Got Knee Pain?

Got knee pain? The knee is an interesting joint and I'm finding that the more knees I treat, the less I focus on the knee itself. In my other blogs I had mentioned how the hip influences the low back, well it also plays a major role in knee health. The knee likes to bend forward and back, flexion and extension, and would like to avoid the rotational component. It seems that those with knee pain lack what we call, proximal stability, quite often. The hip is weak and causes the knee to want to drift inward especially during single leg stance. Try this, stand on one leg only and try to lower yourself down in a mini-squat. Does your knee want to cave inward towards the midline of your body? If so, that is hip/glute weakness. If it does not, we may look into the ankle and other factors, but in most cases this is pretty common. That weakness may not be exposed through low level activities, but may create problems when performing repetitive activities, i.e. running, and load bearing activities, i.e., stairs. 
Research is also coming out now stating that physical therapy is just as effective as arthroscopic knee surgery to correct meniscus tears (the cushion between your knee joint). This was featured on Dr. Oz on 04/25/14 with exercise demonstration. The exercises on the video are a conservative start, but I would encourage you to try the resisted side step exercise I described in my previous blog Piriformis/Sciatic Pain? Do This Exercise. It is great because it does not stress the knee so you can perform it without irritating your knee pain and indirectly make your knee stronger.  Just balancing on one leg alone is also very important because it gives us a good idea how the hip is performing. If you try and you're struggling to stay upright, your hip is weak and makes you more susceptible to knee injury. 
For any questions you may have about knee pain, contact me at [email protected]
Otherwise, please "share" so that we may all BeneFIT!!

www.ScottRusin.com

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