Yoga for Knee Pain… Really?

If you are suffering from chronic or acute knee pain, there are many different methods that the Phoenixville, PA knee pain doctor team at Premier Osteoarthritis Centers of Pennsylvania may recommend to you in order to eliminate your pain or manage your pain to the fullest extent possible under the circumstances. Some of these methods may involve lifestyle choices, such as walking more frequently and losing weight. However, most patients who suffer from knee pain have already done everything that they can to adjust their lives to minimize the amount of pain that they feel. As a result, most of our recommendations tend to be things that patients haven’t already likely tried to integrate into their daily lives.

For example, we may recommend that a patient receive knee injections designed to improve knee mobility and function, while reducing inflammation and minimizing pain. This suggestion works in two ways. First, the injection itself can help to alleviate or even eliminate pain. Second, decreased pain, improved mobility, and improved function can allow a patient to lead a more active lifestyle, which can potentially improve knee pain under certain circumstances as well.

Similarly, the experienced team at Premier Osteoarthritis Centers of Pennsylvania may recommend that a chronic or acute knee patient benefit from physical therapy sessions, fascial release techniques, and other motion or pressure-based treatments. These treatments, like knee injections, can benefit knee health directly and can result in supplemental benefits that may promote knee health over the long-term. Physical therapy exercises may involve yoga poses.

How Yoga Poses and Flows Can Help Knee Pain

When most people think about yoga and knees at the same time, they think about how uncomfortable it can be to engage in yoga poses that require the participant to bend in certain ways or to place pressure directly on the knees. Know that we would never recommend yoga poses as a form of physical therapy that would endanger a patient’s joint health or exacerbate preexisting knee, leg, hip, or other health conditions.

What many people do not realize, is that if approached in a certain way, a regular yoga practice can help to improve knee health and minimize knee pain. Similarly, if a patient is uninterested in participating in a regular yoga practice, specific yoga poses and flows can benefit knee health and minimize knee pain even when approached outside of a broader practice.

If this idea seems strange or counterintuitive to you, take a few minutes to hop on YouTube and search for yoga videos that focus on the knees. You may be surprised to learn how much certain yoga approaches can benefit mobility, flexibility, and the ability of the body to relax. Holding tension around the knees or in the hips can significantly impact knee health and knee pain. By integrating yoga positions into a physical therapy context in the right ways, the Premier Osteoarthritis Centers of Pennsylvania can help you to achieve the results you desire as part of a broader knee management plan.