Frequent knee pain affects approximately 25% of adults, limits function and mobility, and can dramatically impair your quality of life.

Whether you have pain in your knee right now or you don’t, and you want to make sure you have healthy knees for as long as possible, these strategies will work.

Stories from Others that Have Experienced Knee Pain

So I polled a bunch of podcast listeners about their knees, because I wanted to know what the general consensus was about knees. Here were some of the responses:

• “I can’t squat or lunge anymore because I have bad knees.”
• “I’ve always had bad knees and they’re constantly an issue.”
• “I’ve been dealing with pain on the outside edge of my knee.” Someone else said something similar: “I’ve been experiencing a lot of pain right below the kneecap.”

Frequent knee pain affects approximately 25% of adults, limits function and mobility, and can dramatically impair your quality of life.

There are a few stories that come my mind of people I’ve worked with that had knee pain.

Michelle is one. A woman in her 60’s, experienced knee pain along the inside edge of her knee whenever she bends it, like squatting and standing.

Erin is another one. She had a lot of pain whenever she would run - pain along the outside edge of her knee, that seems to be stemming from IT band pain. She had to stop running and it would even hurt her sometimes on long walks.

Janelle also comes to mind. I did a coaching call with her one time because she had knee pain right on the front of the knee, around the knee cap and just below it.

Shaun is another case. He would experience serious kneecap pain, and the kneecap would even slide off to the side when he would go to extend his knee.

So LOTS of different issues, and it’s amazing how much a painful knee can impact your daily life. It’s discouraging.

What Can Trigger Knee Pain? 4 Primary Triggers

1) Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is the most common cause of knee pain in people 50 years or older, and it’s the number one reason that leads so many individuals to get knee replacement surgery

But arthritis is not the only trigger for pain…

2) Poor Alignment

When you flex and extend your knee, especially when it’s in contact with the floor, it needs to track with good alignment.

• Most common alignment issue is a knee that caves inward, even just slightly, when squatting movements IMG_3465_Poor Alignment.MOV & IMG_3466_Good Alignment.MOV
• You can also get kneecap alignment issues

3) Tightness

Your knee should be able to flex or bend to 135-155 degrees, in other words, you should be able to get your heel to about 8-10 inches away from your bum without any help, and then just about touch your bum with some assistance. At the very least, you need about 90 degrees of flexion for proper functioning.

When your knee can’t move like this, compensation patterns arise and pain can develop.

What could be making your knee tight?

• Tight ankles/calf/achilles
• Tight hip flexors and quads (FUN FACT: Tight hip flexors are the real reason your IT band gets overworked at the knee)
• Other factors: meniscus tears, prior injuries, arthritis, joint inflammation

4) Muscle Weakness

This is probably the biggest culprit for knee pain, in my opinion. The knee is a joint that needs to be really stable, and when it’s not, then your knee might be wobbly and doesn’t have strength. In fact, weak muscles around the knee can really amplify and aggravate knee arthritis that exists.

What could be making your knee weak?

• Weak hamstrings and glutes - this is the BIG one.
• Weak quads
• Weak inner thigh and outer thigh muscles
• Weak core

What Should You STOP Doing?

• Ok first, stop pushing through the pain, it could make things worse.
• And on the flipside, stop doing nothing about your knees and avoiding them all together. This is probably the worst thing you could do.
  • Meet in the middle with movements that actually target your knees in a pain-free way
  • Movement lubricates the joint, and builds and maintains a healthy range of motion in the joint
• Stop ignoring mobility work - I know a lot of people that rarely exercise to begin with, and when they do they completely skip the stretching and foam rolling part of their cool down
• Stop ignoring your alignment as you move about the day

What Should You START Doing?

1) Start stretching

• Top priority - stretch your calves & ankles and stretch your hip flexors (inner thighs)
• Secondary priority - stretch your hamstrings and quads (the couch stretch)
• Do a combination of dynamic & static stretching, with a heavy emphasis on the dynamic style

2) Start strengthening

• Top priority - your glutes (bridges, bridges with a hamstring curl, hip hinges and deadlifts)IMG_3471_Strengthening Glutes.MOV
• Secondary priority - your inner/outer thigh muscles and your quads (not the thigh master machine! Squats and split squats)
  • This will also start strengthening the muscles that hold your kneecap into position, just in case your kneecap tends to track wrong
• Strengthen your core
• Move through a pain free range of motion

3) Start noticing your alignment in everything you do

• Squatting up and down, kneeling down and getting back up, stepping up onto a stair

Let’s bust two big knee myths real quick:

• KNEES OVER TOES - It’s ok if your knee goes past your toe
• STRETCH & AGGRESSIVELY FOAM ROLL THE ITBAND - The IT band is not supposed to be long

Proof of Transformation

Here’s what is cool: Over the years I have worked with so many people that had been dealing with knee pain and they were starting to lose hope, like it would never get better.

I remember Jennifer in particular, who had horrible pain along the outside edge of her knee that would never go away. Instead of trying to ignore it and push through the pain, I had her diligently stretch her calves and hip flexors and then we worked really hard on building up her glute strength, and literally after just a couple weeks of this, her pain was nearly gone.

Action Step

So here is a simple action step that you can do today to help your knees: Start strengthening your glutes. If there’s only ONE thing that you could do, it would be that. Grab my 5-Day Glute Builder program so you don’t have to figure out what to do, and we’ll start making your knees way healthier.

More Resources & Links

FREE! 5-Day Glute Builder program

FREE 5-Day Core Tune Up program

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