The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Injuries, Restrictions, Ailments, Pose Modifications › Knees, legs and ankles › Lock the Knee
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“Lock your knee.” This is very difficult to understand. Been told for years to never do this. Please help me understand.
Posted by Matt on 01/21 at 10:56 AMHello Matt
Thanks for the question. I am going to assume that you are asking about the ramifications of locking the knee and not the anatomy of the knee!
Firstly, I think you have something there. There are lots of commands in the Hot Yoga room about locking the knee. I know that many people I have spoken to have also not really understood. When I started teaching I noticed that many were pushing their knee backwards, their knee joint locking the leg straight. Furthermore, with another too frequent command to “shift the weight” to one leg meant that students were leaning into one leg using the bones and joints to support them without necessarily using their muscles.
Effective knee locking can only benefit you if you engage and work your muscles. I prefer to tell my students to “pull up your kneecap with your quadriceps muscles”.
Locking the knee can be a controversial action to some. Your ability to have any sort of shock absorption in the leg is going to be greatly compromised (or non-existent) if the leg is locked. If you are walking, running and jumping you need your muscles, and joints and other structures to absorb some of the shock. If you are standing doing a yoga pose building balance, or building leg strength for only one example, then having a firm leg is going to do more for you. You will encourage strength, stability, stamina in those muscles, and you will effectively remove a linkage in your leg (by locking the joint) and make balance more likely. It seems that if you want to build optimal strength in your leg (and open up your knee joint area) then at some stage you are going to need to lock your knee.
There are many conditions where a locked knee is a symptom of an underlying more serious problem. This would be where the leg can neither straighten or bend (to some degree). So possibly some may be confusing the requirement to lock the knee in Hot Yoga poses with these problems.
Please let me know if that answers your question
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Posted by hennafire
wow, all this time when i heard lock the knee i was doing just that, and caused me some problems, now raise the kneecap makes more sense and is a good way to put it, thanks Gabrielle for the clarification, now it all makes sense to me,
thanks again, hennafireI am so pleased that it has helped you. Simplicity and precision rule!
Namaste 🙂
Posted by ela
“rise the knee-cap” – still not clear for me.
>:-( Ela
Posted by hennafire
🙂 Hi Ela, if you are standing up, straighten the knees, tighten muscle just above knees and it raises the knee caps, at least for me it does. repeat it enough and you can feel the knee caps moving up, but be careful you don’t tighten so much you lock you knees and bend them backwards! :ohh: once you get the hang of it it is easier to do it then to explain it, i hope this helps and that it wont’ be more confusing. can also try it lying down, might be easier to isolate the knee caps and do it. good luck, hope it works for you! relaax when you try it or it will be harder to do.
hennafire
Posted by Robert
Thanks hennafire – we must have been typing at the same time – nice explanation!
Love the lying down tip – good idea.
Robert
Posted by hennafire
Robert, thanks, i could not think of the muscle name quadriceps! 🙂 thats it. way to go.
later, hennafire
Posted by ela
Thank you to ALL of you!
You are a big help…finally I got it, or at least I think so.
I will try this lying down.Ela 🙂
Posted by hennafire
🙂 Hi Ela, i knew you would get it, lying down is easier to learn it i think, i feel it more that way, whatever works!! way to go!!!! 😉
have fun, hennafire
hi
when i do tree pose, by holding my foot from underneath, my hips being so tight,i can only bring my foot so high hence my shoulders and hips are not in one line…what should i do. i try hard to lift the heel towards my hips..but it just won t go there. what should i do?Hi Yogini
You know, you can only do what you can do! :cheese:
It can be a real challenge in working out your priorities when the hips are really tight in this one. When you hold your foot from underneath make sure your heel does not cross the thigh bone. Keep it as close to the midline as possible. This in itself will help your shoulders and hips be more aligned. Then as you hold your foot, let the leg submit to gravity and consciously let go of the muscles in the hip and pelvis and inner thigh. The tighter you hips the more difficult it will be to hold your body upright and symmetrical. Work on locking out the leg and making sure your tailbone is tucked under. The openings your body experiences in other poses will eventually pay dividends and make tree pose easier, little by little.
