Yoga Poses for Healthy Knees and Joints Pain

Yoga Poses for Healthy Knees and Joints Pain- The 7th Tip is a SECRET!!!

  • Have you been considering yoga? 
  • Would your mental health be better achieving an optimum body and mind state?
  • Don’t know where to start or what tools to get? 

1-Yoga Training

Well, yoga is an all-in-one exercise that you can perform using simple tools like chairs, blocks, belts, mats, blankets, bolsters, and straps. 

OR… using no equipment at all! 

Yoga helps you re-connect with your body, sense the movement, tension, and relaxation in your muscles, it helps you breathe better, sit better, and move better without putting you at risk for injury.
Research shows that it is simply an exercise, not only for your body but also for your mind. [1]

But… is yoga good for your joints? 

Is it only for healthy knees and joints

How can I do yoga with bad knees

No need to worry! 

Mais is a High Level Corporate Law Expert and a Yoga Teacher !

With Mais you can safely do Yoga for Knee and joint arthritis to alleviate knee pain, engage your whole body, stretch and strengthen your muscles, improve your flexibility, alignment and correct your imbalances. [2]

Yoga and Joints are Best-Friends!

You might be one of many who think yoga is for healthy joints only and is not an exercise for joint problems. 

But the truth is: Yoga is safe for joint problems! 

So, How is that possible? 

Can we practise yoga for bad knees and joint pain?

And what are rheumatoid arthritis yoga benefits?

To understand how helpful it is to do yoga for knees and joints, you need to understand where your pain comes from before you consider yoga for joint pain relief

Why do we suffer from Knee Problems?

And… Are all joint pains the same?

2-Types of Knee Injuries Well, painful joints are different from healthy knees and joints;

  • Did you know that pain itself can be categorized into different groups based on the cause, source, and nature of pain, expected outcomes, and many more? [3]

To put this simply, let’s make our own categories of joint problems with some special light shed on the knee joint in order to connect the dots and see how to benefit from yoga for sore joints and yoga for joint pain relief.

Poor Alignment Pain

The very early joint pain can come from having a poor body alignment. Usually, your body is designed to place a minimal load on every joint in order to conserve energy and reduce the risk of injury. [4]

However, when you spend too much standing poorly, slouching at your desk, or walking around with poor posture, your body starts accommodating to the new – yet poor – alignment. [4,5]

  • Research shows that some of your muscles weaken, some others tighten, your connective tissues (i.e., tendons, ligaments, and fascia) are also being abnormally tensed or lengthened. [6]

When this happens, pain originates from the strain on your tissues and joints. later on, joints start to wear and then degenerate. 

Degenerative Joint Pain

Because bones are hard structures, they come with several mechanisms to reduce bone friction. [5] 

For example, you have small cushions in between your bones known as cartilages. [7]

They naturally differ in shapes and sizes based on the shape and the range of joints.

Also, your joint is surrounded by a capsule filled with synovium (or synovial fluid), which is a lubricant fluid to allow smooth joint movement. [7]

In addition to all that, muscles and ligaments help keep bones in the proper position so that they can track smoothly over one another. [5]

When these mechanisms fail, moving your joint can cause abnormal friction between bones.

By the passage of time, wear and tear occur and your bones degenerate and become inflamed and your joint becomes painful, swollen, and restricted. [8]

Degenerative Joint Pain

Degenerative joints can occur as a:

1- Part of the aging process e.g., osteoarthritis, spondylosis

2- Progression of poor body alignment e.g., chondromalacia patellae (kneecap pain)

3- Disease of an auto-immune nature e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, synovitis [9]

Selecting the right yoga pose and personalised for your needs movement (e.g., special yoga poses for knee pain relief or yoga for knee pain arthritis) and using the right yoga props (e.g., chair yoga for knee pain or yoga for joint pain relief with block) will help you improve your joint pain and range of movement. [10],[11]

Trauma or Overuse

Injuries to your joint can occur suddenly during a high impact sport (e.g., ACL or PCL tear, meniscal injury) or it can develop as you repeatedly stress your muscles, tendons and joints in sports or even everyday movements (e.g., runner’s knee, tennis elbow, patellofemoral syndrome, tendonitis, patellar tendon pain).

