3 Exercises to Help With Knee Pain

Exercise-related knee pain is one of the most common issues that comes up for my fitness clients, regardless of their age, activity level, or fitness goals.

Knee pain affects sedentary people who are just getting back into exercise just as much as fit people who have been exercising for a while. Not even athletes who are accustomed to pushing their bodies to the limits can escape the wrath of exercise-related knee pain.

In this post, I’m going to share a simple six-minute solution to this all too common problem that you can do right at home. But first, let’s talk more about what causes exercise-related knee pain and how to tell if this solution is right for you.

Causes of exercise-related knee pain

Believe it or not, the type of knee pain I most frequently see in my physical therapy practice is not a result of a traumatic injury such as a fall, a twist, a hard landing from a jump, or blunt force to the knee. The most common knee pain I see is a result of repetitive movements with activities such as squatting, walking, running, jumping, or stair climbing.

The most common cause of knee pain I see in my practice is day-to-day repetitive movements such as squatting, walking, running, jumping, or stair climbing.

This pain is typically located in or around the front of the knee and feels dull but it can also be sharp. Having seen thousands of cases of exercise-related knee pain, I believe it’s a result of one or more of the following:

• Underdeveloped core muscles of the trunk and side of hip muscles (the gluteus medius) that are unable to meet the demands placed on them.
• An over-reliance on the front of thigh muscles (the quadriceps) and an under-reliance on the back of thigh (the hamstrings) and butt (the glutes) during repetitive movements.
• Tension in the front of thigh muscles that places undue stress on the structures of the knee.

I can spend several episodes going on and on about why this pattern of dysfunction is so common. But I’ll save you the boredom and simply say that the way we use our bodies in the modern world are more limited than they have been in the past and this results in imbalances, instabilities, inefficiencies, and ultimately, pain.

Is the 6-minute solution right for you?

Luckily, the six minute solution is here to save the day and the best part is that you can do it on your own at home for free. My clients are always surprised and amazed to see real results with this simple program in a matter of days.

To find out if this solution is right for you, ask yourself the following five statements:

1. You have pain in or around the front of the knee with squatting, walking, running, jumping, or stair climbing that goes away as soon as you stop the...

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