One Easy Method To Get Rid of Knee Pain From Running

It’s Monday and you’re ready to start your new running program.  You put on your running top, your running shorts and your running shoes.  Now you’re ready to hit the pavement.

But, once you get out there and down the road a bit, you find that your right knee is gets a pain every time your foot hits the ground.

Crap!

So much for starting Monday.

What if there was an easy, simple, and yet highly effective solution?

It turns out, there is a solution.

The funny thing is you are already doing it.  And, you’ve been doing it for years.  But, like some of my clients, you just aren’t doing it right.  With just a small tweak, it will reduce your knee pain in seconds.  

Are you ready for the tip?   Keep in mind that I warned you that it is simple.  Almost too simple. 

Tie your shoes.

Yes, tie your shoes. 

Numerous clients of mine over the years have complained about knee pain.  And, I’ve addressed most of them with very specific joint mobility drills or other nervous system interventions to get rid of their knee pain.

My #1 go to technique was to teach them how to tie their shoes properly.

Here is how to do it to reduce your knee pain

1. Put your foot in your shoe flat on the ground
2. While kneeling or standing, shift your weight onto your foot
3. Snug up the laces at each eyelet level
4. Tie your shoes

Why this works

As you put your foot on the ground and shift your weight onto it, it allows the tarsals and metatarsals (foot bones) to splay.  This allows them to move a bit more freely staying mobile.  The more mobile the joints are within the foot the better they can absorb and transfer force through your body.

Your foot is like a bunch of mini-shocks to dampen the force encountered with each footstrike.  If the joints are immobile, then that force dampens further up the chain to your ankle and then the knee.  If those joints may be a bit locked up, then your hips and back may take a bit of a beating.You turn into an inefficient mess of a locomotion machine. This is called the backforce transmission system – it’s how energy from each foot strike is taken in through the body and then transferred up the chain to the opposite side of the body, generally exiting out the opposite side arm and what is partially giving you your arm swing.

This is why when you are walking or running you have an arm swing.  Don’t believe me?

Try this.  Go run with your arms NOT moving.  How did it feel?  Awful I bet.  This is because you stopped the transfer of force through your chain.

Remember that you want your joints to be mobile to enable force to dampen and flow through the body efficiently.  If it gets hung up somewhere in the chain, then you will have to work harder to keep moving and possibly setting yourself up for injury because now you have the wrong muscles doing the wrong jobs and the joints not doing theirs either.

There are other factors why your walking or running cycle may be off too.  Some of those being neural reflexes that assist in your locomotive patterns.  You have many different wirings in your nervous system such as central pattern generators, brain areas like the red nucleus and of course information that feeds into your brain through your visual system, vestibular (balance) system and proprioceptive (movement) system.  

But, in most instances, to make you more efficient using less energy to be more graceful and powerful, you need to become more mobile.  That is why one of the foundational things I start my training programs with is dynamic joint mobility training (which begins to fine tune your proprioceptive system).

Being mobile and competent about each joint teaches your nervous system how to properly recruit the muscles around those joints and use them to dampen and produce the force needed to help you move.  

There’s other benefits too:

• Move more gracefully
• Become less clumsy
• Get stronger
• Generate more power
• Perform better
• Get rid of pain
• Injury prevention

When your joints aren’t mobile and are jammed up you can experience a wide variety of ailments.  To get them back to being mobile you need to move.  Sometimes in a very precise manner

Jammed Joints Create Weak Muscles

To get an idea of what I’m talking about, check out this video by Z-Health instructor Dr. Eric Cobb giving a demo of the arthrokinetic reflex.

The arthrokinetic reflex explains why jammed joints create weak muscles.  The effect of weak muscles can lead to increased pain and inefficient locomotion creating wear and tear patterns on joints because of the lack of force dampening among other things.

So first things first, try tying your shoes properly.  

And, if you are interested in getting stronger, and more efficient at running set up a consultation with me by clicking below!