  • Inquire now for 121 Yoga Personal Training or join Mais’s London Yoga classes.

Customised Yoga as a Solution for Knee and Joint Pain

After getting familiar with the three simplified categories of the knee and joint pain, you might be having a countless number of questions regarding the benefits of  Yoga for Knees and joints and yoga for knee pain arthritis.

For example: 

  • Can yoga heal knees?
  • Can yoga cure knee arthritis in particular?

The effects of yoga for achy joints vary greatly based on the cause of your knee pain.

In general, with its various effects on bones, muscles, and soft tissues, Yoga for Knees and joints can help you restore your natural bone alignment and muscle balance. [10],[11],[12]

If you start practising yoga as early as possible, there is a high chance that your problem can be fully reversed before it worsens. 

If your problem has changed the structure of your bones, yoga might not fully reverse the damage, but it might prevent worsening and relieve painful symptoms. 

Benefits of Personalised Yoga for Knees and Joints

Yoga for knee joint pain can have tremendous benefits for the joints, muscles, tendons, and soft tissues.

To name a few, research shows that yoga for achy joints can help: 

Personalised Yoga for Knees and JointsRe-aligning the joint: leading to decreased weight bearing on abnormal sites of the bones and thus decreasing joint friction. [10]

Nourishing the cartilage: Gentle exercises that involve joints and particularly Yoga for Knees and joints help nourish the cartilage and keep it healthy. [10,11]

Keeping You Flexible: Yoga for Knees and joints maintains the elasticity of your tissues and prevents injury from overuse. [13]

Lubricating Your Joints: Does yoga lubricate joints has been a lingering question for long… and the answer is: Yes!

Yoga improves the synovial circulation within the joint capsule which is necessary for joint lubrication and nourishment of cartilage. [13,11]

Correcting posture: when you correct your posture, the weight gets distributed on your joints properly which prevents wear and tear from occurring. [10]

– Strengthening weak muscles: Yoga can make your muscles stronger and also correct muscle imbalance. [10,11,13]

– Improving your proprioception: Better proprioception means a better sense of joint, better balance and of course less risk of falling. [10]

How to Strengthen your Knees and Joints with Yoga

Now that you know that personalised yoga for healthy joints is not the only option, doing yoga for sore joints can also yield dramatic benefits.

This is why it is crucial to start personalised yoga for stiff joints as early as possible.

Before attempting to perform any of these knee rehab exercises you must ensure that you will get them approved by your sports rehab MD, physio or health professional.

Here are 7 special tips of yoga for knee pain relief beginners to start with:

1- Rolled Up Towel Leg Extensions

Simply sit long on your mat with your arms supported behind you.

Put a rolled towel or a small roll below your knees

Tuck your glutes and press down on the towel with your knee as you breathe deeply. 

This simple exercise is an ideal variation of yoga for knee pain arthritis; it helps support your knee joint by activating your knee muscles.

It improves synovial circulation and also activates the vastus medialis muscle (leg muscle) which works to lock your knee as you walk, giving you better knee stability and preventing knee give away. 

2- Straight Leg Raise

Straight Leg Raise

To do this exercise, lie down on your mat with one foot planted on the ground. Point your other foot’s toes, squeeze your leg muscles and raise your leg straight up to the level of your bent knee.

Breathe in as you raise your leg and out as you lower it to the ground. 

This exercise not only will strengthen your leg muscles and can relieve your knee pain, but also will engage your hip and core muscles and improve your body balance.  

3- Leg Squeeze

To do this exercise, keep lying down on your mat on your back, plant your both feet on the ground and place a ball, a rolled towel, or a block between your thighs.

