Have you injured your knees during or after physical activity? If you’re experiencing knee pain, the first step is to see a professional, but what do you do when you go to the doctor, get imaging done, and everything looks fine but you’re still in pain?
power chain
Any movement you create at one joint affects the movement of all surrounding tissues. When we talk about this concept, this is what we are referring to. power chain. Here’s a simple experiment to test this concept: Extend one arm straight in front of you so that it’s parallel to the ground and your palm faces the floor. Have a friend place their hands on their shoulder blades on the same side of your body. Now turn your palms and forearms toward the ceiling and your friend will feel your shoulder blades descend and return to your spine.
If turning your wrist creates such a large movement in your back, isn’t the hip/knee/ankle relationship much more complex in moves like lunges? So when we talk about knee pain with no apparent cause, it can often be attributed to dysfunction in the surrounding joints, namely weakness and/or instability in the hip and ankle.
Start from scratch
When dealing with knee pain, it can be helpful to work from the beginning. Why? Because if there are unresolved issues in the feet, it’s going to take a long time for us to get the glutes to cooperate. Believe it or not, your glutes are one of the largest and most powerful muscles in your body. Among other things, they are used for explosive movements such as sprinting and jumping. Think of your glutes as propulsive muscles. If your nervous system detects a problem with your body contacting the ground (your feet), it will tend to “switch off” your glute muscles to prevent you from injury.
A steady stream of ankle strengthening, stability, and mobility exercises should get you on the right track.
step up
Now that our ankles have gotten some love, we can move on to our hips. Ankle problems can definitely cause problems with our ability to use our hips effectively, but many people have weak, underactive hip muscles from… sitting all day. Your hips play a huge role in supporting and moving your body weight, and as long as your glutes can’t handle their weight, your angry knees will pick up the slack. When working to strengthen your glutes, every rep of every exercise should be done with purpose—squeeze those suckers like you mean it! One silly tip that seems to work well is to act like you’re squeezing a cherry between your cheeks. Remind your body how to use these muscles! Feel They work. Think of this process as “glute rediscovery.”
If one of your knees is particularly troublesome, you may find that the accompanying hip is much weaker than the other knee. Some single-leg exercises will help prevent one side from taking over. Single-leg exercises also help improve ankle and hip stability at the same time. Supplement it with other exercises to build strength and healthy movement in all your hip muscles and see if this improves your knee discomfort over time.
Ask for help when you need it
If you encounter a problem that you are not confident about solving, then you should seek guidance from a coach. Use this information to jump-start your own research or to ask the right questions when looking for a professional who can help you.
