How to Practice Yoga with a Knee injury with Michael Henri

0:00 One of the things that's important to understand about the needs that neither is an actually, well. Actually, it does twist and rotate or it allows for twisting and rotation, particularly when the knees bent, it allows for more about 25 degrees. But the point is that there's no muscles that actually initiate that movement, which means that that it can't slow down that movement, which means there's no control when there's twisting and torsion happening through

0:20 the knee. Welcome to the going pro. Yoga podcast, nugget series. My name is Michael Henry and I'm Byron de Marseille in these short 15 minute. Episodes. We're going to be answering some of the most common questions in the yoga industry so that you can walk away with the answers in a short period of time.

0:36 That's right. Michael with each topic, that we choose will be discussing it from two different perspectives, the teacher, and the student. I'll be approaching these questions as a physiotherapist or physical therapist with over 10 years experience, treating some of the most common and complex injuries. And my guidance will be from the perspective of having taught 7,000 classes, roughly 10,000 hours over 10 years. Welcome to our podcast.

1:00 What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the going pro yoga podcast. My name is Michael Henry and Ruth and I not a y, and I am your anatomy and injury. Prevention, specialist on this podcast, across the table from me. I have mr.

1:14 Byron de Marseille, the not your Guru Yogi, and that question that we're going to be answering today, is how to practice yoga with a knee injury. We're going to look at it from two perspectives. And the first perspective is the students perspective, and the second perspective is the The teachers perspective. But first Byron, how you doing?

1:34 I'm doing great. Thanks for having me along for the ride. We both have experience with injuries. This injury is more specifically an injury that Michael has experience with. So, in a moment. He'll take it over and run for a bit and I'll take it back and T in and talk from a teacher's perspective of observation, and it's not that I my knees have been perfectly fine. I do have some experience to share as well. Beautiful.

1:57 Thank you for that introduction. So yeah, before I jump into my whinging and complaining about my knees. I'll talk a little bit about just the anatomical structure of the knee and ultimately what we need to understand is that the knees pretty straightforward, to be honest.

2:10 First of all, it's the largest joint in the body and it does two things. It bends and it straightens. So it's like a hinge joint and you know, your fingers are also hinge joints, they just bend and they straighten. So if you want to weird visual you can just imagine that your fingers are a whole bunch of small little knees as you bend and straighten them. That being said, one of the things that's important to understand about the needs that neither is an actually. Well.

2:32 Actually, it does twist and rotate or it allows for twisting and rotation, particularly when the knees bent, it allows for more about 25 degrees. But the point is that there's no muscles that actually initiate that movement which means that that it can't slow down that movement, which means there's no control when there's twisting and torsion happening through the knee. So that's really relevant for what we're going to be talking about today, particularly my

2:54 side. So now that you understand That I have a ACL injury on my right knee, which was reconstructed, so we can consider that a chronic or an old injury and then in my left knee, I have it relatively acute. Intrigue, same injury, just not fix.

3:11 So ACL tear just I didn't have it fixed. So The Chronic ones about 10 years ago in the the newer one is within the last few months. So this is going to be relevant for both chronic and acute injuries. But ultimately, the difference being the two is that, if it's a cute it's going to be a little bit more sensitive and usually that sensitivity can be aggravated from any time.

3:31 We're putting the knee and a maximum flexed position. So, those maximum Flex positions can be something like sitting on your heels in vajra Asana, or Hero's pose or something. Like Yogi squat, where you're going all the way down and you have a maximum Bend in the knee. So for an acute or a recent injury, that's going to be very uncomfortable, which If you have any injury, you know, exactly what I'm talking about.

3:52 So, the important thing for me is and what I'm practicing is to always use props to be able to minimize that maximum flexing in the knee, whether it be a block or I use a bolster or what I often, use is an Acro back which is an Acro yoga, support, wedge and is something that is very valuable because it actually fits perfectly behind the legs to just add the right angle.

4:12 So it's not at a maximum Bend, ultimately supporting the knee, so it's not fully bending. And then, the other piece is that at when we're actually sitting on the knees or putting weight down through the knees when it's on our mat, or maybe on the ground is just to provide some sort of cushion, whether it be a towel blanket t-shirt. Just so that we don't actually have to have that hard surface pushing down through a kneecap or maybe some Scar Tissue that's there or maybe just some

4:36 swelling, from the recent entry that we might have had is just uncomfortable. And I also like to add that even though it's I'm so we're talking about injuries themselves. I think just generally speaking. It's good. Practice to just support your knees.

4:49 So, You're 20 years old or 80 years old. I think having a cushion or a blanket or rolling. Your mat over is really, help is really helpful to support your knees because they take a lot of beating over the years, a lot of wear and tear. There's no need for us to add anything extra. Yes.

