Running for Your Life: The Knee Solution

Maybe I’m not the ideal commentator on this subject. I have never suffered a serious knee injury, say, an ACL tear or a hampering meniscus injury. But the day before Halloween last year I was forced off a fast-moving treadmill when I felt something “snap” in the muscle group on the outside of my left kneecap.

What followed was such debilitating pain that kept me away from running for months. While I never got a firm diagnosis for what happened to me, the closest I came was what my sports physical therapist said: I had a runaway IT Band (Iliotibial Band) that messed with nerve endings. (There was minimal swelling and no bruising.)

My Knee Solution? A combination of lunges, squats and leg lifts, that zero in on building thigh, knee and butt muscles. Most important, in doing the lunges and squats, stick with it. Do reps of 30 each. Taking special care that when you go down on the lunge the forward bent knee does NOT extend beyond the front foot.

These kinds of exercises helped to restore my running form, in that I keep my full weight more parallel to the ground so that I cushion the inevitable pounding of the foot strikes through my newly conditioned thighs, knees and butt.

The upshot is that I am back to thinking that I could retrain to run long for my life. Right now, I’m happy to do four miles, five miles, the occasional six.

If you have sore knees, or don’t want to have them, think about working out with these simple exercises. They are certainly working for me !


Next: Running for Your Life: Ear Bud Art

0 comments: