Our activities can put some strain on our knees. At the end of a long hike, or maybe it was a bike ride, or maybe after working in the garden our knees can feel achy and sore. Grab a foam roller and try these 3 exercises to help bring some relief to your knees.
Do your knees need more love? There are 3 routines on the Koa Fit Online Platform for knee health and strength. Check them out here.
For the month of February, we are focusing on spinal mobility. For this first week, we are putting special emphasis on the mid-back or thoracic spine. Check out the moves below and try them today to bring some movement into the spine.
If you ride a bike, your quads are tight. This tightness can lead to pain around the knee cap. In this first mobility exercise, we use a pin and stretch on the roller. This addition to the regular quad rolling can release some of the tension in the front of the thighs and allow the kneecap to move more freely.
Cycling involves so much forward folding and hunching. We need to counteract that with some strength in the opposite direction. In this second exercise, we are back on our bellies, working that back line.
Did you know it has been estimated that up to 90% of us have forward head posture? Want to know if you do? Stand up right now, turn your camera on, hold your arm straight out to the side and snap a pic of your profile, including your shoulder. Take a look. Are you ears forward of your shoulders? Congratulations! You have forward head posture.
Let’s take a quick look at what causes forward head posture (from now on we will call this FHP to save me some time sitting at the computer). There are the obvious culprits – prolong sitting, computer use, texting, and trauma such as whiplash from a car accident. But there are also things we don’t think about – the sports we play, the heavy backpack we carry, our jobs, the way we breath.
{Side Note} Let’s talk about this last one for a hot second. The stress of our daily lives has left most people with shallow, stressed, labored breathing. We no longer take relaxed breaths. Instead, most of us have a habit (without even noticing it) of holding our breath or breathing faster than we need. This alone can not only affect things like your heart, your oxygen intake, and your mood, but it can also start to tighten down the muscles at the front of the neck, pulling your head forward. For more on how to help your breathing, check out my past blog post, Breathe Deep.
Symptoms of FHP don’t just include looking like a sad puppy, there are also REAL issues that can occur. Because of the strain FHP puts on the cervical spine, every system is affected. This includes the musculoskeletal systems (headaches anyone?), the nervous system (maybe you are a tingling hands kind of person?), and the vascular system (raise your hand if you have sleep apnea!). The longer your head hangs out there, the more vulnerable you are to muscle spams, bulging and herniated discs, and even TMJ.
So, let’s get to work. Perform these 8 moves a couple times a week. Use them as a warm-up to your other activities or do them right before bed.
Knee pain. It has happened to most of us. 1/3 of Americans will experience knee pain at some point in their lives. It is the 2nd most common cause of chronic pain and new reports show it is affecting more people each year. So, if you are experiencing a “twinge” or maybe a “tweak” in your knees, it is time to take some action before bigger issues occur.
The greatest cause of knee pain is, by far, poor body mechanics and poor mechanics are typically caused by a lack of mobility which leads to a lack of strength. For example, due to prolonged sitting, a lot of people experience a tightness in the front of their hips. This tightness in the front of the hips leads to decreased strength in the back of the leg (glutes and hamstrings), which decreases the support in the back of the knee. Without the support and strength in the back of the knee (posterior), force traveling through the knee joint is pushed into the front of the knee (anterior) and causes pain across the front of the kneecap (commonly called “Runner’s Knee”). This is not the only cause of knee soreness, but it is definitely one of the most common.
The knee joint is where the femur (thigh bone) and the tibia (shin bone) come together. All 4 muscles of the quadriceps come together to form the patellar tendon which starts at the top of the knee joint, adheres to the patella as it crosses the anterior (front) of the joint until in attaches at the tibia below. The patellar tendon lies within a grooved-out notch the allows you to bend and straighten your knee without irritation. A lot of knee pain is caused when the alignment of the patellar tendon and this specially made notch go out of whack.
The inside of your knees is referred to as the medial side and the outside of your knees is known as the lateral side. Imbalances between these two sides can cause the patellar tendon the shift towards the stronger side. For instance, if you have had an injury to your knee in the past, you may remember your therapist trying to get the inner-most muscle of the quadriceps to fire. This needs to be strong, so that your patella does not start to track to the lateral side of the knee joint and cause you more pain. If this imbalance continues, a person can start to feel tightness in the IT band and other soft tissue on the lateral side of the knee while also experiencing sharp pain on the medial side of the joint. The knee has to be balanced side-to-side (medial to lateral) to stay pain-free and happy.
