you feel.

For the next drill you'll need a block. Now bend both your knees, we're going to be practicing bridge lifts, okay — make sure you're able to graze your heels with your fingertips, feet are parallel to each other, don't turn the feet out or in, keep the feet parallel and hips-width apart. Now you will use this block — if you don't have a block, use a hardbound book or something that looks like a block — and place the block in between your legs, in between your thighs, okay, so that the block is going to help you keep the legs aligned and keep the knees from swaying out, okay. So keep squeezing your thighs into the block as you lift and come down. Let's go: inhale, lift your hips up into bridge pose, exhale and down — one; inhale lift, exhale and down — two; inhale lift — also feel this in the hamstrings, okay — exhale and down — hamstring health is very important for your knee health; inhale lift, exhale down — four; last one, inhale and lift and stay here for 5, 4 — get the quads, the glutes — 2 and 1, slowly exhale and come back down. One more time, release the block and slowly sit up, okay.

Now our final couple of postures — the first one will be a butterfly pose, Baddha Konasana. Bring the soles of your feet together like this — traditionally the feet are drawn in towards the groin, and you maintain like a two-fist gap between the groin and the heels, but if that is too much on the heel — on the knees, sorry — you can take the feet out slightly more in front, okay, so choose what works for you. From here, take your left hand out to the side, and use your right hand to push the right knee down, but as you do that you're also going to think of resisting the push — so using your right leg you will resist that push, okay, so you will not allow that leg to go all the way down, all right. So maintain this contrary movement, resisting, pushing and pulling at the same time, okay — stay 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1, gently release. Do the same on the left side — use your left hand, and using the heel of your palm, push the left knee away, while at the same time resisting the push with your leg — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, release. This is a great exercise for your knee pain, please practice more of this, as many rounds as is comfortable for you.

Slowly bring both your knees together, keep your feet about hips-width apart, slightly apart, okay, not too much. Take your hands from the outside of your knees and think of bringing the knees together, but at the same time you're resisting it using your legs, okay — so using your hands, push the knees, really pushing the knees towards each other, but the knees are saying no. Stay here and bring 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then relax. Practice this drill as well, as many times as is comfortable for you.

All right, so that marks the end of our practice. You could practice this in isolation, and you can also include it in your other movement modalities. I hope you find some relief from your knee pain through this practice. Make sure you sustain the practice for a long time — without it, you're not going to see any real change. Thank you so much for joining me today.