“Yoga is beneficial for all your joints, but particularly for your knees, because the poses bring the entire body into balance,” says Sandy Blaine, author of Yoga for Healthy Knees. Many poses strengthen and stretch your inner and outer quadriceps as well as your hamstrings, calves, and ankles, which collectively keep your kneecaps stable and strong. Sustaining poses during your practice sends blood rushing through your muscles and connective tissues, delivering nourishment and oxygen to those areas. And that reduces inflammation, speeds healing, and repairs damage. Blaine experienced chronic knee pain herself until she took up yoga more than 20 years ago. Here, she shares her best tips for happy, healthy knees. Choose your yoga class wisely. All yoga styles are not created equal. And when it comes to knees, Blaine recommends a style that teaches proper alignment in every pose, such as Iyengar or Anusara. Both will keep you safe and teach you how your joints are meant to move. Avoid fast-paced styles like ashtanga and vinyasa. “Stick with a slower, more therapeutic practice,” Blaine says. “Otherwise, you’ll just move within the patterns already established in your body, which can worsen existing conditions.” Your hip is connected to your…? When you feel pain one place, there’s a good chance that something is going on somewhere else in your anatomy. Case in point: Your knee pain may be the result of tight hips. “Tight hip muscles don’t allow for enough rotation to bend forward easily,” Blaine says. " So your knees will take over." As a result, the knees torque painfully in the joint. Her advice? “Props help adapt [yoga] poses to your needs so they’re safest for you,” she says. In any seated cross-legged pose, sit up on top of a block or folded blanket so your hip bones are higher than your knees. That way you will be able to stretch your hip muscles without straining your knees. Also try creating extra space in your knee joint in seated yoga poses by placing washcloths in the creases behind your knees. If you can make hip-opening poses safe and comfortable enough to do regularly, you may be able to ease your knee pain for good. More from Prevention: Best Stress-Busting Yoga Poses Media Platforms Design TeamNEW fromPrevention!Get long and lean with sexy Flat Belly Yoga!   [pagebreak] Answers at your feet Chances are your feet have a tendency to roll either inward or outward, Blaine says. Over time that puts stress on the inside or outside of your knee joints, respectively. Find out how your feet roll and then start practicing proper standing in yoga poses and in life. In line at the checkout? That’s a perfect place to work on your alignment!

  1. Take off your shoes and stand up tall.
  2. Look down at your feet. What are your arches doing? Collapsing inward? Rolling outward? Or do they seem balanced with all four corners of your feet-big toes, little toes, and both sides of your heels-pressing evenly into the floor?
  3. If they’re rolling one direction or the other, practice walking barefoot and resisting your foot’s bad habit. With every step press all four corners of your feet evenly into the floor.
  4. Remember that feeling and work on it regularly. Try a balancing act Practicing a yoga balancing pose with your eyes closed is one of the greatest ways to improve your anatomical alignment, Blaine says. It requires you to feel-not see-your body’s placement in space. You have to rely on your feet, ankles, and knees to align properly in order to keep you balanced. Plus, yoga poses that require balance, like Tree Pose, strengthen the ligaments and tissues around your knee, which keeps your kneecap in place. Try it now-first with your eyes open, then with them closed. Tree Pose Media Platforms Design Team 1. Stand up tall with your feet together and hands at your chest in prayer position. 2. Shift your weight into your left leg and lift your right foot off the floor. Turn your right knee out to side and place the sole of your right foot on your inner left thigh. Gently press your foot into your leg and your leg into your foot for stability. 3. If you feel stable, extend your arms overhead. Hold for another three to five breaths. 4. Switch sides and repeat. 5. Then switch sides again and repeat with eyes closed. More from Prevention: 11 Natural Remedies For Pain Relief