All you need advice and stories for your sport, delivered straight to your inbox (every month).Nothing more.Nothing less.
P.S: You will enjoy this.
Worried about your knee pain? The best thing you can do is to strengthen the muscles that support your knee and keep them flexible. Here are the best exercises you can do for knee pain relief.
READ MOREKnee pain is by far the most common site of pain in the human body. From an athlete to an IT professional, from a teenager to an elderly, whether a male or female, everyone can have knee-related issues and it may lead to major physical disability and decreased quality of life. There could be various reasons for having knee pain depending on the structures that get affected. Cartilage, meniscus, tendon, and ligaments are the commonly injured structures in and around the knee.
I believe that the knee gets into trouble due to multiple factors that could be related to mobility, strength, biomechanics, etc. A lot of the times the root cause of your knee pain might be an issue in the hip or ankle, for example, people with restricted ankle mobility will be prone to develop pain in and around the knee cap as the knee is trying to compensate for the restricted ankle mobility. This article will give you an insight on the best physiotherapy exercises for knee pain, but I always recommend that before you start an exercise program for knee pain, do talk to your physical therapist to make sure the exercises are safe for you.
Physiotherapy exercises for knee pain can be divided into two broad groups depending on the root cause. The first group consists of exercises that will help improve mobility and flexibility of the structures that may affect the knee joint, whereas the second group consists of exercises that will help in strengthening the muscles around the hips and knees. In an ideal situation, I recommend doing a combination of exercises from both groups for optimal results.
Most of the knee pain relief exercises in this group will target improving the flexibility of your tight muscles and also improving the joint range of motion.
Tight quadriceps muscle in front of your thighs is one of the most common reasons for increased stress on the knee joint. And stretching the quadriceps becomes the most integral physiotherapy exercise for knee pain. This stretch can be done in a standing or lying down position though doing it in a standing position is the preferred one and the lying position should be used only if you have difficulty in standing.
This stretch mainly targets your hip muscles the Piriformis along with your other gluteus muscles and Stretching exercises for knee pain are always incomplete without the inclusion of a pigeon stretch.
This stretch mainly works on your illios-Psoas and your rectus femoris muscle and tightness of these muscles could be a major factor contributing to your knee pain.
Foam rolling is one of the best alternatives to a myofascial release that is usually done by a qualified physiotherapist or a massage therapist. It helps in loosening up the tight muscle and trigger points within the muscles and can effectively reduce your knee pain.
IT band is a fascia that is present on the outer side of your thigh and ends at the knee joint It is one of the most commonly injured soft tissues in runners. The pain due to IT band inflammation is usually felt on the outer side of the knee. Rolling your IT band may not necessarily loosen up the fascia but the mechanoreceptor stimulation may definitely help in releasing the pain.
The tightness of the gluteus can restrict the mobility of your hip joint and in return forces the knees to compensate and end up in an injury. Physiotherapy exercises for knee pain must include foam rolling for the gluteus to solve the problem holistically.
Exercises in this group will help strengthen the knee and hip musculature and in return relieve your knee pain.
VMO or the Vastus Medialis Oblique is one of the muscles of your quadriceps and is the most important muscle that provides stability to the knee cap and makes sure that the kneecap is tracking properly during the knee movements. The weakness of this muscle is often a cause for patella-femoral pain and hence strengthening the VMO is probably the most important knee strengthening exercise which cannot be neglected.
Gluteus Bridging mainly focuses on strengthening your gluteus Maximus muscle which along with the other gluteus muscle provides a stabilizing effect for the knee joint.
Clam exercise is a great way to target your Gluteus medius and Minimus muscles which are the smaller gluteus muscle in your hips. The weakness of these muscles could be a major contributor to increased knee valgus and eventually making it prone to ligament and meniscus injuries.
Whenever someone has knee-related pain the quadriceps muscles will end up going in a state of inhibitions and eventually become weak. So you must strengthen your quadriceps muscles overall. And in an early stage of pain, squat hold exercise for your knee pain may come in handy as it doesn’t require any equipment and can be done in any setup.
Most of these exercises will help to bring the balance between mobility and strength and if practiced in the right way should bring your pain down. If you experience pain while performing any of these exercises then stop the exercise right there and move on to the next exercise and if your knee pain doesn’t show signs of improvement within two weeks from the start of this physiotherapy exercise for knee pain then make sure you visit your physiotherapist to find the exact cause of your knee pain and fix it from the root cause
When you join our subscribe list, you get access to the best of sports inspiration, tips, stories and more to practice your sport. Just One Digest Per Month (Promise)
Please subscribe here