Question….
I have been running for a year now, recently having stepped up training have noticed a sharp pain on the front of my knee, its getting worse. What is it and what can I do?
Answer
It sounds as if you are suffering from running’s most common overuse injury- anterior knee pain. In a nutshell this is pain developing from the knee cap due to poor tracking of the knee cap in the grove created at the end of the femur. This should, in normal circumstances track forward and back smoothly as you bend and straighten the knee. However if there is unusually tight muscles on the outside of the knee and unusually weak muscles on the inside of the knee (most common scenario) the kneecap will be adversely pulled across and then cause pain.
The first port of call is reduce your running schedule. I usually try to keep people running if at all possible but reduce their training by 50% initially. If pain continues I would reduce it further. Avoid running more than 3 times per week and avoid down hills. Take up alternative forms of training such as swimming to supplement fitness, but probably avoid breast stroke at this time.
Buy new shoes if you have done more than 400-miles in the current pain. An injury is an excellent time to reevaluate training plans and correct bad habits, such as too rapid increase in miles. I tend to advice no more than a 10% increase in distance any given week.
I would strongly advise a visit to a local physiotherapist, specialising in running injuries or a experienced personal trainer. They will start you on a series of specific strengthening and stretching exercises aimed at evening out the muscle imbalances around the knee. Particularly working on strength and control of the hip and glut region (a very common weakness and causative factor in many lower limb injuries)
Don’t loose heart. this will resolve but does require quite a bit of dedication with exercises. The good news is you will return a stronger and technically better runner as a result.
http://www.runningtogether.co.uk
cycling weekly 11.10.07
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