Have you ever had knee pain that you do not know what is causing it and it keeps coming back?
This blog will help you to understand what sort of knee pain you have and what is driving your pain. A lot of people develop knee pain while barbell training or playing sport but do not have a clear understanding of what is causing the pain.
The common conditions we will cover today are:
Illiotibial band Sydrome
Patellofemoral Compression Syndrome
Biomechanical Dysfuntion
Patellar Tendinopathy
Iliotibial Band Syndrome: The IT band is a thick band of fascia that starts at the hips and runs the entire length of your upper leg. The pain usually is on the outside of your knee. The reason for the pain is the compression caused by the thick IT band compressing on the bony part of the outside of your knee. Normally you will not get it from a specific incident but will gradually come on overtime. The pain can start as a dull ache and then progress into a sharp pain.
Patellofemoral Compression Syndrome/ Biomechanical Dysfunction: If you have pain on your knee cap or underneath it is most likely down to a compression problem or a biomechanical dysfunction (bad technique when training). Pain normally increases the more you load the knee. So for example, if you are squatting 60kg the pain might be 1/10. But if you increase the weight to 100kg it may increase to a 4/10.
As your knee moves your kneecap/ patella will cause the muscles to tense and surround your knee to stabilise it. But if these muscles are tight then the knee will not move properly and will rub and can cause injury. In the clinic, we assess your squat both in a normal deep squat position and also doing a single leg squat. This allows us to see where you are not moving properly and then work on this with manual therapy techniques and form alternations to help your knee move better and have you perform pain-free again.
Patellar Tendinopathy: If you do sports that involve more explosive movements that are highly repetitive. For example, hurling, rugby and gymnastics. It is common to have patella tendon pain when you do excessive jumping or loading through the knee. It is much more common to get the pain when you are putting force through the knee, for example, jumping. Rather than just running because it is difficult to overload the knee just running on its own.
Mainly the pain is on the patella tendon itself but you can also get pain on the little bump below the knee (called your tibial tuberosity). This is a common place to see swelling too.
In conclusion
Just looking at the knee is rarely enough to fully fix your pain. It can help a great deal to release off tissue and muscle tension around the knee to allow it to move better but the mechanics that have led to the injury in the first place must be fixed in order to stop the pain from coming back.
This is where we can help you in the clinic by both helping your knee move better and lower pain levels but also see where you are moving poorly to help the pain from returning.
If you would like a full functional assessment and find out what is causing your knee pain, then contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
This blog will cover a common myth of the squat. It is commonly thought by many that the knees should never go over the toes when squatting.
No one is certain where this originated from but it has become a common theme in the fitness industry and medical world.
But, is it really a dangerous thing to do? For Olympic weightlifters to be able to lift the most amount of weight during their clean, they must catch the barbell in a deep squat position. Then in order to remain upright with the bar secured on the chest, the knees of many lifters will move past their toes. So does this mean all weightlifters are placing their knees in harms-way when they get under the barbell?
When you squat poorly, the origin of the movement will commonly be from the ankles first. This means as the ankles move the knees are forced to hinge forwards. This creates a chain reaction of moving your weight onto the balls of the feet. This is called a knees first approach to squatting. Doing this in this way leads to greater shear forces on the knee joint and contributes to increased risk of injury and eventually to pain.
So because of this, it appears the issue is at the knee because that is where the site of pain is. So if you limit the amount of movement the knees have then this solves the problem. However, limiting the knees from moving only addresses the symptoms of the issue rather than the overall problem.
What to do?
Where the issue lies is your balance. This is because the knee is only a hinge joint. It will move due to what it is being dictated by at the hip and ankle. So we should be focusing on the hip and ankle joint when we squat.
During squatting we must have our centre of gravity over the middle of our foot. This is because our body can remain balanced and work effectively in producing speed and power. During a bodyweight squat, our centre of gravity is located around our belly button. When weight training, the barbell now becomes our centre of gravity.
So how do we correct for moving from the ankles first? It is important to sit back or push the hips back so we hinge from the hips in order the get the hips moving first and therefore allow us to descend into a deep squat. Doing so will limit the amount of pre-mature forward movement of the knees. So the centre of gravity will stay over the middle of their foot.
But this only works up until a point. In order to reach full depth in the squat there comes a time when the knees must eventually move forward. To stay balanced while we go deeper into a squat, our knees have to progress forwards of our toes, this will help us stay balanced. This is because to get to the full depth in the squat, the hips must be under the torso. This allows us to remain balanced and keep our chest upright.
The main point is that we should not be concerned when our knees move past our toes, not if.
If you suffer from knee pain and would like an examination and treatment to help relieve your symptoms and improve your movement patterns then contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
