Outer knee injury exercises and lotus

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

I’ve developed an outer knee pain or ache on my left knee partly due to yoga practice.

Before starting Yoga practice I did some conditioning exercises followed by stretching, I finished up with stretching my glutes seated as shown on the attachement.

I then immediately started preparatory yoga practice (I am something of a beginner) and went to the half lotus pose gently pushing the knee down when I felt a small ‘pop’ and the outer knee aching pain develop. This was 2 months ago where I gave any Yoga or stretching practices a break.

I tried to begin Yoga practices again yesterday and the problem came straight back up.

The funny thing is, this only affects me when I try the half lotus stretching exercises or even when I sit simply cross legged. When I’m jogging or doing squats I can only barely feel it, if at all for the last month or so.

The ache after yesterday is on the left knee on the outer side, just left of the patella around the upper and lower grooves of the patella.

I’ve always had especially tight glutes and fairly tight quadriceps and I know my hips are very tight. I’ve had knee injuries in the past (from amateur gymnastics not yoga), but never one like this and I know they have always been the result of areas being to weak or affected by other areas that are too tight or strong.

I’m convinced I’ve affected my vastus lateralis tendons at the knee and I’m just praying it is not a ligament in the same area I’ve affected.

I do know intuitively with injuries like this that they will not just go away even with years of waiting, so that they will need rehabilitating and I realise I should not be attempting any half lotus knee exercises.

Anyway what I wanted to ask is for any recommendations for any hip and glute loosening exercises that would help me loosen my hips up as I believe this to be the primary stressor on my knees when attempting half lotus.

#2

Howdy.

Here you go.

Hip Rotation

Knee Issues

Hip Movements

Hip Stiffness

Half Lotus

Beginners in Lotus

Pre Padmasana Poses

#3

I would recommend Hot Yoga, I go 1/2 an hour earlier so I can do stuff not done in the actual class like get into lotus, and poses in lotus such as peacock and fish. I've had my left knee injured in the past and the heat lets me do lotus with great ease.

#4

Got an update on how your knee is? Think I have a similar injury.

#5

Hi,

Yes the injury was caused by bad Yoga practice or rather bad Gymnastic practice incorporated within Yoga (often the case) as described in "Yoga and Kriya: A Systematic Course by Saraswati Satyananda Swami".

Namely the bouncing of the knee stretches prescribed as hip openers to get into the lotus found in the first chapters. Bouncing stretches are known as "ballistic stretching" within sports science and are completely contraindicated for anyone who is not a pre-pubescent child, because they almost invariably cause serious tissue injuries to adults, why they are included is beyond me.

How did I get better? I completely stopped any exercises trying to get into the Lotus or involving my knee. After about 2 months I started doing squats to strengthen the knee. I completely stopped any ballistic stretching whatsoever to date.

A lot of my poor hip openess is due to my tight gluteals, here a thick soft carpet and deep static pigeon gluteal stretches helped take pressure off my knee when trying for the lotus again. Isometric and static stretches of various kinds for hip openess helped.

Two good sources are Stretching Scientifically by Thomas Kurz, and Kit Laughlin's materials to get into a lotus.

To conclude, stop what you are doing, then strengthen knee, then stretch properly given the above materials. Hope that helps.

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#6

Yoga seal pose, Cow face pose with forward bend both side, Fire log pose with forward bend both side, Half lord of the dishes pose, Bow to ear pose this all pose is really helpful for loosening hip muscle . But in this all pose if u will feel knee pain u can use counter pose or stop.

#7

If you have condition called Patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS), then it will aggravate with yoga postures. You need to get it properly assessed by good teacher and examiner and then specific posture can fix the issue.

I always see few students keep coming in my class with such issues.

#8

I was doing a 30 day challenge, going to Hot Yoga everyday. The class is an hour and I would get in the room 1/2 an hour earlier and do my Lotus pose sequence, by day 21 the tendons on my knees between the legs were getting sore. Walking home I was crossing a street when a car coming made me speed up but my foot made a very small slip but enough to feel pain in the right knee.

Such a drag, I was really getting into Yoga and haven't been to a class for 5 weeks.