Leg Squeze

Squeeze the ball and hold as you breathe in and out and feel the tension in your butt, thighs, pelvic floor, and abs. 

This exercise is a variation of yoga for knee pain arthritis; It strengthens your adductor muscles (inner thigh muscles) that are responsible for maintaining your femur (thigh bone) in good alignment with your tibia (shaft bone) and thus relieves knee pain and protects your knee from arthritis and knee injury.

4- Mountain and chair pose variation

To do the mountain pose, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, rotate your thighs inward with your feet firmly planted on the floor, engage your quads, glutes and tighten your belly. 

Keep your shoulders pulled back and maintain your natural spine curves. 

Tame a couple of breaths in and out and feel your muscles working. 

This exercise is the perfect yoga for knee pain arthritis and for realigning your body and relieving the abnormal load on your joints.

To make this pose harder and fire up your glutes and hamstrings, you can go for the chair pose in which you squat a little as if you are sitting on an imaginary chair (or actual chair for beginners).

  • Make sure that as you practice any of these exercises you don’t experience any tension or pain whatsoever.
  • If this may happen, you must discontinue the exercise straight away.  

5- Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend

Sit long on your mat with your legs apart as far as possible, lean down towards the ground with a long spine, you can stretch your arms forward or put them on your legs.

Hold this pose as you breathe in and out. 

This pose helps you relieve the inward knee pain as you stretch your adductors (inner thigh muscles) and it is a personalised form of yoga for joint pain relief and is called upavistha konasana.

6- Bridge and Supported bridge

Lie down on your mat with your feet planted on the ground and your arm beside you. 

Squeeze your glutes, tuck your tummy and lift your hips off the ground. 

Hold this position and feel the tension in your legs, glutes, and abs as you breathe in and out. 

Glute Bridge with a Band

If this pose is too difficult for you, put a block under your hips for the supported bridge pose. 

If you’d like to increase the exercise difficulty you could add a band around your knees.

This exercise will help you correct your posture, strengthen your hip muscles (mainly the Gluteus Maximus) and fire up your core muscles including the pelvic floor it is another personalised form of yoga for joint pain relief.

7- Wall-Squat Pose

Lie down on your mat with your butt close to a wall, plant your both feet on the wall and make sure the wall and your feet are in full contact. 

This position is an all-in-one position because it:

– relaxes your spine,

– relieves lumbar and sacroiliac joint pain as you are lengthening through the spine,

– stretches your deep hip muscles

Need More Help? Get Yoga Therapy for your Knees

I know what you are thinking…

You already have joint pain, maybe your knee hurts or your hip is not at its finest. 

You must be wondering… 

  • Is it helpful to use yoga for knee pain arthritis?
  • Can these poses and movements make my pain worse? 

Not all poses are safe when you already have a specific joint problem. You will require specific personalisations that differ from poses used in healthy knees and joints since, your health history, work environment, and posture are different from anyone else. 

This is why it is a good idea to seek some professional help in practising yoga for joint pain relief, safely and effectively. 

Feel free to contact Mais Talie, our professional yoga for bad knees and joints instructor via this page.

Who is Mais Talie?

Mais Talie is a top certified Yoga Alliance teacher. She is very passionate about helping your body heal through movement using a deep knowledge of different yoga styles.  

Mais is also a top London law graduate with 10 years of corporate law working experience. Although she has profound experience in training athletes, Mais uses personalised yoga poses and creates new movements not only to improve your body function but also to help your muscles and joints heal. 

9-Mais Yoga ClassesWith her solid background and expertise in anatomy and physiology, you can make sure your body is in the best safe hands that will help you tone up fast, improve your flexibility and recover safely from stress without provoking your knee or joint pain but making you stronger from the inside out and make it vanish instead. 

Would you like to strengthen your knee joints in a fast and safe manner and achieve results that last?

  • Are you also keen to increase your body flexibility, get rid of your joint pains, body aches, and knee tension? 
  • Contact Mais now and request a FREE CONSULTATION!

 

References

1. Ross, Alyson & Thomas, Sue. (2010). The Health Benefits of Yoga and Exercise: A Review of Comparison Studies. Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.). 16. 3-12. 10.1089/acm.2009.0044. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41164086_The_Health_Benefits_of_Yoga_and_Exercise_A_Review_of_Comparison_Studies

2. Laidi Kan, Jiaqi Zhang, Yonghong Yang, Pu Wang, “The Effects of Yoga on Pain, Mobility, and Quality of Life in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review”, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, vol. 2016, Article ID 6016532, 10 pages, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/6016532 https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2016/6016532/#abstract

3. Świeboda, Paulina & Filip, Rafał & Prystupa, Andrzej & Drozd, Mariola. (2013). Assessment of pain: types, mechanism and treatment. Annals of agricultural and environmental medicine: AAEM. 0(1). 2-7. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263543237_Assessment_of_pain_types_mechanism_and_treatment

4. National MS Society – Body Mechanics–Posture, Alignment & Core https://www.nationalmssociety.org/NationalMSSociety/media/MSNationalFiles/Resources_Support/Basics-of-Body-Mechanics.pdf

5. Scott, A. S., & Fong, E. (2004). Body structures & functions. Australia: Thomson/Delmar Learning.

https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ngsp/bodystructures13e/index.php?startid=ix#/p/xii

6. Szczygieł, E., Zielonka, K., Mętel, S., Golec, J. (2017). Musculo-skeletal and pulmonary effects of sitting position – a systematic review. Ann Agric Environ Med., 24(1), 8-12. https://doi.org/10.5604/12321966.1227647 http://www.aaem.pl/Musculo-skeletal-and-pulmonary-effects-of-sitting-position-a-systematic-review,72599,0,2.html

7. Neelam Singh (2017): Synovial Joints and Lubrication mechanisms International Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics. ISSN 1819-4966 Volume 12, Number 1 (2017), pp. 29-33

https://www.ripublication.com/ijcam17/ijcamv12n1_03.pdf

8. Deepeshwar S, Tanwar M, Kavuri Vand Budhi RB (2018) Effect of YogaBased Lifestyle Intervention on patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: ARandomized Controlled Trial.Front. Psychiatry 9:180.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5952125/

9. D.M.Salter (2002): Degenerative joint disease, Current Diagnostic Pathology Volume 8, Issue 1, February 2002, Pages 11-18 https://doi.org/10.1054/cdip.2001.0090 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0968605301900900

10. Kan, Laidi & Zhang, Jack & Yang, Yonghong & Wang, Pu. (2016). The Effects of Yoga on Pain, Mobility, and Quality of Life in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2016. 10.1155/2016/6016532.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308267579_The_Effects_of_Yoga_on_Pain_Mobility_and_Quality_of_Life_in_Patients_with_Knee_Osteoarthritis_A_Systematic_Review

11. Wang, Yiguo MDa,b; Lu, Shibi MDb; Wang, Ruomei MDc; Jiang, Peng MDb; Rao, Feng MDb,d; Wang, Bo MDd; Zhu, Yong MD, PhDd; Hu, Yihe MD, PhDd,*; Zhu, Jianxi MDd,e,* Integrative effect of yoga practice in patients with knee arthritis, Medicine: August 2018 – Volume 97 – Issue 31 – p e11742 doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000011742 

12. D. Zelman, “Osteoarthritis of the knee (Degenerative arthritis of the knee),” WebMD, 2014, http://www.webmd.com/osteoarthritis/guide/ostearthritis-of-the-knee-degenerative-arthritis-of-the-knee?page=2. https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/fulltext/2018/08030/integrative_effect_of_yoga_practice_in_patients.99.aspx

13. Saini, Namita & Gupta, Shipra & Suri, Manjula. (2016). Exploring the Physiological Effects of Yoga: A State of the Art Review. International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health. 316.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307955553_Exploring_the_Physiological_Effects_of_Yoga_A_State_of_the_Art_Review

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