Imbalances front-to-back (anterior to posterior) are the usual cause of pain in the first example of our Runner’s Knee. However, we also see in the example above, that imbalances medially to laterally can cause different, but equally annoying pain. The routine below starts with releases of the most commonly tight areas of the hip and lower limb that may cause imbalances at the knee joint. They are followed by exercises that strengthen the muscles that are commonly weak in people with knee pain. This routine will not help everyone with knee soreness, but if you have been experiencing sore knees after activity or “tweaks” and “twinges”, this is a great place to start. Even if you have not had knee pain, this routine will help your knees stay happy, healthy and pain-free.
Do me a quick favor. If you are reading this on your computer or your phone, take a quick second and press the top of your head towards to sky, make yourself as tall as possible, and level your chin. Ok, now keep reading. I would hate for my blog post about sore, cranky necks actually cause sore necks. Nobody needs more pains in the neck. Ok, I’ll stop…
In all seriousness, chronic stiff and sore necks and shoulders seems to be a thing people are just “putting up with” these days. That feeling that you want to “pop” your neck or stretch it, or move it to release some tension. We have all had it at one time. If jobs and responsibilities allowed us to move more, allowed us to turn our heads to look at different things, allowed us to view things both up close and at a distance, allowed us to MOVE more, we could probably avoid it, but most of us don’t have that luxury.
So first, let’s understand your neck and shoulder pain. For most people, the issue may not even start at the neck. So all that pulling and popping and stretching you are doing up there, stop for a minute. Most people’s necks are already hyper-mobile, the problem is not that they don’t move, but that they move too much. You have probably heard of “Forward Head Posture”. If you have it, your neck has moved a lot! It is suppose to be sitting right on top of your shoulders, but you are able to move it way out in front! Yes, that is sarcasm.
The position of your head sitting out in front of your shoulders acts as a big ol’ ball and chain on the muscles of the neck, the shoulders, and the upper back. If you would like to understand it more, pick up something that weighs about 20lbs (kids, dogs, and bowling balls all work). Now hold the weight close to your belly and feel the strain on your shoulder and back. Not bad right? Now straighten your arms and press it out in front of you about chest level. Now we are talking. Feel that pull on your shoulders, maybe a little twinge in your low back? You neck pain is a product of the same mechanism.
There is a network of muscles that equally pull your neck forward, backward, and side-to-side. When your head is forward, those muscles become off-balanced. The muscles normally used to pull your head forward and down tend to get short and tight. The muscles that normally pull your head back and up become long and stiff. The side-to-side muscles don’t even know what to do, they are like children watching their parents argue.
The stiffness you normally feel in your neck and shoulders come from those muscles in the back that would normally pull your head back and up. The most common response to these long, stiff muscles is to stretch them. Here is the thing, they are already LONG. They have been stretched day-in and day-out since your forward head posture started. Stretching them will give you temporary relief, but it will not bring you any long-term benefits. What we need to do is lengthen the deep muscles in the front of the neck as we strengthen the posterior muscles.
Ok, but why is your cervical spine moving so much? Well, it is most likely because your thoracic spine is not moving at all. Lack of fluidity in this mid-area of your back tends to make the segments above (neck) and below (low back pain anyone?) move too much. This area tends to get stuck for a few reasons – excessive sitting, lack of core strength, tightness through the chest and diaphragm – all of these can lead to stiffness in the thoracic spine.
So, when you start to address your neck pain, it is important for you to address the stiffness in your thoracic spine first. If you only address your neck pain at the neck, it will come back time and time again. The spine must move fluidly together, that is the basis of all good movement.
Below is a short exercise and stretching routine that will help you relieve your achy neck and shoulders.
*Please note – The exercises above are not medically prescribed. Please check with your physician to check if the exercises are appropriate for you.
Try this quick and easy at-home exercises to strengthen your hips, knees, and ankles. Help support the knee joint and prevent injury by bringing more mobility and stability to your hips. Start with these 3 foam roller releases to get the legs moving correctly and then move into the 5 strength moves below to help bring stability to the knee joint and the lower kinetic chain.
Quad Rolling
IT Band Rolling
TFL/Hip Flexor Release
Hip Rotation
Bridge with Leg Raise
Dipping Bird
Squat
Long Lunge to Balance
Brenna Backe 