Why Your Knees Hurt in Pigeon Pose (And What to Actually Do About It)

If you've ever settled into pigeon pose only to feel that sharp, uncomfortable twinge in your knee, you're not alone. I hear this all the time: "Nat, my knee hurts as soon as I get into that position. I don't know what's going on. What can I do to help it?"

Here's the thing that might surprise you: unless you have an actual knee injury (like an ACL tear, meniscus tear, or some other structural damage), your knee pain is probably not coming from your knee.

I know that sounds weird, but stick with me here.

The Real Culprit: Your Outer Hip Complex

When we take our knee into deep flexion in pigeon pose, we're also adding hip flexion - meaning we're folding over at the hip AND folding over at the knee. If you experience knee pain in this position, it's usually due to very tight muscles and fascia in your outer hip complex and often in the quads too.

Here's what you need to understand: everything is connected. We cannot talk about a body part without looking at what joint is up above it in the chain or down below it in the chain. Usually, the bigger joint is responsible for causing problems down the chain.

So what's the big joint up from the knee? The hip.

And maybe that's confusing because you don't have tight hips. But it doesn't have to be your whole hip that's tight. It could be as simple as having one muscle or one area of the hip that has bound up fascia causing tension by pulling on all of the tissues all the way down the chain.

Meet the Troublemakers: Glute Medius and TFL

Let me introduce you to two major culprits:

Glute Medius: This muscle sits on a diagonal next to your glute max (your big butt muscle). Glute medius is a huge culprit of both lower back pain and often knee pain.

Tensor Fasciae Latae (TFL): This tiny muscle sits right on the front diagonal of your hip - you know, where that tiny useless pocket is on your jeans that you can barely fit one finger into? That's where TFL lives. The TFL feeds into the IT band, which is a very thick band of connective tissue that connects all the way into your knee.

Solution #1: Use Massage Balls on Your Butt

If you experience knee pain in pigeon pose, get yourself a trusty massage ball and learn to get real friendly with your outer hip.

For glute medius: Lay on your back and stick the ball underneath your upper butt. Notice I said upper butt, not lower butt. Upper butt, a little bit on the side, and then lean into the ball.

If it makes you wanna sing, scream, cry, laugh, or curse somebody out, you're doing it right. If we enter into a place of a lot of sensation, that means there's something there for you to work on.

For TFL: Lay on your front, put the ball on that diagonal (where the useless jean pocket is), and then use your body to rotate right onto the TFL. You'll lift your far hip off the floor and roll right there, looking for sensation.

If you don't feel anything, that's not your problem. If you feel things, breathe with it, stay with it for at least a couple of minutes, and then come off.

Why This Works: The Fascia Connection

You might need to do this many times, especially if you have very tight hips or scar tissue. It's gonna take more than one session to clear that out and reorganize your fascia.

Here's how fascia works: when you push on it, the fibers start to relax and reorganize. Fascia that pulls on bones and muscles down the chain is fascia that's disorganized. It got all jumbled from being dehydrated, from repetitive use, from not enough use - all kinds of reasons.

Putting pressure on it reorganizes the tissues so that things can glide properly and stop yanking on muscles and bones. It could be as quick as a couple of sessions, and it could take you several weeks. But time is gonna pass anyway, so you might as well pass the time with a ball in your butt and make your knee feel better.

Solution #2: Modify the Pose (Take Your Ego Out of It)

Even if you put a ball in your butt, you might still find that your knee hurts in pigeon. So here's what you do: take your ego out of your practice. I don't care if the rest of the class is doing the most perfect pigeon. If it hurts you, don't do it.

This comes down to ahimsa, rule number one of yoga philosophy: do no harm. Do no harm to others, do no harm to the planet, do no harm to you. If you feel sharp pain, get out, put your ego aside, and come onto your back to take a figure four stretch.

How to Do Figure Four Stretch

The figure four stretch is the same work. It stretches your outer hip, which is really what we're doing in pigeon, so it doesn't matter which orientation it's facing in.

Stage 1: Lie on your back, cross one ankle over the opposite thigh, and energetically try to move your knee away from your face. Push that knee forward, and you'll feel a little something-something in the outer hip.

Stage 2: If you wanna go deeper, use your other leg to pull this knee in as tight as you can, as long as you don't feel pain in the knee. If you feel pain, come out.

Stage 3: One arm goes in between your legs, and you can interlace in front of your shin or behind your thigh. Behind the thigh is much tighter than in front of the shin.

My personal favorite - use the wall: Scooch your butt to the wall, lay back, put one foot on the wall, and then cross the opposite leg over. This is figure four, but you're using the wall to help you. The closer your butt gets to the wall, the tighter it will feel. If this is too much, back it up as much as you need to.

The Bottom Line

If your knees hurt in pigeon, you're not broken. You just probably have some shit going on in your hip. Get yourself a ball, work it out, modify the pose until then, and remember that taking care of your body is always more important than looking like everyone else in class.

Want to see all of this in action? 

And if you're looking for comprehensive tools to get all of your joints out of pain in your yoga practice, check out Unfuck Your Fascia - it's a game-changer for understanding how your body actually works and how to help yourself feel better.