(If you suffer from any kind of knee problems, I encourage you to go and see a PT or a movement specialist.)
One of the biggest problems in the martial arts world is knees issues. It’s so important to start your Martial Arts journey with a good technique. There are so many instances we see bad kicks explanations, bad technique that’s not being corrected. Not having the proper technique might hurt you in the future. The bad news is, its very hard to correct movement, especially when you’re already a higher belt and you’ve been kicking for a while. Good news is, it’s not impossible.
Knees are meant to flex and extend. They can handle some rotation, but this is not preferable. Physical therapist Gray Cook came up with the joint by joint approach. According to him, our body is a stack of joints. Joints have different training needs. While analyzing the body from the ankles up we need to know that ankles need mobility, knees need stability, hips need mobility and so on. It alternates up to your upper neck.
Let’s focus on the knee. As mentioned above, the knee is supposed to be stable. If we don’t repeatedly rotate the hips in a correct way while kicking, we may experience knee pain. Also common is a misalignment of our knees. We all did this at some point. We want our technique to look better and kicks look stronger, not only during forms, but also sparring. We power through a bad technique but our body is adjusting and compensating. It’s a quick way to get hurt.
Our body works as a whole. We should work out smarter. Rather than focusing on body parts, we should focus on the movement patterns. Our bodies are designed to move, muscles and joints working together (check out this article: https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/blog/3615/training-movements-not-muscles )
Joint by joint approach is a good idea to try. How to start? Start with analyzing yourself from the ankles up. Do some assessments, it happens that we think we have issues, but we might not. Since the ankle needs mobility, knee pain might be connected to this. It’s simple. If the knee is supposed to be a stable joint and the ankle lacks mobility, the knee will try to do both. We cannot immobilize the ankle to fix the knee pain. Both ankle and hips need mobility, so it’s a good idea to work on that. See my article about opening hips for Martial Arts here: https://www.martialjournal.com/open-your-hips/
Keep in mind that knee pain does not necessarily mean there is something wrong with your knee. One of the reasons might also be tightness in your quads. When your quadriceps are too tight, the patella might be being pulled up by tight muscles. You may want to try foam rolling or massaging your quads with a tennis or lacrosse ball or a kettlebell.
Personally, I am not a huge fan of foam rolling, but I have decided to give it a try. There have been different approaches to that. I think I don’t know enough to self foam roll. Seems easy but we might do more harm sometimes. When dealing with muscle imbalances, it happens that we might be foam rolling muscles that don’t need stretching, but need strengthening. It’s good to educate yourself on this subject, not just start rolling all the muscles. Consult your trainer, PT or a movement specialist.
There are some issues out there with quad stretching. Some people claim that it’s almost impossible to stretch them. Some muscles are unstretchable or hardly stretchable (see: https://www.painscience.com/articles/unstretchables.php ) I have read both theories. If you think about it, it’s hard to stretch your quads to its full ROM. Knee will not let us. We might use a foam roller or a massage, but for me personally, there’s something missing. Sure I feel the stretch when I’m doing a couch stretch, but I don’t think it being stretched enough.
Another approach I’d like to propose to help with the knee issues is kinesiology taping. Taping the knee (check out my article: “Taping the Knee for Martial Arts: https://www.martialjournal.com/kinesiology-tape-for-martial-arts/ ) is proven to help to stabilize the knee. You need to keep in mind that taping is a temporary help, you don’t want to depend on the tape, keep it on up to 3-4 days only. Taping is designed to add stability while permitting the movement, it’s not for immobilizing joints. It works as a physical cue, helping you to focus and move properly.
Bad mobility in the ankles and/or hips may create knee problems. Like I mentioned above, knees need stability. Not having mobility in the closest joints- ankles and hips may cause increased mobility needs for the knees, that need to compensate for below and above joints – ankles and hips. If the mobile joint becomes immobile – the ankle – the one that’s intended to be stable (knee) is forced to compensate and it’s becoming less and less stable. And that’s when the pain appears. That’s why the best way to start it to work on increasing ankle mobility and strengthening the knees.
- Start with ankle assessment. Place your left foot 6 inches away from the wall. Kneel down. Keeping the left foot at this position, try to touch the wall in front of you with your left knee without lifting your heel. Repeat on the other side. You might measure your assessment, add some ankle mobility stretches and reassess before your next workout. Ideally, you will be able to touch the wall with your knee. If that’s a problem, try working on ankle mobility, stretch it out and definitely reassess after a while.
2. Next, assess your hips. Lay on the floor. Raise your right knee toward your chest. Try to raise your leg as close to your chest as possible. Repeat with the other leg. Again, take those assessment pictures to see the progress.
3. Strengthen glutes, quads, and hamstrings. Pay attention to the relationship between quads and hamstrings. It’s important to know that even tho we need to strengthen the quads and hamstrings, the quads tend to be too strong and hamstrings being too weak. That might cause muscle imbalances and further problems.
Often, weak glutes may cause our knee to have problems. Try to incorporate some glute strengthening exercises to your workout routine. A great example of those is crab walks using a band. See below for a couple of examples, so you can test them and add to your workout routine.
1. Walking side to side with a band
Place the band just above your knees as seen on the picture below. Bend your knees and keeping them bent, take one step to your right. Take another step to the right and repeat stepping to the left. Keep stepping both sides for about a minute. It’s way harder than it looks. You can keep increasing the total time.
2. Monster Walks
Keeping the band at the same spot, stand with feet straight more than shoulder width apart as you can see on the picture below. Point your toes outside and bend your knees. Keeping the knees bent, take a big step forward with your right foot. Follow with the left one. After a couple of steps, walk to the back, focusing on the good form, keeping your knees bent. Continue walking back and forth for about a minute.
3. Kickbacks with the band
Lower the band so it stays right above your ankles. Stand up straight, take a step forward with your left foot. The back leg is doing the work here. Keeping it slightly bent kick back and keep kicking for a total of 10. Try to do all the reps without touching the floor. Repeat with the other leg.
4. Crab-walks on all 4s forward and backward.
Sit on the floor, place the band above the knees. Go on all 4s as you can see in the picture. At the same time move your right foot and left hand. Keep working alternating hands and feet. Continue crab-walking back and forth for about a minute.
5. Clam shells
Assume the position like on the picture below. Keep the band above the knees. Bend your legs and lift the knee up as you can see on the picture below. Keep lifting for about a minute and switch sides.
That’s it! What I proposed here is for you to try, test out and see if there’s any difference. Let me know what do you think in comments.
Anna is a co-author of a book: "Reach Your Goal. Stretching and Mobility Exercises for Fitness, Personal Training and Martial Arts" available on Amazon.
- Young Athletes and Martial Arts Injuries - November 11, 2020
- Martial Journal Spotlight: Anthony DelMar On Adults in Traditional Martial Arts - April 3, 2020
- Ankle Mobility Stretches for Martial Arts - February 24, 2020
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