Knee pain is one of the post common causes of pain experienced by people when they exercise. Due to the complex nature and different management required for knee pain, I’ve broken this blog into a few parts.
To start with anterior knee pain (pain in the front of the knee) or patella-femoral (kneecap area) pain has been cited as affecting 56% of the general population, with a higher prevalence in athletes. Many people sadly start exercising and then give up due to knee pain. While, others don’t run because they believe it ruins their knees! Recent studies have shown that marathon runners knees are no better or worse than the general population!
Lots of people report that their knees hurt doing stairs, lunges, squats, kneeling etc. While some of these aren’t always easy to relieve, you might be surprised how easy some of these activities can be addressed, either with stretching or strengthening.
Sometimes the problem isn’t even at the knee (although that’s where you feel the pain) at all. Sometimes weakness or tightness around the hip can cause knee pain. Your back can also be the guilty culprit with some forms of knee pain.
Simply, the knee is designed to be a hinge with the quadriceps extending (straightening) the knee and the hamstrings flexing (bending) the knee. Due to the knee being held together by ligaments and muscles this simple hinge design also has 5 other movement directions which need to be controlled. Some of these other movement directions are very subtle, but can have a large bearing on pain and dysfunction when not controlled properly.
If you are experiencing knee pain, or started exercising and are about to quit due to knee pain, come and see us now. Very rarely does knee pain require you to stop exercising, typically it may require activity modification or a correction to your technique for a certain exercise.
“Don’t let knee pain stand in the way of your goals!”