6 Easy Ways to Ruin Your Knees

Whether you’re a collegiate athlete or a recreational walker, knees are particularly vulnerable to injury and pain because of their dynamic role. Knee joints are responsible for pivoting, bending, and propelling your body forward. When it comes to knee injury and pain, prevention is the best medicine.

Here are six knee dangers to avoid (and spare you the pain):

1. Ignoring Pain
   Some aches and pains are par for the course, but when knee pain starts preventing you from living a full, active life it’s time to make a visit to your primary care physician. Taking precautions with your joint health and proactively treating some conditions can help spare you more damaging injuries later.
2. Being Overweight
   Every extra pound on your weight exerts 5 pounds more pressure on your knees. This means an additional 10 pounds can force your joints to cope with an 50 more pounds of force. Moreover, those who are overweight are much more likely to suffer from osteoporosis, a form of arthritis that wears away the cushion in your knee joints.
   Weight-related knee-pain can also complicate attempts to lose weight by forming a vicious cycle: Physical activity can irritate knee pain, which then causes you to stop exercising. Without exercise or physical activity you are more likely to gain additional weight, which further aggravates your knee pain and prevents exercise.  Learn about how to lose that extra weight at the Bon Secours Weight Loss Institute.
3. Rushing Back to Action
   Physical rehabilitation and rest are two key components to recovering from any knee injury. Many patients are so eager to return to their sport or activity that they disregard doctor’s orders and try to use their knees before the injury has fully healed. This impatience can cause re-injury or incomplete healing. To avoid this, WebMD suggests that patients should work “with an orthopedic surgeon, a sports medicine physician, a physical therapist, an athletic trainer, or some combination of these pros, in order to ensure proper focus is placed on gradually strengthening the knees.”
4. Neglecting the ACL
   Sports like soccer, basketball, volleyball, and football put a lot of strain on this important ligament. Women in particular are at risk for injury – at a rate of 2-8x more than men. To avoid tearing your ACL it’s important to incorporate neuromuscular training, which involves supervised practice in improving agility, leg strength, and jump-landing techniques, for better knee joint stability into your regular routine. Athletes of any age who play ACL risk-prone sports (like those listed above) should seek help from an athletic trainer or sports performance specialist to help avoid this debilitating injury.
   Sportsmetrics™ Injury Prevention is a six-week jump training program that incorporates stretching, plyometric exercises (training to increase speed and force of muscular contractions) and weight training to teach athletes proper techniques for jumping and landing.
5. Overdoing It
   As hard as you push your body, it still needs time to recover between workouts. Many knee conditions, like tendonitis, are the result of overuse and overtraining. This doesn’t mean that athletes need to take every other day off, but those training hard should vary their workouts and follow “hard” training days with lighter ones to ensure the body has time to repair itself.
6. Overlooking Knee Muscles
   The muscles surrounding your knee joint are essential to knee strength, flexibility, and stability. Strong quadricep and hamstring muscles help the knee absorb the shock of impact and protect it from a lot of the injuries.

The take-away? Educate yourself about knee health and knee injury prevention. Cross-training is important to developing joint strength and stability and should be incorporated in every exercise regimen. This is particularly true for young athletes; prevention now can spare you a painful ACL or joint replacement surgery down the road.

Source: WebMD “6 Ways to Ruin Your Knees”