Knees are great! Well, when they work well. Here are some tips to keep them doing their job.

The disclaimers:

As always, see your doctor/physio if pain in this area is an unknown quantity for you.

And unfortunately, sometimes there just isn’t much cartilage left 🙁

The Overview

After that, the TLDR to keep your knees as happy as they can be:

1. Maintain a reasonable weight
2. Don’t eat junk or other inflammatory foods
3. Check if your calves, hams or quads (especially the outside) are tight
4. Strengthen your hips, especially the outside
5. And maybe the inside of your quad
6. Turn that all into a good squat
7. And train one-legged, often (if you have pain, always working to just beneath your pain threshold)
8. If none of the above are helping, get in the pool

People who’d find a video overview valuable, please click here.

Mobility – Stability – Strength

If ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and this FMS paradigm remains my go-to.

For mobility, always look at what crosses the joint, so here: calves (maybe even plantar fascia, as it ties in strongly with the calves), quads, IT band, hams. We also need adequate hip mobility to ensure that hip strength is where it needs to be (especially a stabilizer like the glut med).

Don’t Waste Your Time

Test, test, re-rest –  sorry, find a move with some discomfort; just make sure it doesn’t make you jump out of your skin entirely – quantify your discomfort level from 1 to 10, and I‘ll admit while it’s tedious, ideally recheck the move and discomfort level after you try each item below.

Does the VM Scrunch Matter to You?

Not always, but often enough that’s it’s worth checking, the outside of our quad (i.e. vastus lateralis) will overpower the inside (i.e. vastus medialis, or VM).

This video shows a quick test, and two exercises that are super easy to do if the results do indeed apply to your own knees.

So, Mobility First

When we’re bringing mobility to joints that cross or affect the knee, some myofascial (soft tissue) release may be required first. It’s worth checking:

• Calves
• Plantar fascia (i.e. bottom of the feet)
• Quads
• Hams
• IT band
• Hips

The above are all demonstrated here.

And then for actual tissue mobility/stretching, check and test:

• Calves
• P fascia
• Quads
• Hams
• (The IT band? Not so much; it’s usually more about lateral/rotational hip mobility)
• Hips

And click here to see the above demonstrated.

Next, Stability

Globally, I suggest any type of one-legged, focused work, static and/or dynamic, ideally with your eyes shut if it’s safe to do so.

Standing hip CARs are a good way to do mobility/stability together.

More specific work could include:

• Maybe band-resisted one-legged work
• Clamshells or leg raises
• VM leg raise; eccentric lowers (please see the VM scrunch section, above)

Here‘s video for all of the above.

The Crowning Attribute of Strength

Again, looking now at the larger muscles that cross the knee joint: most people don’t need to isolate the calves, in my experience.

Quads, however? Time to get to a good squat!

And for the hams, get to a good (conventional) deadlift, with good mornings being even more hamstring-specific.

For help with the dedicated strength work, please contact me.

The Bee’s Knees

Well, there you have it, hopefully some useful tips and tricks for you! Again, test, test and re-test to make sure you’re not wasting your time. Good luck, and may you keep squatting, deadlifting and dancing into a ripe old age with the happiest of knees 🙂