Enjoy and embrace the process
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂hi gabrielle,
i was just wondering if you had any more information on exactly what happens when you “lock the knee” into place. I have heard some teachers say that unless you lock the knee, your bones are grinding on each other, which will eventually lead to serious injury. is this true? when you lock the knee are you actually lifting the knee cap up so that it is supported by muscle? if so, what muscles are used? what actually does happen if you do not lock the knee?thanks!
susanHi Susan
When you lock the knee, you are primarily using your quadriceps muscles to create SPACE in the knee joint. You are strengthening all the mechanisms around the knee to support it. If you have lax muscles then yes, the space will close or be limited and the possibility of grinding is greater. If you don’t lock the knee with your muscles then you lose the built-in suspension (or shock absorbing) system for the knee.
There is a great resource that describes many aspects of this answer. Go to: Locking the knee
Basically you don’t want to rely on just your skeletal system to hold your body in space. Locking your knee is not just about straightening out the joint. It is to bring about space and strength, ward off the effects of gravity, help heal or protect from injury and have healthy joints!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂thanks gabrielle,
you always know how to explain everything so well. your response helps a lot.thanks for all that you do,
susanI just managed to lock my knees for the first time in standing seperate leg in practice yesterday, and felt a sharp pain in my left tendon behind my knee. This morning i’ve woken up with some pain in my knee cap. I’m going back tonight and hope that some advil will help me through this one, and it’s just a tight tendon and will loosen up. Is this normal for someone who’s only been practacing for about 3 weeks or so?
Hi Andip!
I just found your post about locking your knee. I did actually answer it
back then but we had a server problem and lost all the posts of the
particular day which had my response.Please tell me if continued practice improved the sensation in your leg.
You mentioned you had pain behind your knee cap.BTW it can be normal to have little aches and pains. Either because the
body is opening up, or because you are still gaining awareness around your
body and also still learning the series.You may not have all the knowledge yet to safely move into all the
movements, or there could be a structural imbalance that is exacerbated by
not knowing how to correct it. Your knees are particularly susceptible to
these forces. Your answer may be as simple as lifting up through your ankles
to ensure that your foot, leg and hip bones are all stacked correctly.When you start practice, you have your awareness on so many things (which
can cause overwhelm) so that some of them fall by the wayside as you are
expanding your consciousness around the technical elements of the series.
And lastly, although some may not like to read this, you may not have had a
level of instruction that could facilitate risk avoidance!Please get back to me and let me know how you have been going.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi all,
I’m a first time user here, so hopefully I’m doing it right.
I’ve got 2 questions: 1. I have bandy legs – they don’t bow out to the side, but i can push them all the way back. So it feels impossible for me to lock the knee, because I’ve spent my whole life keeping my knees soft. I’m getting really frustrated in class, because I feel like I have the flexibility to do the standing postures, but keep falling out of them because I can’t lock me knee. I’ve tried webbing my toes and really digging them into the mat and engaging my muscles, but nothing works! Any suggestions?
2. I can’t EVER seem to turn my mind off. No matter how much I try to concentrate on my breathing and the postures, my mind constantly wanders.I’d like to say I at least think about profound things, but it’s always just useless, distracting drivel. Very,very frustrating. I desperately want to have at least my Bikram time to quiet my mind and focus, but it just doesn’t seem to happen. I think it also contributes to falling out of postures more than I’d like, because the concentration just isn’t there.
I would be so grateful for any help these.
Happy Bikram and thanks for reading.
Hi Cassie!
Just saw your Q while surfing the thread.
