Knee Pain As You're Getting Older?
Not many people like clicking on these posts and admitting we are old but … doing these things really works.
Knee pain as we get older can present in a few ways
Pain the first few steps in the morning
Pain at night that aches after more exercise than normal
A giving way sensation or pain up and down stairs
Pain when you’ve been sitting or squatting for a while and go to stand
The most common thing people say to me when they come in is “it’s probably arthritis and i’ll have to live with it”
The most recent example I can think of was a legend of a guy in his 60’s who loved hiking. He walked every day around 6-7kms and 3 x per year would go on a 5 day hike or tramp you guys call it here in NZ.
6 weeks prior he had done a hike that was around 5 hours and had more steps than he had ever done. He also hadn’t been on a big walk for a year due to covid.
He came in and immediately went with the “it’s probably arthritis isn’t it?”
“I think i’ll just walk with poles from now on and just walk once per week”
Yet 7 weeks ago he had no knee pain. My reply was “that’s a pretty rapid aging process of your knee in 6 weeks don’t you think?’
I reassured him that he will not be retiring anytime soon from walking. We constructed an 8 week program with Physio, Pilates and strength work and he did a 3 day hike 10 weeks later. I also saw him walking last week and joked “where are your walking poles I thought you had arthritis?”
All jokes aside there is no relationship between arthritis and pain. You can have a pretty arthritic knee joint and no pain. You can also have a pretty healthy knee joint and have tremendous pain.
The key things you need to do are
Settle the pain quickly
Fix any mechanical issues
Change your walking or running stride length (if excessive)
Restore pre-injury function to your knee
Grow your muscles (8-12 weeks)
If you tick those 5 boxes then you generally have done your absolute best at getting your knee pain under control. The above is also backed by a load of evidence in the form of the GLAD knee program. A 3 month knee rehab protocol which we use.
So i’m going to show you one thing from each of the above categories to help head you in the right direction.
FIX ANY MECHANICAL ISSUES
The most common one I see is over striding when you walk. What we typically do in the clinic is get people to walk outside and film it. We look at you walking from behind and the side. When we film from the side we look for over striding.
Over striding simply puts a lot more pressure on your knee than walking with a smaller stride.
Reducing your stride reduces the force through your knee. Imagine walking with less pressure through your knee for 8000 to 10000 steps per day!
The below video helps illustrate reducing your stride length
Restore pre injury function to the knee
We tend to restore function via exercises. Initially starting with isometric exercises where by we contract with good form for anywhere from 10-45 seconds depending on current strength levels or pain levels.
Try these two exercises which I like to start with. There should be no pain. If there is try reducing the depth of the movement or duration.
Isometric Bridge
Isometric Wall squat
Isometric Sumo Squat
Grow your muscles
Muscles get used to the same stimulus really quickly so if you do the same thing every week don’t expect to get better. You will initially but you will plateau.
You can grow the muscles by a couple of ways. Double to single leg exercise progressions. More reps. Less rest. More weight. It’s a science and an art to nail this.
We recommend you come in as everyone is unique and requires a different amount of force to grow your muscles.
So try the above. It really works. It will never replace a well designed Physio and rehab program. If you can dedicate 8 weeks to getting your knee under control email me at nick@connectstudio.co.nz with a brief description of your issues. I can recommend the right Physio for you to get back to what you love doing. If it sounds like I need to refer you on i’ll refer you to the right person who can help.
Cheers
Nick T
Connect Studio Waiheke