Be Nice to Your Knees!

Yoga can be a wonderful tool to help strengthen your knees, but small misalignment repeated over time can actually do more harm than good.  Here are some helpful tips to keep your knees safe -

1. Avoid hyper-extending
- In straight leg standing and seated poses like triangle, mountain and staff pose, it can be easy to over extend your knees. Try to focus on drawing the top of your thighs back, while pushing the back of your calves forward to engage your legs. Avoid pushing your knee joints back.
 -If you have a tendency to hyper-extend, it's better to slightly bend your knees in poses that typically require straight legs.

2. Proper alignment
- In standing poses like warrior I, warrior II, and extended side angle make sure to bend your knee directly over your ankle at a 90 degree angle, lining your knee over your second toe. Never allow the knee to come past the ankle.
- Constantly focus on drawing your knee outward to make sure it doesn't slip inward.
- If you have a previous knee injury, back off slightly, and come out of the pose if you feel any discomfort.

3. Warm up your hips
- Stretching your hips can help take pressure off your knees. Practice poses such as pigeon, happy baby, child's pose, and bound angle pose to open your hips.

4. Use your feet
 - In triangle and mountain pose raise the inner arches of your feet to take pressure off your knees.

***Special thanks to my yogi dad for some extra tips in this post on how to protect you knees!