How many of you ladies have knee pain? Well, you may be interested in this then. I have seen quite a few women runners/ triathletes the last couple of weeks, both elite and recreational with knee pain in the clinic. And guess what? Majority of my patients knee pain came as a result of weakness in the hips. Yes, some of them do have contributing factors coming from the knee itself, but the main cause was the hip weakness. So the hip weakness basically led to knee pain.
Well, you do know that at Physio and Sports Solutions we are really good at treating the cause of your pain rather than just treating the pain itself. So besides treating the patients' knee pain, the main thing was to explain the rationale of the treatment plan to them and then teach them how to specifically strengthen the hip muscles.
The strange thing is I've actually noticed this trend quite a while earlier from treating previous patients. So I was really pleased to find an article that was published earlier this year that confirms what I thought.
The study had 19 female runners with knee pain and a separate control group of another 19 female runners as well without knee pain. The group of women with knee pain had greater average hip internal rotation range and reduced hip muscle strength compared to the other group.
The authors concluded that it is the abnormal hip mechanics and decrease strength levels rather than the difference in hip shape and structure of women (as compared to men) that caused their knee pain.
So ladies, if your knees are causing you grief while running, please come in and see us and we will treat the cause of it to prevent it from coming back. And then you can run, pain free of course.
Reference
Souza RB and Powers CM (2009). Predictors of Hip Internal Rotation during Running: An Evaluation of Hip Strength and Femoral Structure in Women With and Without Patellofemoral Pain. Am J Sp Med. 37(3):579-587.
Hi Gino - really thanks for teaching me how to have a pain-free run! I had knee pain problems months ago and was told by my GP that 18mins was the max I could run to avoid the pain. I thought that was the end of it and wanted to give up jogging.
ReplyDeleteHowever, after attending your running clinic, followed up by the Thu running sessions, I can now jog more than 18mins! To be accurate, I can run closer to 5km PAIN-FREE... what a wonderful achievement! It is never possible without learning the mid-foot running method from you.
I am sharing such a motivating experience with other colleagues in office and encouraging them to join the Thu session.
Planning to share this with my GP that there is indeed a way that I can enjoy running while not having to worry about my knees! Thanks again, it's indeed a blessed teaching that I have ever had! :)
Tks Michelle.
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