Healing knee pain with Supta Vajrasana
There are numerous reasons why someone might be experiencing knee pain. Whether it is from an acute injury that has recently happened that may have caused some kind of tear or rupture of a tendon, ligament or the cartiledge.
Or in most cases some kind of inflamation of the joint area or tendon that is casuing pain.
In my experience with working with people with various knee complaints there are a couple of exercises I regularly give that can help with getting mobility back into the joint and strengthening / lengthening the right muscles so that tendons / ligaments are less inflamed.
If you are experiencing pain specifically on the medial side of the knee check out my other post on this here:
https://www.jamiehendersonyoga.com/writings/medialkneepain
Depending on the severity and the inflamation around the knee line you will always want to start with the basics first. Walking.
Walking is the most natural movement we do as humans and it’s the first step ( pun intended ) to gaining some mobility back into the knee.
Once you are able to walk and can start to partially bend the knee without too much stiffness and without any sharp pain, you will want to start to increase the range of motion to the point where there is some discomfort.
This could be sat on your couch and doing some basic knee flexion exercies just bending and straightening the knee.
As long as you can fully straighten and bend the knee without any sharp pain and no ‘locking’ of the knee joint where it ‘catches’, you will want to start to work on a very supported version of Vajrasana.
Vajrasana
Now sitting like this in the beginning might be too much for the knee. So what i recommend is to place a cushion or two under your bum or even behind the back of the legs closer to the knee to take the weight off of the knee.
This is an excellent posture to start getting more blood and oxygen into the knee as well as gently stretching the quads which also helps with pain redution. Try to spend a minute or two here daily.
As the inflamation and pain reduces you can reduce the amount of cushions so that you work towards sitting between your ankles. Take you time with this journey. There is no rush.
Once you are able to sit on the floor with no pain you can start to try and go back into Supta Vajrasana. This reclined version will stretch the quads more as you work towards lying back.
Start with your hands behind you, then maybe the elbows and eventually lying down on your back.
Supta Vajrasana
Again if it is too much you can place a cushion behind you to lie down on.
You can find a tutorial on this in my Better Mobility Guide here:
https://www.jamiehendersonyoga.com/the-better-mobility-guide-1/v/knee-rehab-exercises
Now you will want to stregthen the legs
An excellent exercise for this is variations of Laghu Vajrasana. Or a reverse nordic.
From a kneeling position you will want to push the feet strongly into the ground and lower yourself back and up again. This exercise is excellent for targetting the quads and strengthening the muscles around the knee.
For a full breakown of this movement check the link below:
https://www.jamiehendersonyoga.com/the-better-mobility-guide-1/v/laghu-vajrasana-knee-rehab
For more information on injury rehab / prehab check out The Better Mobility Guide link below.