1. Falling out of a standing posture is pretty common! It’s all part of the learning process 🙂 I’ve been practicing Bikram’s for about 8 months now – and I still fall out of Standing Bow :red:
Which postures of the standing series in particular are you referring to? If it’s the Standing Bow pose, falling to the side has to do with your balance, while falling to the front during the posture means you’re not kicking hard / high enough2. Hmm I used to have this problem in the beginning eg “It’s so hot I am going to melt in here … I wonder what’s for lunch? … Hmm I wonder if I can leave work early today… etc etc”.
Concentrate hard on the dialogue. Quieten your mind. Give yourself in to the dialogue. Tune yourself to what the instructor is saying.
Hopefully this helps!
Namaste,
MeiHi Cassie
It seems you are very frustrated with your inability to build strength in a way that seems right to you and that will also help you find your balance. Regardless of whether you have what some people refer to as “hyperextension” your problem does sound very much like you have an imbalance in your muscles and you need some work to build strength on front and back.
It is probably prudent to seek some advice outside of the studio. Maybe there will be some exercises that someone can give you to work with for minutes per day to address the imbalance. I understand that exercises like swimming and riding a recumbent bike can help you. You may be able to hire some equipment on a short term basis.
If you have to always keep your knees soft you may learn to balance, but you won’t get the benefit of developing that solidity through your legs, and that space in your knees (by squeezing your quadriceps muscles). I am certainly concerned about the way your body would have to learn a ‘work around’.
Anyway, if you can give me more information I will be happy to work on this further with you.
Now for your focus issue:
You know, you are possibly already benefiting to a great degree. It is really common that students take some time to learn the series. It is only after a while (different for everyone) that people start to even take notice of their mind chatter because it is when they learn the series that they actually have the bandwidth to notice it! A bit of a Catch 22, I know. And yes, it could be ONE of the reasons you are falling out, but going by what you have told me, there are some definite technique elements at play.So a few tips and thoughts:
1 OBSERVATION is key. Notice and then move on!
2 Let go of judgment: it is what it is.
3 Understand that yoga is about finding some quiet in your mind – NOT SILENCE. 😉 That really doesn’t happen to anyone! Just know that it is OK to think things. It is learning what to do after you have thought them that counts!
4 Be easy on yourself: it is hard to REMEMBER how busy your mind was at any stage. Somehow it seems busy all the time. So, give yourself credit for where you are and KNOW that your mind is already a lot quieter than it was before. You may not notice at the time, but the noticing usually ?happens retrospectively.When I have done Vipassana meditation retreats, (with over 10 hours per day silent meditation for 10.5 days) I remember that on Day 1 of the very first time I went I couldn’t possible count the number of thoughts I had per second, let alone per minute. But day 10 (actually even day 2) I could start to separate my thoughts. I never had a completely quiet mind.
I really hope that helps you let go of your own self-imposed expectations.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂I never use the word “lock” as it is vague and like the many postings here, has wrong or misleading connotations.
Try this Anusara technique for STABILIZING the knee.
The cue is…”SHINS IN, THIGHS OUT”.
It can be done standing, prone, supine, sitting, balances, squats…everything. Try it in cobra type poses and you’ll fly…your whole body will soar. For me, a strong cobra tail was never enough. (Also, putting the feet in tiptoe position will magnify the muscle work in these prone positions.
From Tadasana…try this variation… large toes touching, toes spread and planted, a small space between the heels, quarter inch. TRIPOD POINTS PRESS DOWN…large toes, webbing at toes 4 and 5, and middle of the heel.
Now with muscle energy spiral the calf from the outside backward and inward.
Then with muscle energy press the thighs apart.This is subtle. Don’t change the position of the knees, ankles or hips. To show your students what NOT to do, exaggerate bowed legs and knock knees in a faux first attempt. Let them exaggerate this also, to help them feel what the correct work of the muscles will mean.
And in your first few or several attempts you may not find it. Or you may be able to do the shins in, but not the thighs out. As in the work of yoga, keep trying. It will soon get into your cells and you’ll be amazed at the lightness. freedom and new found, like magic, strength that you have.
Gravity defying all the way around.
airbear
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