Knee Pain?
You may not be as useless as you think. I know a lot of people who have cut themselves short from exercise because their knees “hurt” or they assume that they developed a nontreatable form of arthritis. Through my experience in working with physical therapy, training various athletes, and experiencing that same feeling myself, I have come to the conclusion that pain MAY be a by-product of quad/ glutei weakness and can be cured by simply WORKING OUT!
Now please don’t go out and try to run a 5k or try to treadmill yourself to misery, that WILL make matters worse. Alleviating or calming down this pain, is as simple as learning how to strengthen your legs. In my experience, everyone complaining of knee pain is suffering from some type of quad dominance. Quad dominance is a common symptom of hamstring weakness and happens when people perform exercises, squats, and or lunges, pushing through their toes instead of their heels.
This neuro-muscular phenomenon happens because your body does not obtain the proper strength in its prime-mover (gluteus and hamstrings) to support your body weight. So in compensation, it shifts all the force to your quadriceps, the antagonist muscle ( the muscle that is supposed to be supporting the prime mover), putting all your weight and force on the front of your knee causing inflammation of that area. Enough about the science and big words, how do you fix this issue?
From my experience there are 3 ways to help with Knee Pain/Runner’s Knee and or Quad Dominance:
1. Implementing a Glute and hamstring strengthening program.
2. Foam Rolling or Stretching of the IT Band and Quad muscle
3. Performing some type of dynamic warm-up BEFORE you run.
Hopefully, this helps but if you still continue to have issues due seek help personally from a medical professional.
