Strengthen your knees with yoga: these poses ease knee pain and strong and mobile

Natural Health, Dec, 2001 by Rachel Schaeffer

How Yoga Helps

Your knees are hard-working shock absorbers. Yoga helps keep them healthy by lengthening and strengthening the muscles that surround the joints and support your weight. These poses also help mobilize your knee joints by correcting the misalignment that occurs if your muscles are too tight.

What to Do

Practice these poses up to three times a day. Also, try to keep your kneecaps lifted throughout the day; this helps support your knees. To get a sense of how this feels, try this: Stand tall with your feet parallel. Place a thick book between your thighs and squeeze gently without locking your knees. Notice that this engages your thigh muscles, causing your kneecaps to rise slightly.

Who Found Relief

When she was a younger woman, Eleanor Horowitz, 60, of Sanibel, Fla., was an avid runner and tennis player. She also worked on her feet for 15 years as a nurse at a busy hospital. But over the years, she developed severe stiffness and pain in her knees. By the time she was in her early 40s, she could no longer squat or bend over. "I felt like an old woman in my knees," she says. She even stopped exercising.

Five years ago, Horowitz began a gentle yoga class at her gym and got hooked. In time, she felt stronger, more grounded, and more aware of her body. "My knee trouble cleared and I felt my whole body opening up," she says.

1. Supported Warrior

1. Stand facing a wall with your hands on the wall at shoulder height, elbows slightly bent. Move your left big toe forward to touch the wall, and extend your right foot about two feet behind you. Your feet should be in line with your hips, and your pelvis should face the wall.

2. Keep both feet completely on the floor with your toes pointing forward. Tuck your tailbone under slightly, and imagine your spine growing longer as you bend your left knee and gently lean your torso forward, as pictured. Hold for 5 to 10 breaths.

3. Stay in this position and slightly bend your right knee. Hold for 5 to 10 more breaths.

4. Step your right foot up to meet your left and reverse the position of your feet. Repeat 3 to 5 times on each side.

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2 Gentle Half-Locust

1. Lie on your stomach with your forehead or chin on the floor, your palms on the floor under your shoulders, and your legs together. Gently press your pubic bone and hipbones (your pelvic triangle) into the floor. Press your shoulders down away from your ears.

2. Keeping both hipbones on the floor, lift your right leg several inches above the floor. Hold for 3 to 5 breaths.

3. Now bend your right knee and gently lift and point your right foot up toward the ceiling, as pictured. Hold for 3 to 5 breaths. Each time you inhale and exhale, switch between flexing and pointing your toes.

4. To release, keep your pelvic triangle on the floor as you straighten your right leg and lower it to the floor. Repeat on the left side. Repeat 3 to 5 times on each side.

Caution: Do not try this pose if you are pregnant or menstruating, or have had recent abdominal surgery, abdominal inflammation, or a hernia.

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3 Reclining Leg Extension

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Keeping your left foot on the floor, lift your right knee up toward your chest and then straighten your right leg, extending your foot toward the ceiling. Extend your leg only until you feel a gentle stretch in the back of your thigh. Grab your right calf or thigh, as pictured. If this is too difficult, loop a tie or belt around your foot, holding the ends in your hands. Press your lower back into the floor.

2. Flex your right foot, pointing your toes back toward your face, without locking your knee. Hold for 3 to 5 breaths. If you would like to move on to a deeper, more advanced stretch, raise your torso up and move your forehead toward your knee. Hold for 3 to 5 breaths.

3. To release, gently lower your torso and your right foot to the floor.

4. Repeat steps 1 to 3 with your left leg. One leg usually feels tighter than the other. Begin with the tighter leg next time you practice. Repeat 3 to 5 times on each side.

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Rachel Schaeffer is a certified instructor of Kripalu yoga and the author of Yoga for Your Spiritual Muscles (Quest Books, 1998). Her website is www.yogadream.com.