Modern life can be detrimental to your feet. Yoga teaches you to reexamine your relationship with your feet. Use yoga to build lower leg strength and overcome difficulties caused by pronation. Engage your mind and body to balance pronation issues with standing, seated and inverted poses. Consult your doctor or a certified yoga instructor prior to doing yoga on your own.
Definition
Pronation occurs when the outer edge of your foot lifts up, your arch collapses and your ankles rolls inward. Supination, a balancing action to pronation, occurs when your weight shifts to the outer edges of your feet. While walking you normally move through pronation and supination as your body adjusts its balance. Pronation allows for flexibility, while supination provides stability.
Goals
Though pronation and supination are beneficial for walking, they cause instability in yoga poses. During standing poses balance between pronation and supination to find stability and strength. Maintain neutral foot alignment during seated and inverted poses as well. Keep your feet engaged to feel strong, energetic and focused.
Seated Poses
Sit with your legs out in front of you in a relaxed position. Balance your natural tendency to supinate by flexing your feet while pressing out through the inner heel and ball of the foot. Your legs will naturally roll inward, with your knee caps pointing straight up. Visualize the four corners of your feet evenly contacting an imaginary plane of glass in front of you.
Standing Poses
Begin by standing normally. If your ankles roll inward (pronate), lift your arches and press down through the outer edges of your feet. Spread your toes to stretch and engage your foot muscles. Finding neutral alignment may take some practice. You may feel little or nothing at first, especially if you are new to yoga. Eventually you will gain control and apply new insight to your yoga practice.
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