Over 40 with knee pain? Try this!

Not many people like clicking on these posts and admitting we are old but … doing these things really works.

Knee pain over 40 can present in a few ways 

• Pain the first few steps in the morning

• Pain at night that aches after more exercise than normal

• A giving way sensation or pain up and down stairs 

• Pain when you’ve been sitting or squatting for a while and go to stand

The most common thing people say to me when they come in is “it’s probably arthritis and i’ll have to live with it”

The most recent example I can think of was a lovely lady in her 60’s who loved hiking. She walked every day around 6-7kms and 3 x per year would go on a 3-5 day walk.

6 weeks prior she had done a hike that was around 5 hours and had more steps than she had ever done. She also hadn’t been on a big walk for a year due to covid.

She came in and immediately went with the “it’s probably arthritis isn’t it?”

“I think i’ll just walk with poles from now on and just walk once per week”

Yes 7 weeks ago she had no knee pain. My reply was “that’s a pretty rapid aging process of your knee in 6 weeks don’t you think?’

I reassured her that she will not be retiring anytime soon from walking. We constructed an 8 week program with Physio, Pilates and strength work and she did a 3 day hike 10 weeks later. I also saw her walking last week and joked “where are your walking poles I thought you had arthritis?”

All jokes aside there is no relationship between arthritis and pain. You can have a pretty arthritic knee joint and no pain. You can also have a pretty healthy knee joint and have tremendous pain.

The key things you need to do are

• Settle the pain quickly

• Fix any mechanical issues

• Change your walking or running stride length (if excessive)

• Restore pre-injury function to your knee

• Grow your muscles (8-12 weeks)

If you tick those 5 boxes then you generally have done your absolute best at getting your knee pain under control. The above is also backed by a load of evidence in the form of the GLAD knee program. A 3 month knee rehab protocol which we use.

So i’m going to show you one thing from each of the above categories to help head you in the right direction.

Settle the pain quickly

This taping is really really good at settling knee pain. You can get this tape from any pharmacy and we have it in the clinic. It comes under loads of brands but is stretchier than normal rigid tape. 

Click HERE to watch a video of Matty taping a knee. I would recommend this taping.


Fix any mechanical issues

The most common one I see is over striding when you walk. What we typically do in the clinic is get people to walk outside and film it. We look at you walking from behind and the side. When we film from the side we look for over striding. 

Over striding simply puts a lot more pressure on your knee than walking with a smaller stride. 

Reducing your stride reduces the force through your knee. Imagine walking with less pressure through your knee for 8000 to 10000 steps per day! 

Restore pre injury function to the knee

We tend to restore function via exercises. Initially starting with isometric exercises where by we contract with good form for anywhere from 10-45 seconds depending on current strength levels or pain levels.

Try these two exercises which I like to start with. There should be no pain. If there is try reducing the depth of the movement or duration. 

Isometric Bridge 

Isometric Wall squat

Grow your muscles

Muscles get used to the same stimulus really quickly so if you do the same thing every week don’t expect to get better. You will initially but you will plateua. 

You can grow the muscles by a couple of ways. Double to single leg exercise progressions. More reps. Less rest. More weight. It’s a science and an art to nail this.

But with the examples above of the bride and squat you could try these.

Squat with weight

Split bridge. 

So try the above. It really works. It will never replace a well designed Physio and rehab program. If you can dedicate 8 weeks to getting your knee under control email me at nick@balanceinmotion.com.au with a brief description of your issues. I can recommend the right Physio for you to get back to what you love doing. If it sounds like I need to refer you on i’ll refer you to the right person who can help.

Cheers

Nick T