The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Injuries, Restrictions, Ailments, Pose Modifications › Knees, legs and ankles › HELP!!!
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I have bursitis in both my knees due to overtraining in spinning and swimming. My ortho dr. suggested that I start doing bikram yoga to help with the pain and swelling as painkillers weren’t that effective and because I have very weak joints.
I started doing bikram yoga 19 days ago for the first time, and was going every day. It started to work at first but now I’m feeling more pain and swelling in my knees and have to take painkillers again. I’m also having trouble knowing how to “lock my knees” and everytime I do, they hurt.
So my question is, why did my knees get better at first and then get worse? Is it because I’m overdoing it, not getting enough rest or is it because my quadriceps have never been used before and they’re still trying to adapt to the stretching which is exacerbated by my existing bursitis?
Should I continue doing bikram or should I back off?
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Also, since I started swim training I was kicking like crazy during freestyle. Now whenever I wear close heel shoes eg. sneakers or flats the edge of the top of the shoe digs into my ankle bone and really hurts my ankle. Now I have to wear flip flops to avoid pain. Is there any part of the 26 poses I can concentrate on to “undo” the damage done to my ankle when I was swimming?
BTW, I’m NOT spinning or swimming anymore, just doing bikram yoga.
Please help!!!!!
Hello Sofia
Thanks for being patient. OK, so you started about a month ago. Can you tell me please, are the knees the only place on your body that hurts during / because of the yoga?
It seems you have a professional diagnosis of bursitis. Was the cause arrived at through testing or assumptive means? Just checking we have all the bases covered.
I am assuming your doc wanted you to exercise in a way that removed the repetitive nature of your previous activity, wanting you to build strength in surrounding muscles. I imagine he could understand the holistic benefits of yoga for better body functioning of all systems.
So while it seems that yoga is helping you, that maybe too much is hindering healing. Maybe 7 days a week is not giving your body time to recuperate. May I suggest that you stop until the pain gets to a manageable level. Maybe a day or 2 or 3. Then try going every second day. If that is manageable then go 2 days out of every 3. Then if that works try 3 days out of 4. I would not recommend going every day. Work your way up to 5-6 days per week. Always work in a period of rest.
So to answer your question: Back off temporarily and institute a program of practice to respond to the pain levels.
I think also that we may need to talk about the poses that you feel are pressing your pain buttons! One by one. But first get rid of the pain so that you can love your yoga again and let it work for you.
When it comes to your feet: Are you saying the top of the back of the shoe that covers your heel is now causing pain where it never did before? Just confirming.
Have you seen my free video Great Posture From The Ground Up?
You may find it has something or nothing that resonates with you. Please check it out to let me know if it is possibly leading you down a useful track, and we’ll take it from there
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂this is just my experience… i have arthritis in both knees… and prior surgery in one… the first couple months i didn’t have any major pains… but around the second or third month i would get a sharp pain during certain poses like standing bow… i never push when i feel sharp pain… not just the pain of stretching… but i kept with it and the sharp pain went away after a week… i’ve been out of practice for a month and a half due to illness and i;m finding the same issues… fixed firm is painful so i just do what i can do… some days i can go halfway… some days i sit it out… but i’m sure i will get back to the full expression with steady practice… hang in there… bikram yoga is the best thing i ever did for my knees… and don’t forget the ice 😀 good luck!
Hi Gabrielle, thanks so much for getting back to me.
To answer your questions:
1) I wouldn’t say my knees ‘hurt’ per se during bikram yoga, but I feel uncomfortable ie. when I do triangle pose, and put pressure on either knee when I’m bending them, feel swelling when I lock knees etc. Other than that, my hips and lower back ache too when I do hand to feet pose. My left shoulder hurts too when I do the fixed firm pose.
There is one particular pose I still can’t do, and that’s the wind removing pose. I cannot squeeze my hands around either knee/leg and pull them down because that aggravates my bursitis. So I just put my hands around my knee(s) and just stay in that position….
2) Yes it was a professional diagnosis of bursitis, my doc made me do MRIs on both knees and found minimal swelling/effusion (sorry forgot the specific medical term). Other than that the MRIs showed that everything was normal.
3) My orthopedic surgeon urged me to do bikram yoga as he said my muscles especially my quadriceps were very weak, and the only way to to heal my bursitis is to strengthen my muscles, or else I will keep reinjuring myself whenever I do a bit more activity. I suppose he’s right because all my life I’ve had a sedentary lifestyle, not active as a kid.
My ortho surgeon is a big fan of bikram yoga, says it healed him when he inherniated the disc in his spine and was paralyzed in one leg.
4) I’ve been doing yoga everyday, I actually stopped for one day and the next day I went back, I felt worse, both physically in terms of my knees and my performance in yoga as well. I know it may sound a bit excessive, but I read on all the websites that Bikram Choudhury says we should try to go everyday esp if we have an injury until we are fully recovered, and or can do 80% of each pose, then we can back off a bit. It’s been helping with my knees, so far today’s been my 35th day and even though sometimes I feel a bit iffy in my knees afterwards, ie. in a particular spot on my knee cap or sth, when I go back to yoga the next day, it corrects it. And that uncomfort goes away.
But like I said, I have good and bad days. But so far I feel a lot better physically as a person. I do one session on weekdays and sometimes on weekends I do double sessions (but not consecutively, I rest/nap for a few hours in between).
Right now my hamstrings kinda hurt, and my hips hurt. I still can’t do camel pose to save my life, I suppose my back is super stiff …
5) Re: my left foot, the top of the shoe on the side (near the ankle bone that protrudes) causes pain so I wear flip flops now since it’s summer. It started when I was swimming (I don’t swim anymore now) and I noticed when I was kicking during freestyle, my left foot tends to kick slightly sideways as opposed to up and down. That may have caused my pain …. My ortho surgeon took a look at my ankle and he said that it’s uncommon that people’s ankle bones protrude so much, but mine has been like this since the day I was born.
6) Yes I checked out your video a long time ago, it was great in helping me lock my knees, it took me a while before I figured out how to lock my knees esp. to keep my big toe grounded, although sometimes my other toes tend to claw onto the yoga mat to keep my balance.
Looking forward to hearing your views … sorry for such a lengthy post!
Hi Jonny, hope you’re feeling better now! I feel awful not being 100% well although I still feel some discomfort sometimes when I lock my knees, left my knee caps and quadriceps….and I can only do like 10% of the floor bow pose, because when I lift my legs and try to push my knees back my kneecaps hurt, so I can only lift like 10%. Also, for the toe stand, I’m gradually improving, but putting my foot on top of my kneeling thigh kinda puts pressure on my knees, so I can only keep it there for like 2 seconds before I collapse on the floor … hopefully this will improve with time! Hang in there and I’d love to hear how you’re doing from time to time! We can share our experiences together!
Hi Sofia
I haven’t forgotten you. I will get to this very soon. If you have any updates, post them over the next couple of days. Your posts are detailed and I need just a little time to sit quietly in this extremely busy time for me!
Thanks for your understanding
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Thanks Gabrielle! I’m now well into my 8Xth session since I first started mid-June… For the last 3 weeks or so I’ve been averaging 9x a week… 5 on weekdays and doubles on weekends… it’s come to a point where despite my addiction, my body is extremely exhausted, so I took a day off last Thurs and this week am averaging just 6x a week…
But knowing me, I’m been known to always push myself to extremes, forcing myself to focus on moderation is a huge task for me!
I feel much better, but my knees are still not 100% healed. For instance, if I walk up and down stairs a bit more, my knee caps start hurting. For the past couple of days when I did the 3rd part of awkward pose, my knee caps were snapping and hurting, so I backed off and just balanced on my tip toes. Do you know why this happened? I’m confused, because I used to be able to do the 3rd part of awkward pose, and now I can’t bend and sit on my heels. Maybe it has something to do with I may have reinjured my knees walking up and down those stairs?
I still can’t sit on my knees, so whenever I do the rabbit, tortoise and camel poses I have to put a towel under my knees …
Hello Sofia
I am here! Finally.
There is SO much in your entries that it’s a challenge to find THE right place to start. So I will just approach things in an order that I hope makes sense for you.
Something you mentioned seems to be an important thing to broach and that is your confession that you do push yourself too much. You practise A LOT of Bikram yoga. You do love it. It makes part of you feel good but the physical side is not working as well as it should.
My guess is too that you may be going beyond where you should be while you are IN the poses. This can be a problem in Bikram and hot yoga because people feel the difficulties in the pose, they feel spent, as if it’s just too much. Then they come out and have that micro-break between the poses or the sets or the sides and that small amount of rejuvenation time makes them feel happy enough to start again with renewed vigour.
The other problem is that MANY Bikram and hot yoga teachers have been known to tell their students that the ‘yoga fixes everything’ and to ‘just keep doing the yoga’ and to ‘push through the pain’. Is any of this your experience?
You say you have had a pretty sedentary life and so I wondered if there are some missing parts in your ‘fitness equation’. I say this because you are addicted to the yoga but maybe there are things you are asking of your body that would be more possible with somebody who has had more exercise experience. Could be wrong but maybe there are some other things you can do to get your body ready for the job. I will recommend another video and a blog post soon! Hold on… :cheese:
You mention your back is super stiff and your joints weak and your muscles needing work to support your knees for example.
Add into the equation the great possibility that you need help with specific poses and we have an interesting situation.
I can’t tell you all the things that need fixing in this message because I will need to be guided by you. There are clues in this thread. So let’s start with those:
You have seen the video, Great Posture From The Ground Up. I think that over the next few days see each of the other 3 videos as they will help you with essential practice considerations such as core strength, breathing, body posture and using your arms effectively, and keeping optimum shoulder position. Your body is connected so what you do to one part WILL affect the others.
Some specific technique/pose questions to answer please:
>> Are you still feeling swelling on locking your knees?
