In our last post, we established the potential causes of your knee pain. It is important to understand the reason you are experiencing your pain so that you do not perform exercises that are not targeting the things you need to improve upon.
In this post, I would like to discuss how knee muscle weakness can play a roll in knee pain and tension. I would like to discuss common issues that weakness could cause and some obstacles that could affect your ability to overcome weakness as a cause of pain.
This is the most basic reason your knee could hurt and the most commonly diagnosed as so many people believe if they just "strengthen the muscles around their knee" they will feel better. This line of thinking is spot on for this issue.
If the quadriceps muscles are weak it will create tension in your thigh and the tendons connecting to your patella. Weakness and tension could create increased stress to your patella tendon which is the tendon from your knee cap to your shin and can lead to pain right below your knee cap with running, squatting, kneeling, using stairs, and getting up from the ground. This is a challenging pain to deal with as most of our day to day task will irritate it when it is flared up. It will be important to stretch your quads and follow that with strength exercises such as squats, step ups, lunges, jumping (PLEASE READ TO END FOR CLARIFICATION)
Back of the knee pain could be caused by tension and strain of your hamstring tendons. These tendons are the stringy bands on either side of your knee. You use your hamstrings with bending over, going up and down stairs, running, putting on socks and sneakers and other activities that you may experience discomfort with. If the tension and over-stress is purely from hamstring weakness then stretching them to promote reduced symptoms followed by strengthening using deadlifts, hip extensions while standing or on stomach, and even knee curls if bending your knee is a problems.
Exercises need to help improve tissue flexibility while PROGRESSIVELY strengthening this muscle within a tolerable pain level. This means just repeating step-ups may help but could create more pain and your need to start with a very small step that may not feel like much and hopefully doesn't hurt as much and progress to a big step. The same goes for progressing a squat or hopping and running.
This goes for your hamstrings as well with deadlifts and hip extensions. If you are using weight it is important to start low and progressively increase as you feel able. Understand that strengthening may cause soreness in the muscles and could also make you feel tight again, but give it time and consistency and you will experience improvement in your ability to perform more of a given exercise.
If you are trying to progress your strength and cannot get past the pain, this simple solution may not be the one for you. Your body could be compensating by shifting away or you could have weaknesses elsewhere that are contributing to over-stress of the knee muscles. Keep reading future posts to learn more.
If you want a trained eye to determine what is causing your knee pain sign up for a FREE Discovery Visit to discuss what you are having trouble with and how best to address it.