If you’ve experienced a knee injury or you have knee sensitivity, here are 10 yoga classes to heal, support and improve stability in your knees.
1. Anatomy first!
Avoid pain in the knees – José takes a look at the anatomy of the knees and explains how you can avoid injuring them during your yoga practice. You will learn that besides tension, the shape of your bones (femur & tibia) also determines the range of movement you have in your hip and knee joint. – 15 mins / talk / José de Groot
2. Keep your knees healthy in yoga poses
Protect your knees – a short class which looks at 3 common pain points in the knees, their possible causes and the modifications you can try, using props and alignment actions. – 15 mins / Therapeutic / Sandra Carson
3. Strengthen and stabilise
Some knee love – Following an accident that left some damage in different structures, Anat devised these stabilising and strengthening exercises to aid her recovery. Not all knees are the same but I hope you find something here to support your own road to strength and stability. – 1:07mins / Hatha / Anat Geiger
4. Gentle mobilisation
Caring for your knees – Increasing the strength in the thighs, ankles and feet helps to support the knee joints. Try these gentle movements to mobilise the knee joints without putting too much strain on them. – 14 mins / Therapeutic / Lyn Core
5. Avoid hyperextension
Content into the container – This class focuses on how to work the knee joint from the muscles of the leg to avoid hyperextension at the knee. You’ll experience a new way of creating meaningful actions in your legs and learn how to apply them to different poses. 30 mins / Hatha / Iyengar / Adela Serrano
6. Yin / Yang knee protection
Pain-free knees – A Yang flow practice using poses that strengthen the muscles that protect the knee, followed by Yin poses to safely keep the knees mobile. 60 mins / Yin Yang yoga / José de Groot
7. Running support
Post-run yoga – Great to do after your run, as part of your workout routine, or as a practice on its own, several times a week. The focus is on releasing and lengthening the big muscles that are used in running, but also addresses some of the smaller muscles and knees. 45 mins / Therapeutics Sandra Carson
8. TLC for the knee
Free the knee – If you’ve been overdoing things a bit – whether in your yoga practice, or sitting, standing or walking – your knees might be screaming for some extra TLC. This quick and easy practice will give you just that. – 20 mins / Hatha / Irina Verwer
9. Mini massage
Yamuna – lower legs and calves – In this short, effective class we work down the lower leg from the back of the knee with the black ball. This sequence gets into the body of the calf muscle but also works the middle hamstring. Intense and deep and great for the knees! – 6 mins / Therapeutics / Nichi Green
10. Optimal alignment
Keep your knees safe during yoga – After her brief talk on the anatomy of the knee (demonstrating on the skeleton), Jennilee continues with an information-based movement exploration of how to safely align the knee in certain strengthening and stretching yoga postures. – 30 mins / Hatha / Jennilee Toner
Further reading
- Respecting and honouring your knees – Jennilee looks at the common causes of knee pain and injuries and teaches us how to ensure stability of the knee joint and respect and honour its limitations on and off the yoga mat.
- Yin Yoga for the knees – If you suffer from pain in your knees caused by injury or arthritis, Yin yoga expert, Bernie Clarke, encourages you to give this simple technique a try.
This article has recently been updated.
