[pct-l] Knees

[jjolson at uwyo.edu (Jeffrey J. Olson)]

One of the most important preventions of knee pain is stretching.  I know
the presenting problem happened quickly, and now is chronic.

While it may be tendon or meniscus, a cheap way to rule out the knee as the
source of trouble is to stretch and loosen the gluteous minimus, maximus and
hamstrings.

I went to a sports doc at the University of Washington student health
center.  I should have known he would head me in the right direction when I
saw three magic wands in his tongue depressor jar.

He pushed and pulled, looked, and prodded for a half hour.  Finally he said,
"Jeff, your problem is tight buns."  I laughed and tell the story to this
day.

What he did was give me two exercises that cleared up my knee pain, which
included swelling and hobbling after hard exercise.

1.  The first exercise is to lie flat on the floor and put your lets up
against a wall.  The legs should be straight.  When I first started this, I
couldn't get my butt closer than six inches to the wall.  The point of the
exercise is to just hold the position.  There might be a little pain, but
shouldn't be much.  As the butt and back of the legs relax, you can scoot in
toward the wall.  Avoid the temptation of bending the knees to get closer to
the wall.  Do this four or five times a day for five minutes or so.  I did
them for two weeks and my knee pain went away.

2.  The second exercise involves sitting on the floor, pulling one ankle
underneath your opposite thigh up against the butt.  Bend the other leg and
and put your foot on the outside of the underneath leg.  You'll really feel
it in the muscles across the hip.  Hold the knee to as much a vertical
position as possible.  Keep the back straight and butt cheeks flat on the
floor.  If this is practically impossible sit on a pillow and raise yourself
up a couple three inches.  Hold the position for 30 seconds or longer, and
then do the other leg.  I think he told me to do a set of three for each
leg, four or five times a day.

This cured my knee pain in two weeks.  I went back to him a year later
complaining of foot pain - I thought it was plantar fascitis.  He asked how
long I'd done the exercises he'd given me and I said two weeks.  He said
another week or two and the foot pain would have been cleared.

Apparently my knees were doing a lot of the work the gluteus and hamstrings
were supposed to do, and weren't built for it.  Hence the chronic pain and
swelling.

I routinely do these exercises in the morning and after a day's hike.  I can
feel the pain and tenderness build if I don't.

Jeff Olson
Laramie WY