Knee Pain Relief is Just the Start – Here’s What Comes Next

The wisest thing a client told me earlier this month was this:

“I don’t want to stop doing exercises for my knee when the pain goes away.”

Before she started working with me, she was worried that her knee pain was going to force her to start using a cane or a walker.

Anytime she sat for more than 30 minutes, she had to stand up carefully and hold onto furniture as she began moving around.

After several weeks of consistently completing a few simple exercises at home, she wakes up without knee stiffness.

And following meals with family and friends, she can now stand up from sitting without reservation or discomfort.

But she’s cautious.

Because she’s concerned that her knee pain will return.

When your bank account dips below zero, you're often charged extra fees.

Paying off that debt helps stop the penalties.

But it doesn’t mean you suddenly have enough money to spend freely without risking more debt.

The same idea applies to your knees.

If you regularly push your knees beyond what they can handle — what I like to call your “knee account” — you’ll probably start experiencing knee pain.

Scaling back your activity can help relieve that pain and bring your “knee account” out of the red.

To get stronger, you must apply the right amount of force with the right frequency to your body.

And over time, the intensities of these forces need to increase.

In the medical and scientific communities, this application of forces is known as mechanotransduction. (source)

Forces cause changes in your body.

For example, if you get really tired by lifting a heavy weight several times, the result will be minor damage to your muscles.

This minor muscle damage releases chemicals that likely make your muscles feel sore.

The chemicals also stimulate your body to repair the damage.

Blood flow increases and brings the ingredients necessary to begin this process of adaptation. (source)

Given you rest sufficiently – typically around 48 hours – your muscles will recover and become slightly stronger than they were prior to that weight lifting session. (source)

To continue getting stronger muscles, you’ll need to advance the amount of force during subsequent exercise sessions by increasing the number of times you lift the weight, or by using a heavier weight.

Mechanotransduction affects anything that’s alive in your body – so that’s everything from muscles and bones, to tendons (the structures that tie muscles to bones) and even cartilage (the coating on the ends of your bones, including the surfaces inside your knees).

Since cartilage has little to no blood supply, the forces that result in maintaining or improving cartilage strength must be lower in intensity, but higher in repetitions.

By applying the right amount of force, your cartilage not only absorbs the forces, but it also causes the cartilage to adapt, to become more firm and more capable of withstanding forces that would have previously caused injury. (source)

Softer cartilage is weaker. (source)

It can be more easily damaged.

But after it becomes more firm, your cartilage is stronger because it can withstand greater amounts of force.

In response to force, stronger cartilage will deform slightly and then return to its original shape without being harmed. (source)

When your knee cartilage is sufficiently strong, it withstands forces from hiking or running, sitting or standing, squatting or kneeling – without knee pain!