Runner's Knee Pain
The knees are a commonplace for people to experience pain when running. There are many reasons for this.
The knee is a fairly simple joint when compared to the ankle and the hip, which it is stuck between. The knee is made up of the femur (thigh bone) sitting on top of the tibia (shin) and the patella (knee cap). At the other end of the femur is the ball for the ball -in-socket joint of the hip. The tibia also helps create the ankle joint. So, if you think about the knee as both an extension of the hip and the ankle, things become a little clearer.
Pain from running is most frequently experienced at the front of the knee, just behind the knee cap. We call this pain patellofemoral pain syndrome. When you run the force that goes through the joint of the knee cap and the femur is 5.6 times of your body weight. So you can imagine that when things are not moving correctly or a muscle isn’t doing its job above and below the joint it’s going to get painful very quickly!
As you strike the ground while running, your foot, leg and hip are designed to absorb the forces coming up into the body. Your leg utilises these forces to load your muscles to produce the mechanics you need to run. So, if the biomechanics aren’t working like they should or there is too much force going up into your leg, you can see to see that the result might cause some pain.
When you hit the ground with your feet further away from your centre of mass you increase the amount of force coming up into the body. At the same time you decrease your ability to properly absorb that force. So it’s bit of a double whammy with your poor old knee taking the brunt of it.
There are many other causes for patellofemoral pain syndrome. But the research has shown that a simple change in cadence, or your step rate, has a huge impact on the forces going through your knee and therefore the pain you experience.
Try taking shorter faster steps when running to see if that helps reduce the pain. If your pain is still there or something doesn’t feel quite right, pop in and see us at Cedar & Soul.
References:
1. Heiderscheit, B. C., Chumanov, E. S., Michalski, M. P., Wille, C. M., & Ryan, M. B. (2011). Effects of Step Rate Manipulation on Joint Mechanics during Running. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 43(2), 296–302.
2. Lenhart, R. L., Thelen, D. G., Wille, C. M., Chumanov, E. S., & Heiderscheit, B. C. (2014). Increasing Running Step Rate Reduces Patellofemoral Joint Forces. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 46(3), 557–564. http://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0b013e3182a78c3a.
3. Neal, B., Domone, S., Griffith, I. B., Barton, C. J., & Morrissey, D. (2017). The effects & mechanisms of running retraining in the management of patellofemoral pain: A feasibility study. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Volume 20, e62 - e63.
4. Willson, J. D., Ratcliff, O. M., Meardon, S. A. and Willy, R. W. (2015), Influence of step length and landing pattern on patellofemoral joint kinetics during running. Scand J Med Sci Sports, 25: 736–743.