yoga

Check your leg alignment

Of course, if your feet, ankles, knees,
hips, and pelvis are all truly in a line,
then there is no problem to solve.
Here’s how to find out if that applies to
you:
Stand in front of a mirror and line
up your feet so that the second toes are
facing forward, but you are otherwise in
a relaxed standing posture, not forcing
it. Does your pelvis lie square to the
mirror? Put your fingertips on the front
of your hip bones, and look down to
check. Remember, no forcing.
Now look at your knees. Are your
kneecaps also directly aligned with
the mirror, like headlights? Or are they
headed in or out compared with the
joints above and below?
As you bend each knee, does the
center of the kneecap go directly out
over the second toe, or does it head
off somewhere on its own? If the latter,
trouble could ensue if you work from
artificially aligned feet. Instead, line up
your knees and work from there.
If you are thinking,Oh, I’ll just
continue to line up my feet and simply
turn my knee until it’s straight, to train it
into alignment—don’t do it. Pulling your
medially rotated knee into alignment
usually strains the hip in lateral rotation
and locks the lower ankle joint into
supination—not agood solution, as it
just sets you on a course for a different
set of problems.
For teachers: To do a more precise
check for rotation within the knee, get
down and lightly pinch the inside and
outside edges of your student’s kneecap
with your thumb and forefinger. Put
your other forefinger right on the tibial
tuberosity (the bump on the top front of
the shin bone). The distance from here
to the edges of the patella, where your
fingers are, should be the same.
If they are not the same (and it
is more common for the inside line
to be longer and the outside line to
be shorter), the knee is misaligned.
Have this student work with the
kneecap straight forward until you
(or a bodyworker, physiotherapist,
or osteopath) can get this alignment
restored.

WriterTom Myersis the author of
Anatomy Trains and the co-author

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more at anatomytrains.com.