A lot of people suffer from knee injuries. Which is an unfortunate thing, but it happens.
And whenever you have an injury, it also means that you have to organise your life a little different.
You’ll have to temporarily leave some things out of your life, for the sake of your own health.
Luckily, most likely you will recover from whatever it is you have.
And if not, then you’ll have to live with the conditions that have been presented in front of you.
And what does this all have to do with yoga? Well, even though you might have an injury, yoga might help with your recovery, or you’ll even be able to do yoga with any kind of condition you have.
In this article we are zooming in on people with a knee injury who’d like to do yoga. This is just because I have some experience with it myself. Not that I have an injury on my knee, I just have a weak knee and I know I need to be careful.
And just as a small disclaimer. These poses and adjustments I’m going to mention here are just as a guideline. They might suite you, but they also might not! Always be very cautious with your body and don’t rush yourself into a position.
And most of all, don’t go deeper than you are physically able to. Your body tells you that you’re in pain for a reason, so listen to these signals as well.
And at the end of this article you’ll find a free video where you can see these adjustments in practice!
Working With Props When You Have an Injury
Alright, let’s start to talk about something first already.
Whether you’d like it or not, you’ll have to use props when you have an injury. And actually, within yoga we use props all the time anyway!
I would suggest you not to use a strap though. A strap is used more often to go deeper into a position, which is not something we are looking for at the moment.
Just on a quick side note, it took me 5 years before I bought my own strap as I didn’t want to go too deep into a position because of my weak knee.
What you should have is:
- 2 blocks
- A Bolster
I don’t have a bolster myself, and mostly when I would need one, I can resolve it by taking two or three pillows. But it must be said that a bolster is much more convenient and comfortable as well.
With the two blocks we are actually gonna support or body to make sure that we don’t go too deep into the asanas. And at the same time to make sure that we still have the full benefit.
Let’s have a look at a couple of poses you can easily adjust to make sure you don’t feel any pain.
#1 Deer Pose
Deer pose is one of those asanas I wouldn’t normally do when I’d have a knee injury.
This is because of the fact that you’ll have to bend your knee while you are sitting on the floor.
This will block your hip a little, and therefore also give less flexibility in your knee.
Luckily there is an easy way to make sure that your knee is protected and at the same time you’ll be feeling the benefits of Deer Pose.
The only thing you have to do is lift up your buttocks a little and put a block underneath the hip of the back leg.
As you can see in the image above is that I place a block underneath me to make sure that my hips are loosened a bit. You can actually do this trick with ever yoga pose that is more or less like this.
So hip openers that are on the mat, like swan pose, this is what you can do.
Just to demonstrate it, I’ve got another picture in swan pose:
What you can also do in Swan pose, but which I can’t show you now, is to sit on a bolster.
So, you can take a bolster in between your groins and bring one leg to the front and the other to the back.
This is actually an easier and more comfortable way to sit in this position. Well, if you have both blocks and a bolster, you can try both versions of course!
#2 Butterfly
Another great asana that might be difficult when you have a knee injury.
Normally it isn’t putting that much stress on you when you are in butterfly. But because you put your feet quite close to your groin and that you have to compress your knees even more, can make it quite painful for the knees.
In this position you’ve got a couple of options and it’s up to you to see what’s good and achievable for you.
The first thing you can do is put both blocks underneath your knees.
This is a great thing to do as you make sure that gravity doesn’t pull your knees down. Which will prevent a lot of stress on the knees.
In this picture I do a Supine Butterfly, but you can do it seated as well of course.
The second thing you can do is to bring your knees more forward. This looks totally different and you might need to bend forward a bit more than normal.
It’s perfectly fine though, as long as you make sure that you put your knees into a 90° angle.
#3 Savasana
Alright, Savasana actually isn’t too bad on the knees at all. Well, it doesn’t do anything for the knees anyway.
But I wanted to show you something though.
There is a way to go into Savasana that will give a lot of relieve on your knees when you’ve got an injury.
This way, you’ll be able to enjoy Savasan and be able to go very deep into meditation.
And at the same time it’s a very easy and simple way to get into Savasana too.
What you have to do is put a bolster or two pillows underneath your knees.
And yeah, that’s it, that’s how simple it really is!
The only thing you also need to be aware of is that you put your feet a bit further than hip-width apart.
And then you can stay here for as long as you’d like!
Free Yoga Sequence When You Have a Knee Injury
And as I promised you, here’s the free video of the sequence that I did on the knees.
Just make sure that you like and subscribe the YouTube Channel too! It will really support me and it will show me how people engage with the content that I create.
Just to make sure that I keep on delivering what it is that you are looking for!
And you can also message me or comment down below whenever you’d like of course. You know, if you have a special request.
