Basic Knee Stretches
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The knee is critical to everyday pain-free movement. Knee's like your hips and back take a an immense amount of load and naturally breakdown over time. The knee is the second largest joint in the human body and ultimately gets surgically replaced more commonly than any other joint.
The story I hear the most common in my practice is that I am active because I walk and run a lot and so my knees should be fine right?
Actually the more you walk or run the more load that is actually placed on your knees! The body has to respond to this load and it eventually tightens the knee myofascial system. This myofascial scarring generated over a long time cause adaptations that eventually tighten up your leg muscles and reduce mobility which ends up in pain.
That's when I get to see you! So let's try and prevent that from occurring and deal with the tightness before it causes pain.
An equivalent story that I tell my patient's is to imagine that you are a 60 year old car (DOB 1958) and that you have a hard time getting up and down hills. Nobody would ever assume that using the car more would fix the car, it actually just breaks it down quicker.
So when the patient declares; "I am going to walk more and that is going to heal my knees", we can all see the fallacy in that thinking.
The human body doesn't get better with more usage (load), you have to fix the dysfunction (lack of MOBILITY!) as to why it hurts in the first place.
Our last Blog post covered the general Knee assessment and this video will cover our Basic Knee Stretches;
Video Content:
Video 1-Our general knee screening procedure's (previous video)
•Normal vs. Abnormal Range of Motion in squat and lunge.
•Everyone should do the squat and lunge assessment and see how well they perform them. Ultimately you should be able to bend into a deep squat with very little pressure or stretch on the knee. Likewise your lunge should be pain free and with very little stretch and instability. The lunge is a much more dynamic test than the squat and thus will challenge you more.
•A point worth remembering is that to have healthy knees you must have healthy mobile pain free hips. The hips control knee stability in the lunge and in general all weight bearing activities. If your curious as to whether your hips are functioning well than go back and review our hip videos.
•Associated Disorders: General stiffness, arthritis, bursitis, tendinitis, tendinosis, Patellar tracking, IT band syndrome, runner's knee, jumper's knee, osgood-schlatter's disease;
Video 2-Basic Stretching for the leg which will help stretch the leg muscles and the knee (current video).
•Quad Stretch
•Calf/Hamstring stretch
•Note: Stretching is an activity that should be included in all of your daily activities. You should always be thinking of different ways to keep your shoulders flexible. Remember to try to work on the affected knee for approximately 5-15 minutes.
•Slowly and gradually stretch the affected area until it causes mild to moderate discomfort. Severe pain is not what we are looking for, only discomfort. Carefully consider the different areas that you are stretching and try to focus on the tightest and most painful of them. If you have a significant exacerbation of your knee pain, stop what you are doing and see your health care professional. Move slowly and remember to breathe!
We look forward to your comments and suggestions, whether about this post or ones that you would like to see in future.