>> You mention hips and lower back hurt in Hands To Feet pose. How are your hands and fingers positioned? Are your elbows in behind your legs or more out to the side? Shoulders feeling tight or away from ears? Are your legs straight or bent?
>> What part of fixed firm are you in because you say your left shoulder hurts. I am not sure what to picture here. Can you tell me exactly how you are sitting or lying, where your feet/legs/knees are and bottom?
>> Have you tried holding your leg in fixed firm BEHIND the knee instead of on top? That can be the temporary fix that will help you open up the hip, release the lower back etc.The fact that you say taking a break makes it worse makes me concerned that you are exacerbating some issues with less than optimal technique. A rest should be great for healing the body. So stick with me here in this very important phase of diagnosis!
I would also like you to take a look at this blog post called Opening Up Your Hamstrings in Hot Yoga as it could help you understand a very important mechanism that gets used many times in hot yoga. If you aren’t doing this correctly your knees, hips, hamstrings and lower back are likely to be in for some collateral damage. So read this and start applying it. I can help you work out where!
And
>> Have you ever been to a physical therapist (physiotherapist) for specific exercises to strengthen knees and legs? For a general look over to see how you ‘operate’ your body?That’s PLENTY for you to get back to me on.
See you soon
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hello Gabrielle, please accept my deepest apologies for the late reply, I have been away for a while and can’t check at work as this website is blocked, unfortunately!
I’m still practicing yoga, but have cut down to 4x a week. I feel like my body needs to rest, and I don’t want to kill myself compared to the beginning when I was going 7-9x a week!
My knees feel much better, although they do flare up sometimes. Whenever I try to lock my knees while trying to balance (Standing Head to Knee and Standing Bow Pose) for a long time, my knee caps start to hurt and have to get out of the pose.
Also when I do the Standing Separate Leg Stretching, I have difficulties pulling the sides of my feet, because the bottom of my feet hurt when I pull.. this may sound silly but after last Friday’s class, I woke up this morning and the bottom left side of my left foot (near the outside) was aching. And it still aches whenever I walk or stand. I might have pulled too much. But the question is, how hard are you supposed to pull, seeing as you’re supposed to pull down to touch your head to the floor?
I have a similar problem with the Head to Knee with Stretching pose, I know I can straighten my left leg and lock my knee, but I can’t do that AND pull my left foot at the same time, because a dull aching shoots up underneath my knee on the front part of my leg.
My shoulder and back pains have eased a lot, so that’s good!
I’m so sorry for all these questions, I bought your book a while ago but have yet to read through all of it… I know I have a lot of problems! Thanks so much for answering my previous questions, you have been extremely helpful when even some of my yoga teachers can’t answer my questions after class!
P.S. Yes I have tried physical therapy a few times, but they never seemed to work for me! Bikram yoga has been most effective, even though I feel like dying every time I do it!
Hello Sofia
I believe we can focus on a couple of your pose techniques that you report in a couple of poses. These techniques will inform a lot of other poses and make your practice much more satisfying.
Here’s what you said:
when I do the Standing Separate Leg Stretching, I have difficulties pulling the sides of my feet … the bottom of my feet hurt when I pull … it still aches whenever I walk or stand. I might have pulled too much. But the question is, how hard are you supposed to pull, seeing as you’re supposed to pull down to touch your head to the floor?
I have a similar problem with the Head to Knee with Stretching pose, I know I can straighten my left leg and lock my knee, but I can’t do that AND pull my left foot at the same time, because a dull aching shoots up underneath my knee on the front part of my leg.
[strong]
Standing Sep Leg Stretching[/strong]
>> Is your back rounded or straight or even with a slight (backward) arch?
>> Are your legs straight or bent?While you ponder those and get back to me I want you to think of lifting your hips rather than pulling your head to the floor. While you do that I want you to think ‘relax the hips’ and ‘push the heels into the floor’ rather than pulling your body down. See if that frees you up a big. Imagine lifting your elbows up to the sky while seating your shoulders away from the ears too. Remember to come and answer the questions though 😉
[strong]Head to Knee Stretching[/strong]
Just to confirm, you are talking of the Floor Head to Knee pose. The stretching part referred to is the one with both legs out in front.It appears that you really need to bend up your leg to get fingers interlocked (with thumbs underneath but NOT interlocked, just fingers because otherwise you’ll involve the shoulders) and PULL back on the BALL of the foot while you push the heel away. There are absolutely NO PRIZES for having the leg straight if a) your leg is aching b) your forehead is not on your knee c) your elbows are not bending down and in towards the floor and towards the calf muscles. There is more but first please confirm if when you straighten your leg you cannot (comfortably) get your forehead to your knee AND pull with bent arms and feel a satisfying stretch!
See you back here soon!
PS I highly recommend you read the chapters in my hot yoga manual that pertain specifically to Standing Sep Leg Stretching AND Floor Janushirasana. There are photos of how to do the pose, step by step. Then in the following section (after the correct technique sections) there are photos and written descriptions of the mistakes most people make and how to fix those mistakes. I am sure it will get you on the right track
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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