It’s the biggest fear people have about knee pain.
“Will my pain ever go away?”
Here’s my take on this issue after helping people with it for 7 years. [Read more…]
Curing Jumper’s Knee: The 3 Secrets of the Treatment Triangle
Jumper’s knee is a stubborn knee injury that can take months to heal and even once it has healed, the pain might reappear after you return to your sport.
The jumper’s knee treatment triangle will help you solve this problem by fixing the three most critical causes for jumper’s knee.
In this article I will walk you through everything in detail. Keep reading to find out.
Cycling Knee Pain
Cycling knee pain can be dealt with in many ways - Picture by Nicki Varkevisser
There’s no denying that the bicycle is an insanely useful invention, yes, even called “most popular vehicle in world” and I whole-heartedly agree, but like with everything else, bicycling has its flaws. This article deals with cycling knee pain, its causes and solutions.
Knee Pain and Bicycling
Train your buttocks to fix your knee pain
At first glance the influence of the gluteal muscles on knee health is everything but obvious. However, if you scrutinize the function of the gluteals closely, there will be a big aha-moment. In short, the gluteus maximus and posterior fibers of the gluteus medius are responsible for producing hip external rotation and abduction (moving the leg to the outside as in side-lying leg raise). Both are vital for knee health and here is why.
The central nervous system, muscle length and the lie of stretching
There are over 200 bones and more than 600 muscles in the human body. Some muscles can be voluntarily controlled; others are used without us contributing much. When it comes to movement however, we have to learn everything from scratch. So when we were born, we already had the hardware to move around, but were missing parts of the software. That basically means the central nervous system needed to learn how to control muscle contractions and how to coordinate them to create controlled movement. This stuff is stored for later recall, since it would be a pain in the ass to have to learn everything again the next morning.
Now think about this for a moment here: the CNS learns how to control and coordinate hundreds of muscles at the same time! The amount of computing power, bandwidth and storage capacity needed for that is unparalleled even by the most sophisticated computer. However, there’s a small caveat. The CNS will adapt your body to whatever you do for longer periods of time.
Limitations of stretching in fixing movement
For most people stretching is the ultimate solution. You can fix tightness and thereby prevent injuries and pain, right? Well, sort of. Tightness in a muscle is just a result of previous behavior. Dr. Perry Nickelston points out that it is usually “a by-product of inefficient movement patterns where muscles unnecessarily have to compensate or work overtime to help you achieve the objective.”.