This little blog keeps ticking away.

I just got this email about Knee Injury Solution.

I thought it would be helpful if I sent it to you.

I am missing the ACL in my right knee (tore it in a horse accident & never repaired).

I have full range of motion, but when I run or do too many deep knee bends (i.e. to clean or to pick up something) I get pain in that knee and have to rest it until the pain goes away (could be weeks).

Will your product help me strengthen my knee so I can avoid this?

I am female, 57 and would like to be able to run more and do more hiking on rough terrain, as well as normal chores.

Thank you.

- D

Yes, Knee Injury Solution will help you.

The components of the program that will help you are:

Component #4 – Exercises to Improve Your Walking and Decrease Pain During Walking

These exercises will help strengthen your knees and  prevent future knee injuries with quick, easy and simple exercises that you can do at home.

This will be great for helping you with hiking and as you progress, you can perform the exercise onto an unstable surface like a balance board to help you with hiking on rough terrain.

Component #1 – 9 Exercises a Day Keeps Knee Pain Away

These exercises help improve the stability in your knee in all directions and loosen up your hip so it puts less stress on your knee.

This will work great to get you back to running.  It will slowly strengthen your knee and build stability around your knee for running.

Component #1 – 10 Minutes to Strong Knees

With these group of exercises, you focus on strengthening your knees.  The exercises can be done with a little equipment or even no equipment.  I have videos of the exercises and a handout you can print out and follow the exercises.

These exercises will help strengthen the knee so bending down will be easier.

D, I hope this helps.

Have a spectacular day!

Rick Kaselj, MS

If you are looking for resources to help you with knee pain or injuries:

• Knee Injury Solution
• Exercises for Prevention, Rehabilitation & Overcoming Knee Injuries

Other articles related to knee injuries and knee pain:

• Knee Injury Stuff – exercise good for knee health, gluteus maximus and the lunge, cartilage and osteoarthritis
• Do Men and Women Squat Differently?
• Ending Your Knee Injury Ends Today
• Fun Stuff about Solutions for Knee Injuries

Courses related to knee injuries and knee pain:

• Exercise Rehabilitation of the Knee

Balance Training for the Rehab Client

That’s all!

I have taken the afternoon to work on a presentation that I am doing for a group of group fitness instructors.

It is called Exercises to Strengthen and Prevent Knee Injuries.

It is a custom presentation that I am creating for the group.

I am getting more and more requests to do private fitness education for various types of fitness facilities.  On Friday it is a wellness facility and next week it is a personal training studio.

Private Fitness Education for Fitness Facilities

While putting my presentation together, I wanted to share with you a few of the cool things I found while taking a look at the research while preparing for the presentation.

Is Physical Activity Bad for Knee Joint Health?

There is the eternal debate if physical activity is good or bad for the knees.  The researchers looked at things from the point of view of: physical activity is encouraged in school, but is this increase in physical activity leading to osteoarthritis?

What They Looked At:

They went back and looked at a lot of the research that was created on physical activity and knee health.

What They Found:

• Strong evidence that physical activity lead to tibiofemoral osteophytes (bony outgrowth covered by fibrocartilage).
• Strong evidence that there was no decrease in knee cartilage based on radiological joint space narrowing.

So What?

This research challenges the belief that if we get our kids to exercise in school, we are increasing their risk of getting osteoarthritis.

We need to get kids moving because the benefits of doing so are much greater than just improved knee joint health.

Where to get more information:  Urquhart DM, Tobing JF, Hanna FS, Berry P, Wluka AE, Ding C, Cicuttini FM. (2011). What is the effect of physical activity on the knee joint? A systematic review. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Mar;43(3):432-42.

How to Target the Gluteus Maximus Better During the Lunge

What They Looked At:

They looked to see if trunk position (upper body) had an effect on the muscles in the lower body during lunging.  They got a group of 10 to perform an upright, trunk forward (hip flexion) and trunk back (hip extension) lunge.

What They Found:

• Something About Gluteus Maximus – Performing the lunge with the trunk forward (hip flexion) lead to greater gluteus maximus activation.

So What?

We talked about the lunge earlier this week in this blog post, where the researchers showed that females have greater gluteus maximus activity when performing a lunge compared to men.  If you need to get more muscle activation for gluteus maximus in your clients, then look at getting them to move the trunk forward.

Where to get more information:  Farrokhi S, Pollard CD, Souza RB, Chen YJ, Reischl S, Powers CM. (2008). Trunk position influences the kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activity of the lead lower extremity during the forward lunge exercise. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2008 Jul;38(7):403-9. Epub 2008 Apr 15.

How to Prevent Cartilage Damage and Osteoarthritis in the Knee

This was more of an opinion on preventing cartilage damage and osteoarthritis in the knee.

It does show how one injury can lead to another injury which is an important thing to remember.

