Yoga & Knee Problems

‘Knee pain can often be treated at home – you should start to feel better in a few days. See a GP if the pain is very bad or lasts a long time.’

NHS

The knee joint is a very flexible joint, often with a large range of motion. The knee does not have beefy muscles around it like the thigh or torso, so look to stretch the thigh at the front or the back and the back of the leg but never the knee area. Stretch in the knee area suggests you are stretching the tendons and ligaments and this is likely to make your knee less stable.

The main concern is moving the joint past its current comfortable range of motion and causing an injury to flare up. Be careful with any pose that moves your knee in a way that you don’t do on a daily basis.

 

Yoga can help by:

  • Stabilising the joint through increased strength of supporting muscles

Do

  • Work within your normal range of motion and stretch into large muscles surrounding the knee
  • Use extra padding under your knees

Don’t

  • Poses exercise caution with cat pose or anything with direct weight onto the knee, squatting/childs pose (anything with a strong angle in the knee joint), any pose where you lock your knees back.
  • Poses to avoid: anything that twists the knee joint. Anything where you feel your knee and a wide circle around your knee ‘stretching’ (unless guided 1-1 by a fully trained physio)