Say Goodbye to Knee Pain

By Paige Greenfield

Reduce inflammation and other woes with easy poses

Know more about your feet than your shoe size
Take off your shoes, stand up tall, and look down at your feet. What are your arches doing? Are they collapsing inward? Are they rolling outward toward your pinkie toes? Or do they seem evenly balanced with all four corners—big toes, little toes, and the sides of your feet—pressing into the floor? Chances are you roll inward or outward, Blaine says, which over time puts stress on the inside or outside of your knees. To correct this, practice walking around barefoot and resisting your foot’s desire to roll in either direction. With every step try to get all four corners touching the floor evenly. Remember this feeling and continue working on it during your yoga practice in all standing postures.

Stand on one leg and close your eyes
This is one of the greatest tools for working on your alignment because it requires you to feel—not see—your body’s placement, Blaine says. Instead, it relies on your feet, ankles, and knees to align correctly in order to keep you balanced. Working on balance poses like Tree and Warrior III strengthen the ligaments and tissues around your knee, which will keep your kneecap in place.

More:

Yoga Cures: Rehab Runner's Knee

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