A Move to Improve - 3: Knee pain

With so much force going through our knees on a daily basis combined with our reliance on walking; it pays to give some attention to the maintenance of your knees.

Get to know your knees

Unfortunately, knees are rarely appreciated until they are painful and limiting your speed, distance or ease of walking.

Even small movements are difficult with painful knees

The two most important things you can do to help protect your knees are:

1. Lose weight

The more you weigh, the more force is going through your knees so damage can happen faster

2. Stronger thigh muscles with good control of movement

Stronger thigh muscles help control the alignment of your knee cap and helps keep the load going through the correct areas in your knee to limit damage

Good exercises for thigh strength and knee control include:

Squats

Lunges

Step ups

To make the exercises work better and prevent injury always make sure your knees stay in line with your foot as it bends; ie don't let your knees come together.

Letting your knees come together wears the wrong part of your knee leading to injury

Most important:

Knees need to move to stay healthy but listen to them: if they hurt with squats - back off the weight or change to cycling for a while; if they hurt with walking - reduce your distance or take the load off by walking in a pool until they heal.

Life is too short to be held back by pain