Reducing Knee Pain
Two Approaches to Reducing Knee Pain
Knee pain is so common, and for that reason I am about to give you all the tips you need to reduce it NOW!
Have you read my previous blog post on checking you knee pain? If not take a moment to READ it HERE!
Are you suffering with knee pain that you just can’t seem to shake off? Do you want a solution to finally address this ongoing pain that is stopping you from doing what you love?
Today I am going to explain to you how YOU can help yourself and finally get rid of that annoying knee pain (without getting rid of your knee completely – Ha!!!)
Those of you who regularly read my blogs know that I am BIG on optimising performance – I want YOU to perform at your BEST in everything you do. Don’t you? Yep, I thought so! Today I am going to teach you how to reduce your knee pain, or prevent it from developing in the first place.
Of all the injuries I see in my clinic day-to-day, knee injuries are one of the most common ones. We know that our knees enable us to sit, stand, walk, jog, run, jump etc… right? This basically means that we use our knees for everything we do, all day everyday, which puts them at quite a high risk of injury. So why not do what you can do to prevent injury occurring in the first place OR learn how to reduce that knee pain yourself?
Right, so the knee sits between 2 joints; the hip joint and the ankle joint. Does it make sense to you that these 3 joints highly effect one another? Whatever is going on at the knee may be caused by something that is going on in the hip and/or ankle, and vice versa, and you may not even know!
When dealing with a knee injury, or assessing risk of knee injury, it is imperative that all 3 joints are considered – the hip, the knee and the ankle.
2 approaches to reducing your knee pain:
- Assessing hip stability – are your hips strong and stable? is there any muscle imbalance?
- Assessing foot biomechanics – how are you bearing weight?
If there is any instability in the hip the knee will be poorly or over loaded. If there are bio-mechanical errors with weight bearing ie. how you distribute weight in your foot, the knee will be poorly or over loaded.
Correcting bio-mechanical errors is key for REDUCING KNEE PAIN!
There we go… we now know that treating the knee alone may not necessarily work… does this explain why you’ve been getting treatment, but it just hasn’t quite improved your knee pain? Does this explain why you can’t seem to shake off that knee pain for the long term? Does this explain why you have niggly bits that just make no sense? I am here to HELP!
If you’re suffering with knee pain, your physiotherapist should fully assess your knee BUT also assess whether the muscles around your hips are firing properly to give you hip stability, and thus prevent poor alignment in the leg. Your physiotherapist should also be carrying out a thorough gait analysis to identify possible poor weight bearing mechanics.
At Function360 every knee injury assessment consists of a full assessment of the hip and foot mechanics, alongside that of the injured knee. This is the BEST way for reducing knee pain. We assess everybody thoroughly and individually and consider jobs, hobbies and sport in order to identify ones personal performance goals. We thrive to rigorously diagnose injury and risk of injury and to reduce pain for the long term, optimising performance.
The depth of the foot mechanics analysis ranges depending on patient presentation and YOUR requirements. At Function360 we offer both basic and thorough Gait Analysis which we carry out using state of the art software (Sensor Medica). This consists of:
- Analysis of standing, walking and jogging AND any relevant sport specific movement.
- Muscle balance testing – why are you weight bearing the way you are?
- Postural assessment – is your posture effecting your gait, or vice versa?
- Discussion of results.
CLICK HERE to book your GAIT ANALYSIS NOW!
Depending on the results, an individualised exercise program for you to follow at home will be prescribed. This will be addressed towards your personal issues and aimed at enabling you to achieve your personal performance goals.
I want you to PERFORM, no matter what it is you do! My next blog will consist of tests you can do at home to check your alignment in order to begin the recovery process PRONTO.
Function360 Loves YOU!
