yoga

22

december 2018 / january 2019

yogajournal.com.sg

rti ll

ANATOMY

Are common cues in standing poses wreaking havoc on your knees, sacroiliac joint,

and lower back?

BY TOM MYERS

Better alignment from

the ground up

YOGA TEACHERS ALMOST UNIVERSALLY ADVISEtheir students to

place their ankles and big toes together or line up their feet under their

hips with the outside edges parallel to the edges of the mat—in Tadasana

(Mountain Pose) or Utkatasana (Chair Pose). The most anatomically

inclined teachers urge students to align their feet so the second toes are

pointing straight forward, positioning the tibias (shin bones) relative to

the feet.

While aligning your feet in these ways may seem like a good idea,

especially if you are splay-footed or pigeon-toed, it could cause long-term

damage to your knees, other joints, and lower back. Here’s why—and

how you can avoid it.

Foot and leg anatomy

Your legs technically start from your 12th ribs, which sit beside your

lumbar (lower) vertebrae. They include the psoas and quadratus

lumborum muscles as well as the rest of the pelvic muscles that move or

stabilize the hip joints.

The feet and legs are constructed as a series of hinge joints, known

as single-degree-of-freedom joints, alternating with rotational (multiple-

degree-of-freedom) joints.

The balls of your feet are five joints that together act as a hinge when

you go on tiptoe. Above them is the rotational joint under your ankle: Rock

your feet in and out from collapsed pronation (an exaggerated rolling in of

the heel toward the midline) to locked-up supination (heels roll out) to feel

this joint.

The upper ankle joint is also a hinge. From a standing position, bend

your knees and bring them back to locked to feel your lower legs hinging

over your feet from dorsiflexion (a decreased angle between your foot

and shin) to plantarflexion (an increased angle).

Above that, in the lower legs, there is a small amount of rotation

between the tibia and fibula, the bones between the knee and ankle. Flex

one knee so that you are on the ball of your foot, and swing your heel in

and out, like grinding out a cigarette, to feel this rotation.

Keep moving up your leg: The knee itself is constructed as a hinge.

The ball and socket of the hip can, of course, move in multiple directions.

The next link in the joint chain is the sacroiliac (SI) joint. To identify this

joint, feel the prominent bones at the dimples at the bottom of the lower

back. The SI joint, also constructed as a simple, one-degree-of-freedom

hinge, starts about an inch in front of those. The sacrolumbar joints,

where the spine sits on the sacrum, allow for some rotation.

Rotational joints are limited by bone shape, restricting ligaments,

and overly tight muscles. But the range, interplay, and adaptability in

rotational joints are greater than in hinge joints—which are limited to one

dimension.

What happens when you focus on the feet?

Think about hinges such as those on the screen door of a porch. Each

hinge works fine on its own as long as the screws are tight. It opens and

closes, flexes and extends, and can continue to do so for years without

repair. But if two hinges are misaligned, they are unlikely to last more

than a few months before the door is bent, the screws tear loose, and the

frame gets chewed up.

Now apply this to your legs: When you align your feet, the toe hinge

and the ankle hinge will work like those of a good screen door. But your

knees and lower back may be pushed into misalignment by aligning your

feet—and that might in turn cause trouble for your knee, SI joint, and

lower back, especially as you challenge them with more difficult asana.

To prevent this, most practitioners will be better served by aligning

their knees under their hips and back and letting their feet fall where they

may.

Hear me out: If you line up your feet but one or both knees are

twisted on top of this (see the assessment below), you are misaligning

the hinges on the screen door and risking long-term trouble. Think of

walking: If you aligned your feet as you walked, your knees and lower

back would operate like those misaligned hinges and start wearing down

faster than they should, with bones pressing and grinding on cartilage

unevenly. Instead, align each knee so that the patella (kneecap) faces

forward. This way the important hinges above—in the hip, pelvis, and

lower back—will also be in alignment. Align your feet, and there is no

such guarantee.