Tips To Align Your Feet and Knees

Are common cues in standing poses wreaking havoc on your knees, sacroiliac joint, and lower back?

- Tom Myers

Yoga teachers almost universally advise their 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).