Knee pain and exercise

From time to time I hear people say they can’t do certain exercises like running or leg workouts because they experience knee discomfort or even pain.  Unless you have a knee injury, this knee discomfort or pain, if properly addressed, will be reversed and you will be able to do those exercises again.  So let’s examine what is going on and see if we can find some viable solutions.

Please note that running in it of itself does not cause knee pain.  I’ve been running for more than 20 years and I don’t have any knee discomfort of any kind.  But… at one point, while in college (that was a long time ago), I did.  I tried ignoring it but eventually it got so bad that it stopped me cold in my tracks.  I thought I was injured and went to see a doctor.  He found nothing wrong with my knee and told me to stop running for a while.  I was very disappointed since I loved running and the last thing I wanted was to stop even for a few days.

So, I started to research knee pain and exercising.  What I found was very interesting and it changed the way I work out ever since.  You see your knees are used to stabilize you when you are walking, running or doing just about anything with your legs.  The problem occurs when your leg muscles are not in proper balance in relation to each other.  When this happens it puts pressure on certain parts of your knees and throws the balance off causing discomfort or pain.

What causes this leg muscle imbalance?  It’s actually very simple.  There are two main reasons.  One, you are doing leg exercises that only target one leg muscle at a time.  Usually, machines at the gyms are intended to work one muscle only and then you move on to another machine to work another muscle and so on.  But since you don’t know what proportion your leg muscles need to be in, you risk muscle imbalance. To remedy that I suggest you do leg exercises that include multiple legs muscles at the same time.  For example, lunges and squats.  Use challenging weights and you will get a great workout without causing any knee injury.  As a matter of fact, I strongly suggest these exercises for any runners out there who are looking to supplement their running routines with strength training.

Another reason you have muscle imbalance, and therefore pain, is the way you are performing the exercise.  I’m sure you’ve heard many times that when you exercise, form is very important.  It’s particularly imperative that you watch your form when doing exercises like lunges, since improper execution of this exercise will cause tremendous amount of knee pain and even injury.  Learn the technique and watch yourself in the mirror until you are confident that you know how to do it.

Last, but not least, stretching your legs after you are done working out is also vital to your knees.  I suggest doing a quad stretch by grabbing your foot with the opposite hand so that you would feel the outer side of your knee stretching.