Achey knees. They can be a real pain and the issue can hang around for years with no particular diagnosis.
It is likely that the pain you’re feeling in your knee is actually not really anything to do with a problem in your knee at all. Fixing knee pain often involves locating and correcting a muscle imbalance or tightness in your hips or your ankles – or both.
There are plenty of postural issues or injuries which could affect your knees, but usually the first thing to consider is whether your hips and/or ankles are able to move through their full ranges of motion, and whether there is any strength imbalance between the front, back, inside and outside of your hips.
Our knees are meant to be relatively stable joints, they’re not meant to move around much beyond the obvious bending and straightening. If we lose correct movement at our hips or ankles, our knees are forced to move more in compensation and this is very often what leads to pain.
Fairly obviously, when you’re walking or running, your weight is being transferred from one leg to the other as you alternate your feet. This is possible because the mobility at your ankles allows your shin to rotate inwards. The thigh bone also rotates inwards when your lower leg rotates inwards too.
If either your hips or ankles are tight and unable to move correctly, a ‘tug-of-war’ begins with your knee in the middle of the argument. This stress at the knee can lead to pain.
If you spend a lot of time sitting, your hips get used to being in a flexed position, and over time this can lead to movement and strength restrictions. Also, activities like running (which can tighten up your ankles, and the backs of your legs) or cycling (which can tighten up your ankles and the front of your hips) can also lead to reduced mobility and a tug-of-war between your ankles and hips, with your aching knees in the middle.
Of course, if you have an actual diagnosed knee issue, the issue is within your knee and is not a postural issue. This said, it is likely that by improving the movements in your ankles and hips, you will be able to take some of the pressure off the issue inside your knee.
Ankle and hip mobility drills are likely very useful if you are suffering with knee pain, although this doesn’t necessarily mean simple stretching – it could be that you need to strengthen a muscle imbalance in your hips. Please get in touch with me and I will happily talk through some ideas with you.
You’ll want to build the exercises into your daily routine for several weeks in order to make proper headway with your knee pain, but you will be surprised at the improvements you can make with just a few minutes a day.