Knee Pain

Knees are complex joints that perform a simple job: They synchronize the work of the hips and ankles. We could easily reverse the statement and say that the knee is a simple joint doing a complex job. Both are true.

The knee is also an elegant solution to a fiendishly difficult problem. The hip and ankle move at vastly different rates of speed; their gears, if you will, vary in size. Their muscular power sources range from the equivalent of jet propulsion to the equivalent of rubber bands. Connecting them is at once madness and pure genius. When it happened 3.2 million years ago, our ancestors found strength, stamina, agility, and speed to compete with the four-legged creatures of greater size and ferocity that, until then, had ruled the earth.

But we’ve persuaded ourselves that knees are accidents waiting to happen, time bombs ready to explode at any moment. Accident and explosions do happen, although in this context they are symptomatic events. Damaging a patella when suddenly stopping to change direction on a soccer field or tearing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during a tumble while skiing are misconstrued as misfortunes, mishaps, and misadventures.

The starting point of a completely pain-free knee is a completely bilateral body. To turn pain off, we must restore the affected body part to a neutral position. Proper bilateral function will create balance where dysfunction created a muscular tug-of-war.

Without proper bilateral function, muscles pull on bones, other muscles, tendons, connective tissue, and nerves. At minimum, this is stressful, but it also causes an actual rearrangement of the musculoskeletal system that ultimately results in accumulating physical disability, pain, and far-reaching physiological disruption.

Healthy knees need only one thing: alignment with the other load-bearing joints. Knees rarely have problems if they are aligned and allowed to work in proper association with the ankles and hips.

Sitting Knee Pillow Squeezes

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Sit in the middle of a chair with your feet pointed straight ahead, 4-6 inches apart.
2. Place a pillow between your knees.
3. Roll your hips forward to place an arch in your low back and hold this position throughout the e-cise.
4. Squeeze and release the pillow with your knees.
5. Do 3 sets. Each set consisting of 20 repetitions.

FUN FACT

This E-cise introduces the body to the functional sitting position versus the average slumped forward sitting position our bodies become accustom to.