Five Common Knee Injuries and What to do About Them
Far too often our love of running is impaired by knee pain. Interestingly enough it is not always the knee itself that is responsible for this discomfort. Take a look and see if any of the following apply to you.
1. I have pain when I start running that goes away once I warm up: This a common symptom of tendonitis.
- The secret to healing a tendon is doing exercise that requires low resistance and high repetitions. Cycling is one example of this. Make sure your seat is not too low or positioned too far forward or this will further injure your tendon.
- Stretching and massage of the involved muscle and tendon can also provide relief and facilitate healing.
- You can also alternate ice and heat, which is very effective! Ice for 1 minute and heat for 2 min for a total of 15 minutes.
2. I often have pain while running, especially up hills, but also with climbing stairs and squatting. This classically occurs with over pronation of the foot and ankle affecting the knee.
- If your foot excessively pronates, your foot will roll inward and your arch will drop. If your foot pronates when you run it causes your knee to turn in. This puts tremendous strain on your knee joint, ligaments and tendons as well as your foot and ankle.
- Luckily, excessive pronation can be addressed with orthotics.
- Orthotics are custom made shoe inserts that stabilize and realign your foot, which allow your knees, hips, pelvis and spine to function with proper alignment.
- At New Dimensions Physical Therapy we make orthotics by assessing the following: your running mechanics, your foot, leg and pelvis alignment, and your degree of muscle control.
- Wearing orthotics can take tremendous stress off of your knees.
3. I usually don’t hurt while I am running but my knee aches after I am done. My knee also hurts if I sit for a long time. These are common signs of arthritis.
- The secret here is that the more gentle movement you can do during the day—the better. Cross training with swimming or water exercise is a wonderful option for you. If takes the load off your joint while allowing you to move and strengthen your knee.
- As far as running goes you will get more mileage out of an arthritic knee with interval training. This means interspersing walking with running. If you do this you will be surprised how much farther you will go.
- Using an elastic sleeve on your knee on cold days often helps too.
4. Sometimes my knee actually locks on me and I can’t straighten or bend it: This can actually be due to a meniscus tear.
- Your meniscus is a piece of cartilage within your joint. Left untreated, this tear can wear down your joint prematurely and cause increased pain. Unfortunately the treatment for this is often surgery. If you think your meniscus may be torn, go see an orthopedist for a detailed evaluation of your knee.
- Mensicus tears can be caused by a traumatic event. But if it happened gradually over time then it may be due to stress from faulty alignment. If the latter is the case then you would benefit from a physical therapy evaluation.
5. I often get a sharp pain on the outside of my knee when I run. The structure that is responsible for your pain is your Ilio-tibial (I-T) Band.
- This fascial band begins at your hip and runs down the outside of your leg to your knee.
- We get excellent results with our patients by doing soft tissue mobilization (a specific type of massage) to their I-T bands, hips and pelvis in combination with a doing strengthening and stretching exercises.
- We see that the I-T Band becomes very tight and painful when your glutuals and lower abdominals are weak. Here are two strategies to get started on this problem:
Hip Lifts (3 x 10 reps)
- Lie on back with knees bent, arms by side palms up.
- Find pelvic neutral and hold this position throughout exercise
- Squeeze buttocks and lift hips as high as possible off the ground, beginning with your tail bone
- Keep belly button lower than your tail bone and knees hip width apart
- Hold for 3 sec
I-T Band Stretch (4 x 15 sec)
- Stand facing the wall on one leg with your foot turned out
- Cross opposite leg in front keeping weight on back leg
- Keep pelvis facing forward so that it is square with the wall
- Shift pelvis laterally toward the side that your are weight bearing on
- Lean trunk away for maximal stretch
Come and see us:
If your pain does not improve with the above strategies then there is something preventing your tissue from healing. Find out why by coming in for a detailed physical therapy evaluation of your alignment, strength and running mechanics.
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"After working hard at all of my new exercises, I was able to return to running without pain, and completed the Danskin triathlon in June."
-Jeanne Broussard
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