Have you torn your meniscus?
Do you get a sharp pain when you squat?
Do you feel a sharp pain in your knees when lifting heavy weights?
But wouldn’t you want to learn how to heal your meniscus?
Are you looking for the most important yoga exercises to do for your meniscus tear?
Welcome to The Body Conditioner. I use individually-tailored exercises to liberate you from aches and pains, stiffness and tightness.
Here are 5 quick yoga exercises to help you heal your meniscus and relieve the pain.
But before we get into the yoga exercises, let’s explore what the meniscus is and what may have caused your meniscus tear.
The meniscus is shaped like a C. It’s a tough, rubbery cartilage that functions like a shock absorber between your shin bones and your thighbone.
The meniscus can tear with forceful twisting or rotation of the knee. I’m sure you’ve experienced pain, swelling, stiffness and/or the difficulty to extend the knee too.
Let me give you 4 tips to help your knees get better.
Tip 1: Make sure that your knee is properly aligned
Your knee alignment is super important for the health of your meniscus. Try to keep your knee over your ankle.
If you have knock knees, you may put more strain on your lateral meniscus, the one at the outer side. If you suffer from bow legs, you may put more strain on your medial meniscus instead. But both misalignments may contribute to instability, further injury and osteoarthritis in your knees.
Yoga can help you keep your knees aligned, from the hip through the knee into the ankle. If you keep your knees in this straight line you help to stabilize your knee, and you may prevent further injury, swelling and pain.
Do squats e.g. using a yoga block or a glass bottle or a book in-between the thighs to achieve that.
Tip 2: Avoid knee pain
Always keep your knees within the pain-free range as you exercise and go about your day. Most meniscus injuries occur when getting up too quickly from a squatted position or lifting too much weight. Is that what happened to you too? The sharp pain you get in the knee is your meniscus.
Tip 3: Work the injured knee first
If you work your injured knee first, you give it more attention, and that’s what it needs. In general it is important that your quads are strong and flexible.
Tip 4: Take it one day at a time
Some days your knees will feel better than on others. Please do the exercises I show you at least every other day to help heal the meniscus tear. And most importantly, take it one day at a time.
FINALLY, let’s get to the yoga exercises …
Learn simple yoga exercises to relieve your meniscus tear pain. Let’s go!
YOGA EXERCISE 1: Lateral Leg Raises
Lateral leg raises help strengthen the hip abductors,your external hip rotators. Move your backside against a wall, slide one of your legs up and down the wall and keep your pelvis square. Breathe regularly as you do this. As you inhale you slide your leg up the wall and as you exhale you slide your leg down.
After this exercise, I suggest you stretch your hip abductors.
YOGA EXERCISE 2: Strengthen vastus medialis
Let’s strengthen your quads, we especially want to focus on vastus medialis. Rest your thigh on a block e.g. and then you externally rotate the thigh and over-supinate at the ankle. As you elevate your leg you inhale and when you exhale you take it back down. Do both sides to build strength in your knees. Remember to start with your injured knees.
YOGA EXERCISE 3: Quads stretch
Next we want to stretch the quads. This can get a bit tricky. So, if these stretches don’t work for you, please let me know. Lie with your face down, bend one knee and pull the heel towards the buttocks. Remember to keep your knee in a pain-free range, and try to keep your thighs relatively close together.
You could also lay on your side instead while you pull your heel towards the buttock. Keep your pelvis!
YOGA EXERCISE 4: Glutes stretches
As we’ve strengthened the hips, we want to stretch it as well. There are different ways you can get a good stretch for the deep buttocks muscles. The easiest is possibly the figure-four stretch.
Lie on your back, bend your knees and rest the right ankle on the left thigh below the knee cap. Lift your left foot off the ground and pull the thigh towards your chest . You can grab the shin bones below the knee. Keep the back of your head on the ground and your shoulder blades supported on the ground. If this doesn’t work for you, you can press your feet against the wall and do exactly the same thing. Keep your legs rectangular and press one foot against the wall. Increase the stretch by moving the left heel away from the wall. Do this on bothsides, keep the pelvis square and your knees within a pain-free range.
YOGA EXERCISE 5: Foot alignment
As important as the knee alignment is your foot alignment to heal your torn meniscus. If your foot is properly aligned you have an arch under the foot. If you over-supinate, which means that your foot rolls away from the midline, it rolls outward, you have too much of an arch and your ankles get unstable. In this case your knee may overcompensate for it.
If your foot rolls inward as you move, your arch collapses. This is also called a flat foot. Here equally your ankles get unstable and your knee may overcompensate for it too. By keeping your foot properly aligned you stabilize your ankles and your knees.
Remember!
- Keep your knees within the pain-free range
- Work your injured knee first
- Keep your quads strong and flexible
- Keep your knees and feet properly aligned.
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