Your knee is a complex intersection of bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and skin. The joint is critical for mobility, and any injury to your knee can disable you for months or years to come.
Maybe you've heard about it in the news, on TV or on the radio: doctors are increasingly encouraging arthritis patients to pursue complementary health treatments, like yoga for healthy knees and back. But can yoga do for knees what it does for the spine, muscles and organs?
According to the latest research, it can. Several studies have suggested the viability of using yoga for health problems like knee aches or joint immobility.
Think of it this way. Your knee is a complex intersection of bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and skin. The joint is critical for mobility, and any injury to your knee can disable you for months or years to come.
Modern living doesn't exactly make knee health any simpler, either. According to an article in the Yoga Journal, the activities we participate in today are harder on joints than those pursued by prehistoric humans.
"We weren't designed to do the things we do with our bodies nowadays. The knee's engineering isn't the greatest," Steven Messier, a professor of health and exercise science at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, explained to the source.
Hence, the older a knee-protecting exercise system, the better it may be. What could be older than yoga, a holistic health regimen that has existed for millennia?
A study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that individuals who used yoga to soothe osteoarthritis of the knee often experienced dramatic reduction in pain and improvements in range of motion.
Similar findings appeared in the journal International Quarterly of Community Health Education, suggesting that yoga-based knee therapy may increase the joint's ability to straighten and flex comfortably.
The authors added that yoga also seems to strengthen the knee joint, improving the chances that a person with an injured or arthritic knee may be able to stand on it more readily.
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Tags: yoga for health, yoga for health problems, yoga for healthy, yoga for healthy knees
