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Are Knee Injuries Holding You Back?
Are Knee Injuries Holding You Back?
Your knee is a simple but vital joint. While it handles flexion and extension well, it's vulnerable to rotation and lateral forces. When these forces exceed your knee's capacity, injuries happen. Whether it's a sudden, jarring accident on the field or nagging pain from overuse, knee injuries are incredibly common - and frustrating.
The typical advice of just resting leaves the area much weaker and more fragile than before.
Find out how to maximise your recovery and optimise your training to get you back to your best.
What to do if you injure your knee
Early Phase - Initial Care & Professional Diagnosis
The first point of call should be to see a medical professional and get a diagnosis - depending on where you are, and how severe it feels, that may be a visit to A&E, your GP, or a Physiotherapist. These medical professionals should give you advice on how to manage the initial stages of injury, although unfortunately, this isn't always done particularly well. The main aims of this initial phase, are to prevent excess inflammation and to prevent any further damage to the area. Depending on where/how bad the damage is, it's possible that you could need surgery, as some tissues won't heal back in the right place without it. If surgery isn't necessary, and also before/after surgery, you may benefit from seeing a physiotherapist, which is the medical professional that's best suited to helping manage the early stages of rehabilitation. They will help restore range of motion to the knee, and provide you with safe exercises, to help get some strength back into the damaged tissue and the surrounding muscles.
Late Phase - Transition to Strength & Performance
Once you have some mobility back and you're able to put weight through the leg again, there will come a time that it's more beneficial to see somebody like me, instead of/ as well as a physio. The aims here will shift a little - firstly, we'll be aiming to gradually and progressively subject the area to increased forces (it is this loading which is the stimulus that encourages your damaged tissue to re-organise itself and get stronger - the typical old school advice of simply resting, will leave the area much weaker and more fragile than before). Secondly, we'll figure out a way to do as much 'normal' training as possible, so that other parts of your body aren't getting weaker. You've probably heard of people coming back from an injury, only to hurt a completely different body part. This is incredibly common, and it is usually possible to reduce the likelihood of this substantially by using knowledge of anatomy and a bit of creativity to target the desired areas without risking any injury to the damaged tissue.
Structures of the Knee
Ligament - Your ligaments attach one bone to another, providing passive stability to your knee. Essentially, they limit the range of motion that you have, to help you avoid injuring other areas of the knee. You have various different ligaments within the knee, and each limits a different range of motion. If you exceed that range of motion with enough force, you can damage the ligament, and this damage can range from a mild overstretch/sprain, all the way to a full tear/rupture (this can also result in you damaging other structures within the knee at the same time).
Meniscus - Your meniscus sits between your femur and your tibia, providing some cushioning and helping add some stability to the knee. It is a fibrocartilaginous structure, which is attached to the MCL on the inside of the knee, and this lack of mobility there, means it's more likely to be damaged on this side. You can tear it in many different ways, and the exact location and orientation of the tear will affect the management.
Tendon - Tendons attach muscle to bone, and although they themselves cannot actively move your knee, they are the tissue that applies the force that your muscle generates to create movement. There are a few tendons that cross the knee, and you can damage any one of them. Tendons are incredibly strong, and cope well with slow movements, but fast explosive movements are much harder for them. They adapt fairly slowly, so they don't like changes in training, which is often a contributing factor in injuries.
Cartilage - This is the surface that coats your bones at the knee joint, and allows them to glide smoothly over each other, as well as provides a little cushioning to the joint. Although cartilage gets stronger and thicker when stimulated by loading, it can also be damaged through overuse or through direct trauma.
Muscle - Muscles are the active movers of your knee, not only flexing and extending the knee, but also providing active stability to the joint. Muscles are typically injured through movements that expose them to unusually high forces, with factors such as fatigue and tightness also increasing risk. They are made up of lots a tiny muscle fibres which can be torn, affecting anywhere from just a small part of the muscle, right through to a total rupture. They are very quick to adapt.
If you are interested or you have any questions, please get in touch. If I can't answer, I'll get back to you as promptly as I can.
Call us on 0208 153 3343
Email us via info@yourgymlondon.co.uk
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Why Work With Me?
My degree in Sports and Exercise Sciences, my master's degree in Sports Medicine, Exercise and Health, as well as my work within elite sport, have all helped me to develop the ways that I help people get back to full health. My aim is to get people healthy and back to doing what they love, and figuring out the best way of achieving that is a challenge I enjoy. Your input is crucial, as you are the only one that can feel what is going on, so we'll work together to progress as quickly and safely, as possible. The priority is to support you, so if I don't think that I'm the right person to help with your injury, rest assured that I will help you find someone more appropriate - I've worked with and learned from lots of great specialists, so have a range of contacts that I can call upon.
Serving Ladbroke Grove, North Kensington
We are the ideal choice for residents of Ladbroke Grove looking for a private studio gym for knee rehabilitation. Located just a 5-minute walk/drive from Sainsbury's, we provide high-end training without the commute to central London.
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