This is a question I get a lot: “Should I straighten my front leg in triangle? My teacher told me I should never straighten my leg, it should always have a micro bend.”
First of all, I have to say that there is no one “right” answer. This is often frustrating because we want to know what the “right” answer is. My stock answer is “it depends”.
Generally, I would say that if the person is healthy, has nothing going on in the way of an injury, is relatively flexible, then yes, the front leg should be straight in Triangle. Tight hamstrings, and I mean tight hamstrings , like I can’t even reach my knees tight hamstrings, would pretty much necessitate bending the knee. Any knee injury would have to be looked at specifically to the individual. There are many types of knee injuries that would be adversely affected by a straight leg.
Anatomy
According to the Yoga Sutra, the asana should have the qualities of steadiness and ease. When the bones are stacked or aligned in a straight line, the effort is transferred along the length of the body part with relative ease and equilibrium. If there is a bend, the force or body weight and the relentless pull of gravity can cause that bend to increase over time. Take the example of holding a straight arm push plank position as opposed to bent arm plank position, or Caturanga. You can hold the straight arm position much longer and with more ease than you can the bent arm position. Why? Because when the bones are stacked or aligned it takes less effort to keep them that way. Muscles work in agonist and antagonistic pairs. If the appendage is straight and the muscles are engaged, both pairs of muscles are working together with the same amount of effort. If there is a bend anywhere, the muscles that are holding the bend are working harder than the opposing muscles and will fatigue faster as the relentless pull of gravity does its thing. There is a time and place for bent arm and straight arm planks. If you can’t hold a bent arm plank with your arms bent at 90 degrees, you might micro bend them to start building strength to work on a full Caturanga.
That was an obvious example, but let’s take a look at the same thing in standing poses: Triangle and Warrior II. In Triangle the front leg is supposed to be straight (see disclaimer above). In Warrior II, the front leg is supposed to be bent. Which pose do you think you could hold longer? It is easier to hold Triangle for longer than Warrior II because the bent front leg fatigues faster than a straight leg.
I am not a fan of hybrid poses. If your front leg is bent in Triangle, what is the difference between Triangle and Warrior II? One of the opposing issues here is also how much do you bend the front knee in Warrior II? I see lots of students whose front knee is not over the standing ankle in Warrior II. Sometimes it is hard to know which pose is being performed because the front knee is not bent deep enough to be Warrior II nor is the front leg straight enough to be considered Triangle Pose. It is not as important how deeply the knee is bent, but, the alignment of the front knee should be over the ankle (barring any injury). Yoga poses work the body in a full range of motion. Our job is to see that we work the body in that full range of motion: legs straight in straight leg poses, knee bent in bent leg poses.
Locked out leg
The difference between a straight leg and a bent leg is pretty obvious. The more subtle difference is between a straight leg and a locked out leg. The instruction to have a micro bend in the front leg comes from seeing a student lock their leg out. If you let your front leg lock out in Triangle Pose, it means that you have basically relaxed all of the muscles in your leg and have allowed your knee joint to move backwards as far as it will go, hyper-extending the joint. The leg will look slightly bowed in this position and the weight in the foot will lift off of the inner edge of the foot and all of the weight will be on the outer edge.
Hyper extended leg. Notice calf bowing toward floor and the lifting of the big toe mound off of the floor.
Hanging in the ligaments
This can be damaging to the joint over time because you end up hanging in the ligaments. Ligaments connect bone to bone and their purpose is to stabilize the joint; they have very little elasticity. If you continuously hang in your ligaments, these structures can become stretched out over time and will not spring back the way muscles will. Also, every joint has protecting structures and fluids cushioning the bones and protecting the “joint space”. When a joint is hyper-extended, the joint space is compromised and the bones will move closer together on one side of the joint and further away on the opposite side of the joint. This can cause uneven wear and tear on these cushioning surfaces and lead to bone on bone contact which can lead to arthritis, pain and joint dysfunction.
Most yoga teachers will correct this position by telling students to micro bend their front knee. What most students will actually do is bend their front knee.
Straight leg
What I tell my students to do in Triangle is to engage their quadriceps muscle while pressing down in the ball mound of the big toe. In the locked out leg, the quadriceps muscle is not engaged, neither is the calf. If you reached down and felt your quad in this position, the muscle would be squishy and wiggly and you would be able to wiggle your knee cap from side to side. If you engage the quad while pressing down through the mound of the big toe, the knee cap would lift, the calf would also engage and the leg would straighten. If you were to watch someone do this from the side, it would look like they were micro bending their leg from a hyper extended position, but the leg would appear straight. Typically this takes a while to learn how to do. Most students have habitually let their quads relax in Triangle and initiating this change takes a concentration and time. Another instruction I give is to hug all of the muscles in your leg to the bone. This often helps to straighten the leg.
Straight leg. The muscles of the quads are lifted as are the muscles in the calf.
Bent leg
The instruction to lift the knee cap is a much more subtle instruction and could be lost on beginners. Tightness in the hamstrings makes it difficult to straighten the leg, but once the student learns to straighten the leg, they typically begin locking it out. The next instruction seems to be to put a microbend in the leg. There is a subtle but important difference between bending the leg and lifting the knee cap. Bending the leg involves engaging the hamstrings and stretching the quads. Lifting the knee cap involves contracting the quads and stretching the hamstrings.
This is often what I see when a student says they have a micro bend. This is a bent leg.
You can see that these two instructions, bend the knee or lift the knee cap create two very different actions in the leg and two very different looking poses.
Too many cooks spoil the pot.
One of the sources of confusing instructions is that students typically take classes with many different teachers. Some teachers may be newer and have less experience than others. Not all yoga teachers have a lot of anatomy training. Some styles of yoga are different and have different instructions and methodologies.
If you are taking classes with a lot of different teacher, you will hear different and often conflicting instructions based on the style and the teacher’s understanding. And a teacher’s knowledge and understanding can change over time. I want to be careful that I am not saying that my instructions are right and their instructions are wrong. I believe that every teacher teaches from their heart and from what they know to be true at the time. I am only stating what I know to be true from my experience and understanding.
When in Rome.
It is important that you follow the instructions of the teacher during the class that you are taking. It is also important to test theories out for yourself and experience the differences in your body. That is what I have done and what my teachers have encouraged me to do. My experience has taught me that the front leg should be straight in Triangle (Even when I tore my hamstring. I simply did not put my hand down as low until the muscle healed. I did not work a bent leg.) It has also led me to investigate what the difference is between a straight leg in and a bent leg in Triangle.
If you would like to learn more about this, if you would like to learn more about anatomy in yoga, I have a workshop coming up from 12:00 to 2:00 on October 26th called Hamstrings and Quadriceps: Strength and Flexibility, Two Sides of the Same Coin. This is an anatomy focused workshop; understanding the underlying structures.