Injury Prevention Tips*
Knee Problems, i.e. "Growing Pains"
I've long been critical of many aspects of conventional wisdom. That shouldn't come as any great surprise if you've read my previous ramblings. I believe it is now time to go even further and blow a major myth out of the water: Knee/Growing pains are not a structural (i.e. joint / growth plate) issue! As such, they actually can be treated, despite what most professionals would have you believe.
It's too early for me to say so definitively, but my experience thus far with treating athletes has led me to the conclusion that such issues actually stem from tendon tension in the lower leg. Relieving that tension makes for a fairly dramatic recovery. Stretching helps, but the major aid is careful massage work, working cross-wise (as opposed to length-wise) along the affected tendon. My guess is that the pain is actually due to tendons falling behind the growth curve and being under a great deal of tension until they catch up. Regular massage work greatly relieves that tension and eliminates most of the discomfort.
2010 addition, submitted by David Bowdown, XC and TF coach at New Hope Christian School in Oregon:
Here is another exercise for back of the knee pain:
Sitting on the ground, do 10 straight leg lifts, then with the leg resting flat on the ground, contract (flex) your leg muscles for 10 seconds. Your heal will lift slightly, due to the muscle contraction. Doing just 2-3x of these every day for a week is usualy enough to make the pain go away.
*Please note: All exercise, training, health, and nutritional information on this page and throughout Run-Down should be treated as educational in nature. Unless explicitly stated as otherwise, all advice contained within Run-Down's pages is non-medical opinion. Please consult a doctor before embarking on any exercise or training regimen. Run-Down and Dan Kaplan do not assume responsibility for any physical harm that may be caused as a result of advice given on these pages.
