Do You Have Knee Pain? Here’s Two Important Things to Consider

The past few days, my knees have been a little cranky. But you won’t see me take aspirin, wear a knee brace, or take a “few days off from the gym.” Why? Simple:

It won’t fix the problem.

To get rid of an issue like knee pain, you can’t just take a passive approach. Sometimes, you have to go head-to-head with the pain to correct the issue — it’s the difference between a band-aid and a cure. It’s easy to do, however, if you understand these two things:

1. Pain Isn’t a Problem; It’s a Signal

Think of pain as the body’s response to a deeper problem — the body sees something as a danger or threat, so it sends a pain signal to protect itself. We need to find out what’s causing the pain because ignoring it won’t change anything.

Pain-killers mask the signal, but don’t correct the problem. Braces and wraps might help the knee temporarily, but what happens when you take them off? Or when the problem worsens to where these tools don’t work? Even rest might help reduce the pain, but the issue still remains.

2. Pain Isn’t Just Caused From Pain Site

If your knee hurts, it’s probably not the knee that’s causing the pain. Nor is it as simple as “weak knees.” According to Shirley Sahrmann, PT, Ph.D, FAPTA, aches and pains are movement impairment syndromes, where something is off with the way you move. Maybe your knee isn’t tracking properly and is going inward instead of straight. Using the joint-by-joint approach, we see that the knee is made for stability, while the ankles and hips are made for mobility. Pain often occurs when the roles are reversed somewhere in the chain.

The best course of action is to look above and below the pain site for the source of the problem because there’s probably a dysfunction there.

Attack The Hip and Ankle

[quote author=”Michael Boyle, MA, ATC” align=”left”]”I’ve never met a person with a bad knee who didn’t have a bad hip or bad ankles or both.”[/quote]Oftentimes, the ankles and hips lose their mobility, forcing the knee joint to compensate by becoming more mobile. The knee, however, is designed for stability, so it now must move in a way it’s not designed to.

Start by removing the restrictions at the ankle and hip joints, try some dynamic and static stretches to improve range-of-motion in all directions, and look for tightness and differences between the left and right sides.

Also work on activating dormant muscles like your glutes, which control knee movement and help it track properly.

Back to Basics

My answer to the knee pain was grabbing my PVC pipe, foam roller, and lacrosse ball, and spending a good amount of time working my soft-tissue. I “flossed” my muscles – as Mark Verstegen, MS, CSCS, would call it – removing trigger points, scar tissue, and adhesions throughout the range-of-motion at my muscles. I grunted, groaned, and grimaced, but I felt like a champion afterward.

Then I moved to mobility work. I noticed an asymmetry between mobility in my left and right ankles (my right one was tighter) and I attacked it like a sushi buffet. It’s worth noting that, although both ankles were pretty mobile, asymmetries actually demand more attention than a symmetrical lack of mobility. My hips also sucked.

Finally, I targeted my glutes with mini-band work, a variety of hip bridges, and hip-dominant lifts like barbell hip thrusts and single-leg deadlifts.

Try this approach and see if it helps. If you liked this article, leave a comment, “Like” it, hit me up on Twitter, or add me on Facebook.

[tweetbutton]