Know your Knee

The knee is an essential joint of your body that undergoes wear and tear due to daily routine activities such as walking, running, exercise, kneeling, etc., that cause burden on your knee joint. Your knee consists of the Tibia (the large bone of the lower leg), Femur (the thigh bone), and Patella (the kneecap that joins lower and upper leg bones). Each bone end is covered with a layer of cartilage to prevent friction between bones by absorbing shock during movements. Lower and upper leg bones are held together by muscles (quadriceps muscles in front of thighs and hamstring muscles at the back of thighs), ligaments (bone-bone connections), and tendons (bone-muscle connections).

Knee problems

Cartilage protects your knee and takes the stress from excess body weight until it is completely degraded due to aging, injury, or repeated stress on the knee joints. Common knee problems may be degenerative changes in cartilage due to aging, such as osteoarthritis, or may be due to injury/strain in routine activities such as sprained ligaments, cartilage tears, and tendonitis.

Maintain healthy body weight, avoid knee problems

Injury in knee joints is often severe due to the burden of body weight aggravating the damage already caused due to sprain during routine activities or in case of accidents or cartilage degeneration due to aging. Although obesity is the primary cause of this wear and tear, the inflammatory mediators involved due to obesity further aggravate knee pain.

Let’s see how your body weight affects your knee and might cause pain:

Suppose you weigh 80kg body weight and are below 6 ft in height, then based on your BMI, you are more likely to be overweight or obese.

In general, if you are 80kg and walking on plain ground, the force exerted on your knees is approximately 1.5 times your weight, meaning there is a force of 120kg on your knees for every step you take on plain ground. This aggravates when you take stairs (stress on your knee might be twice or thrice your body weight), trekking, or doing intense exercises.

In short, for every 5kg of excess weight upon healthy weight index of the individual, your knee has to bear an extra burden of 15-30kg. Hence, it is crucial to maintain a healthy body weight. Losing every kilo of excess body weight is close to losing 8000 calories.

Just for illustration - if you intend to lose half a kg every 15 days, you should lose 4000 calories in that duration. It is healthy to have calorie loss and thus lose overweight from both exercise (50%) and a calorie-restricted healthy diet (50%), which means in 15 days, you burn 2000 calories, and you eat 2000 calories lesser than usual.

Manage your knee pain

Your knee may often be affected anteriorly, medially, or laterally. The most common cause of such anterior knee pain is overweight, while posterior knee pain is due to soft tissue injuries, ligament, or tendon injuries. Knee replacement surgery is one way to overcome severe osteoarthritic knee damage. A knee conditioning program after surgery or injury for about 4-6 weeks helps the individual to return to a healthy lifestyle. The program involves all exercises (stretching and strengthening) targeting thigh muscles (quadriceps, hamstrings, abductors, adductors) and buttock muscles. Most stretching exercises, such as standing quadriceps stretches and supine hamstring stretches, are advised for 2-3 repetitions a day, and strengthening exercises for a repeat of 3 sets of 10 each day for 4-5 days a week.

Such knee conditioning and recommended physiotherapy programs (tailor-made to recover from your knee problem) provided by qualified and certified specialists and physiotherapists are non-invasive and supportive therapies These play a vital role in your recovery from knee pain.