Do you dare to challenge what you have learned to be right in yoga?

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In her blogpost Biomechanics # Anatomy Jules Mitchell discuss one of the big untouchable queings most of us yogapractioners and yoga teachers have learned in class or our teacher trainings (and now keep teaching with an almost nervous insistence to our own students); the one about the knee pointing straight forward when in a bent position. I have learned it to be the best way to keep the knee joint safe according to how loads are distributed best through the bones.

Its not wrong but as Jules Mitchell points out in her blog it should´nt be the end of the story.

Biomechanics is about how loads effects the body.

Many of us have developed postural habits that load the body in ways that now makes us feel less than optimal. Compensatory patterns drives the body and may have done for so long that we think its the body natural state.

If the patella (kneecap) is slightly dislocated, maybe effected by years of walking with a particular gait pattern, it will create a situation where the knee will loose its optimal range of motion and probably find itself on a new bony surface that creates friction. Ouch!

If we take this pattern with us when performing a warrior 2 it will do more harm than good and then its definitly a good option to learn to align the knee straight forward (as long as we also consider other important "dots" in the equation such as the feet placement etcetera).

But though the knee may experience its biggest or most common range of motion in extension and flexion the knee joint is as Jules Mitchell explain a " bicondylar hinge joint with six degrees of freedom (flexion and extension, external and internal rotation, varus and valgus angulation, anterior and posterior glide, medial and lateral shift, compression and distraction)" And her point is that if you are only working the knee joint in one type of movement it can actually be more damaging for its ability to withstand loads in other joint positions.

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When my kids where younger we trained taekwondo together in a club. And it have confused me a bit when I in martial arts learned and have seen movements and stances where the angles in the knee joints is what we in yoga learn as being unsafe and potentially pro to injuries.

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When moving in for example taekwondo, Tai Chi or Qi Gong they sometimes go far over the knee or let the foot angle inward or outward while they bending deep in their knee seemingly following a whole bunch of other rules than those we see and learn in our yoga practice.

If I remember it right from my glorious ;) but very short career as a taekwondo power mama, alignment never got discussed. What got discussed though was how the body related to the center of mass and flow of energy.

I´m not a bio mechanist (when checking out the education I got really discouraged, there where simple to much math and physics for me) so I trust a smart women as Jules Mitchell to translate the mystical codes from the bio mechanical sheets to me. And though I don´t understand the math, it makes sense to me when Jules Mitchells says that our bodies are designed to move in numbers of ways. It makes sense that a joints ability to move in different ways is not potential harmful unless you throw some weird loads and frequent repetitions into the cocktail.

So do we dare to jump out and try to experience new angles in the knee joint when we for example doing our warrior 2?

We should! But first we have to set something straight.

You can´t isolate the knee from what happens in the foot and in the hip, it´s all about loads remember;) so how we position the other joints and activating our muscles is important for our ability to improve ROM (range of motion) in the kneejoint in the most safe way.

If your foot is collapsed while turning it inwards your knee will follow and equally collapse inwards. That is not an optimal load for your bones and this will strain the ligaments and tissues in an unhealthy way at least when done over and over again.

How mobile you are in your hip joints will also effect how deep you should go when bending your knee. Maybe you have to make a shorter stand and/or angel the back foot inward to some degree.

And maybe you also have to take the amount of time in consideration. Are you in the mood for a practice with long holds or are you in the mood for moving?

I think my dear and awesome teacher in taekwondo learned me something really useful that may be as good as this yogic obsession with straight lines (and I´m the first one to admit how desperate I have tried to follow the yoga regiment of straight lines!!) and its about how to find and move from your center in any position. A collapsed foot is an uncentered foot, as a collapsed knee is an uncentered knee.

But a knee joint that are able to move in and out from the center, adjusting to the various load transmitted trough it, is a safe and happy knee joint.

In the following video I vary the placement of the front foot in standing side angle pose and reversed warrior. When you try it your self it is most important that you engage the muscles in the feet and in your leg and working with an slightly isometric contraction between the feet in order to let the bones transmit force in the best way.

(If you feel any discomfort I trust you are wise enough to just let it be an interesting questioning of all the shoulds we have learned in in yoga.)

Want to try it? :)