5:04 Yes. Thank you. So, I want to just bring up the shape of your knee for a second. Think about the shape of your knee. And if you were to place it on the ground, it may it will definitely feel different than another person you we all have.

5:19 Different shaped knees. So we're not trying to get into a competition of, you know, whose knee is shaped the best to feel no pain in this pose. So this is where the blankets come into consideration from a teacher's perspective.

5:33 It's absolutely crucial that you let the people with these knee. Ailments be seen and heard when they're new to yoga, especially even if they're not new to yoga. They're going to appreciate your offering and that they're not. Alone in the world thinking that they're coping with his injury, but mostly for beginners for new people that are navigating yoga for the first time using props is essential, to getting them to come back.

6:03 Why? Because being comfortable, feeling heard and seen is just number one when it comes back to wanting to repeat an experience. So let's talk about what kind of props you can use. And what poses? Let's think about the lowest lunge low lunge on Janae Asana.

6:23 When you have your back knee on the ground. This is the, the one that's similar to Crescent pose, but your knees on the ground, common mistake. That people make is, they don't scoot their knee back enough. It could be a limitation of hip flexibility that keeps them from that but often, it's just not understanding that they can scoot their knee back. So, when you step your right foot forward and you drop your left, knee down, scoot your, left knee back. Little bit.

6:50 And then, if you want to communicate about a prop, you could also use a towel or double up, your mat roll up the side of your mat to double the cushion to have a softer surface for your knee. That's probably the most common time since we do that pose. So often that I see people struggling, they're not even getting into hip extension with the leg back because their hip is over their knee and they're just putting more brute force and weight on that knee, so

7:17 think about that one. One. Let's think about Yogi, Squat and vajrasana but badges, badges Asana, the one that Michael mentioned earlier, where you sit on your heels, these two poses can use blocks. You can sit on a block. And basically, if you put it underneath your butt and Yogi squat, it's less weight.

7:37 So this helps your ankles and your knees. And if you do that in, but just know where you're sitting on your heels, it does the exact same thing. It's a less pressure, and less weight. You may even suggest not doing. Those at all, if they need to cross their legs, crossing the legs.

7:52 I found for my knee injury, is probably the hardest. I'm able to sit on my feet and bend my knees. I'm able to do everything I've described, but I'm not able to cross my legs. My left knee right now is probably experienced the most pain that it ever has in my life the last couple months. I'm lucky knock on wood that I won't experience any more, but that's what I've noticed.

8:13 Sukhasana, simple cross-legged. Easy pose. That seems to be the The hardest one of all. So I can imagine the Lotus would be challenging for some reason doesn't bother me as much in gomukhasana crossing the knees over like the cow facing pose. I can explain to you.

8:32 I I can tell you is that I can feel what I feel. Well, I can tell you why. Oh, I'm sure you can one more thing pigeon pose. And is, I don't know if you talked about that yet a pigeon pose has a mass of 1. If you have weight bearing on the leg as a yoga teacher know that that is putting more pressure.

8:49 Thus more risk, more compromising position for the knee, lie down on your back. Gravity will help you. You don't have to mess with the body's weight anymore. You take the body's weight. Off of it. Now you get to modify with your own body strength.

9:03 Pulling the leg towards you thread. The needle, pigeon is figure for. So that's a huge one and side. Plank modified. You can drop the knee down to the ground. Make sure the knees under the hip. This is where it gets kind of funny with the shape of your knee. It's hard to balance but use a towel, use something soft underneath that knee.

9:21 If you need to lastly, before Michael will take over. What about child's pose. Child's pose is such a pose. You want to feel so comfortable in and knees and ankles can both be a problem. They're separating the knees. Wider may help. I have this like nodule kind of like sticky bone thing that sticks out of my knee, my shin, my wood area and it's freaking painful when I get into child's pose and I have had teachers over the years come over and kind of try to fix it or something and like it's I can't

9:53 have a conversation, but I'm just thinking in my head. It's the shape of my freaking knee like just get off me. So it could just be that in that case, soft soft, soft, surfaces, use your bolsters, use your blankets, find a way, put something underneath your chest. Again, your body weights, going down. If you can't do it.

10:15 You can't do it. Find something. You can do modifications. That's the name of the game. Beautiful. Awesome. So there's two pieces one. I'm going to talk about just why that is with regards to the twisting of the bending of the knee and why it can be uncomfortable.

10:29 And something like Just a simple Tsukasa NE sitting with a cross-leg. But mostly I think just speaking to your experience. So talking about the first part of this podcast. If you do have any injuries, just like I shared with you certain things that you do to support your own. He's you know, you can use that same language when you're teaching as well.

10:46 You know, for example, you know, when I sit in this pose, when I sit in baje Ross and it's a little uncomfortable. So if you feel the same, you can always sit on a yoga block, it'll help to take the pressure off the knee.

