Do you love running but your knees don’t? Is your running distance set by your knee pain?
“Approximately one third of serious runners will incur an injury in a given year, and approximately one third of the injuries will involve the knee.”
I love running and I always have. But like most runners, I’ve been afflicted with knee pain associated with running on several occasions and I understand just how FRUSTRATING it can be!
We all run for different reasons. It could be for fitness and health, to lose weight (or keep off weight) or maybe just to escape. Whatever it is, knee pain interferes with that purpose, limits it or turns it into frustration because we can’t do it or as much as we’d like.
Problems that you have with your knees you may not notice in everyday life. However, put those joints under the load of running and then repeat for thousands of strides and your body will let you know there’s something wrong. The bigger problem is sometimes once your body has got angry with you it doesn’t forget and it takes less to set it off or longer to calm down.
The good news is that management through icing, doing less kilometres or stopping is not the only way to approach it. The key to resolving knee pain is understanding what’s causing it.
So, what is the cause?
The cause is really quite simple, its dysfunction of the biomechanics of the hip, knee or ankle mechanism that creates abnormal loading of the knee joint. In short, it basically means something in the leg movement is not balanced or firing correctly and the knee takes the heat because of it.
Now there are a lot of components to running including muscle function, gait mechanics, balance mechanisms, running style and shoes. The big positive is that we are meant to run, and long distances at that! If you understand all the components and how they interact you can resolve the areas of dysfunction and get back to running.
Knee pain with running should not be the end of your running or the limit of it. Running is our inheritable right. Knee pain is the result of altered biomechanics affecting the knee and is not because of impact! In most cases these altered biomechanics can be corrected and pain free running restored.
So, are you prepared to take action to get rid of knee pain?
If so, then here are my top 3 tips that you can do right now to start reducing your knee pain:
- Quadriceps strength
- Forefoot running – this is not some new hippie fashion
- Fix your carbohydrate intake
If you’re tired of your knee pain and are ready to take action and have fun running again or you just want to have a chat about it then give me a call on 9318 7758 or click the message button and let’s have a chat.