10:55 Boom. You're speaking from your experience. You're helping the students be seen in your supporting those that might actually feel So it's a simple simple transition from what, your own practice might be and using your own experience to be able to support your students in that way. And now to talk about mostly just that suit cost in a kind of twisted knee position when we're in that. Cross-legged seated.

11:16 Cross-legged seated. Thank you. So as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, even though Arnie can rotate, we don't have the muscles to actually initiate that movement. Therefore, we don't have the muscles to actually be able to control or slow down that movement. So for putting pressure down through the knee while it's also twisting or rotating, then there's nothing really supporting it, except for Ligaments, maybe some of the facha.

11:41 Now that ligament in that faucet doesn't really have that contractive property to be able to like basically protect. I mean they are protecting your knee but they're not meant to take a blunt amount of weight or forced to go down through them.

11:55 That's what the muscles are there for, those can recover a lot better. They can ultimately tear and improve and heal and so on and so forth. Whereas we tear up a ligament or tendon like it doesn't feel quite as good plus it's harder for it to heal sometimes so ultimately the Idea, is that our knees are not necessarily mechanically ready to take on a lot of twisting or torsion with extra Force. So in that, you know, seated position cross-legged or even something, like, Lotus or even

12:22 like pigeon, pose has a similar kind of situation, except your one leg is behind you, that rotation needs to be supported to the point where we don't actually apply too much force down through it. So sitting on a block or encouraging, your students, to sit on a block to minimize the rotation, In your hip, which would ultimately minimize the rotation. Moving down into your knee.

12:44 The other piece that I think is important to understand and maybe some of, you know, this already. But why we Flex the foot or why? We encourage the students to flex the foot? When we're in poses, like, maybe cross-legged but more. So, like, pigeon.

12:57 And the reason for that is because that that twisting is going down through the leg. And if we feel any discomfort in the knee, sorry, I meant the knee for feeling any discomfort in the knee, then we want to try to support the Inasmuch as possible by using props or repositioning our legs.

13:12 So it's not necessarily, you know, parallel to the mat. But also, when we Flex the foot, and when I say Flex, I mean, bringing your toes towards your heels. Also known as dorsiflexion. What we're doing is, we're allowing the calf muscle behind our Shin to actually create tension. We're allowing to basically stretch and when we stretch that means that it's pulling on the knee and it's pulling on the knee.

13:35 Allow to allow basically a tautness or like a tightness. Which minimizes or controls or slows down the rotation that is actually happening in the knee. So if you're wondering, why is it that when we Flex that knee, that's exactly what it's doing.

13:47 It's helping to basically support and minimize the rotation that's going through the knee. So that's why we do it. Very important note is, well. Hmm, that may not be as complicated. But very relevant, especially when teaching yoga is, when you turn your back foot in in like, on a, let's say a warrior to position and usually, you parallel the back.

14:08 Edge of your foot with the back edge of your mat, the outer edge of your foot but the back edge of your mat. If you don't do that, if you turn your foot out towards the back of the mat, a little bit, and come into Warrior Two, you're putting an extreme amount of weight and pressure on the inside of your knee. So, first, the split position, super important. Secondly, is where is the pressure on the foot? So, say, it's perfectly placed.

14:33 Now, it's parallel to the edge of your mat. And are you pressing on the Outer Edge? Because And help protect the inner knee. And you can try this in your own body and see how it feels. If you put the pressure more on the inside of your foot without the outer foot. Then you're going to feel also a pressure on the inner knee. If you put both down, if you're able to sealed, both outer and inner Edge, you'll feel very protected just the outer edge fairly protected.

14:59 That's the way I look at it at least so that's relevant. I'm not sure how much more time we have left. No, that pretty much sums it up. I don't think we have much else to add. Okay, but I think keeping that leg strong and And I mean, this is important for most most poses. Whatever's.

15:12 On the mat. You need to start. You need to really talk about. So if your foots on the mat and your leg is straight, especially if your knees Warrior poses, where your kind of legs are split. It's really important to position the foot.

15:24 Like you it's like Byron was just saying, yep. And tripos. Don't put the foot as high up as possible. If the knee is not having it. Don't put it on your opposite knee. Right foot on the inner left knee. That's a No-No again. The knee is Michael said first and Most of bends forward and back.

15:40 It's not a side-to-side kind of deal. Yeah, doesn't need any of those extra movements. We don't need to try to turn it into a shoulder joint or a hip joint, or indirectly. Awesome. Alright, so, that's how we practice yoga and teach yoga with a knee injury or with someone else that might have been the injury. So, thank you so much for listening. Bye, and everything else out.

15:58 Otherwise, Namaste, Namaste. All right. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.