They had some interesting observations:

• Articular cartilage has a difficult time healing and often times progresses to osteoarthritis.
• Athletes are at greater risk of getting osteoarthritis compared to the non-athlete.
• Those with osteoarthritis often times report joint pain, decrease range of motion and joint stiffness.
• The diagnosis of osteoarthritis is confirmed by the symptoms and the radiological findings (narrowing joint space, osteophyte formation and subchondral sclerosis).
• There is no strong link between symptoms and what is found in radiographic findings.  This is a common theme with most injuries.
• Risk factors for osteoarthritis are excessive musculoskeletal loading (at work or in sports), obesity (based on high body mass index), previous knee injury, female gender and muscle weakness around the knee (quadriceps, hamstring).
• Cartilage injuries are often seen in young to middle-aged active athletes.
• Cartilage injuries often predisposes someone to osteoarthritis.

Where to get more information:  Takeda H, Nakagawa T, Nakamura K, Engebretsen L. (2011). Prevention and management of knee osteoarthritis and knee cartilage injury in sports. Br J Sports Med. 2011 Feb 25. [Epub ahead of print]

Well that is it.  Thanks for reading and let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Rick Kaselj, MS

If you are looking for resources to help you with knee pain or injuries:

• Knee Injury Solution
• Exercises for Prevention, Rehabilitation & Overcoming Knee Injuries

Other articles related to knee injuries and knee pain:

• Do Men and Women Squat Differently?
• Ending Your Knee Injury Ends Today
• Fun Stuff about Solutions for Knee Injuries

Courses related to knee injuries and knee pain:

• Exercise Rehabilitation of the Knee
• Balance Training for the Rehab Client

.

I took a break from research reviews.  Well not a review, kind of a filtering down to help you, compared to a full-blown research analysis.

During the break I was getting feedback from you on what you want to see.

I have heard you loud and clear on the things that you want to see when it comes to injuries – elbow injuries, ankle injuries, shin splints, iliotibial band syndrome, tensor fascia latae issues, acute injury recovery tips, chronic pain injury tips, and dealing with pain at the back of the knee when walking.  I will be working on this throughout 2011.

Let me clear out a few of the papers that I have put to the side and still need to look at.  Now let’s get to the article.

What They Looked At

They looked at 10 anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury videos from women during handball and basketball in order to determine what biomechanical factors lead to the ACL injury.

Here is an example of the injury that they looked at:

What they did for the video analysis was very cool in the article.

Cool Points

Few cool things that they said in the introduction:

• Noncontact ACL injuries in women occurring during cutting or one leg landing movements.

What They Found

• At initial contact there was a valgus movement (knee going in).
• The tibia rotated internally and then externally.
• ACL injury occurred at about 40 milliseconds mark after initial contact.
• The mechanism of injury was the valgus movement of the knee with the tibia rotated internally, and then after the tear, the tibia externally rotating.
• The valgus and internal rotation movements contributed to the ACL injury.

A few other things that are not in the abstract:

• 6 injured left knee and 4 right.
• ACL injury occurred during the game and were handling the ball.
• There was a rapid valgus movement of 12 degrees.
• There was a low flexion angle and injury.

Here is a great visual from the paper that I thought was great on how they feel a noncontact ACL injury occurs:

Take Home Message

Focus of a Prevention Program - Prevention programs should focus on good cutting and landing technique with knee flexed and without valgus loading of the knee.

More than Lines and Side Shuffle - I remember when I played basketball.  All we would do for prevention were lines, side shuffles, and drills.  This does not cut it anymore.  More needs to be done with landing and preparing the knee in all planes of movement.  This can easily be done with an 8 minute program that focuses on neuromuscular re-education of the knee.  This can be done before a game or as a drill during practice.

Where to get more info – Koga H, Nakamae A, Shima Y, Iwasa J, Myklebust G, Engebretsen L, Bahr R, Krosshaug T. (2010). Mechanisms for noncontact anterior cruciate ligament injuries: knee joint kinematics in 10 injury situations from female team handball and basketball. Am J Sports Med. 2010 Nov;38(11):2218-25. Epub 2010 Jul 1.

I go through my knee injury rehabilitation exercises here:

If you are looking for other ACL articles to read, I have a stack of them:

Thank you so much for reading.  Let me know if you have any questions or what you think in the comment box below.

Rick Kaselj, MS

.

As always, a lot happens in a week.

I like taking these posts and reflecting on the week on what has happened.

200th Post!

Yesterday, I hit my 200th post!

To check out my 200th blog post, click here .

It is very cool that I have made it this far.  Many blogs never make it to 50, plus it is a long way from my old blog, Fitness & Rehab News.

I have learned a lot from the old blog, plus it is great when you get emails like this from readers:

“I am from Australia and am currently a personal trainer working out of a small town studio. I visit your site regularly to research and understand what I can apply for my clients and myself. Your information is valuable, and as soon as I can get up some money I would love to buy your Scoliosis manual, as I have some clients that I am currently working with, and your manual I know will deliver results just as MIR has delivered incredible results.”

Shannan Maciejewski

Australia

Read the rest of this entry »

I was happy to find this research.

I know, I try to do these research blog posts once a week.  I like them and I learn a lot.  I hope you do as well.

I know, it ends up being once every two weeks.

Here we go.

What Increases Your Risk of Another ACL Injury?

I had a few emails from people asking for videos of ACL surgery.

I spent some time on YouTube and picked out the best ones I could find.

Here are two.

I hope they help show you what an ACL injury is, how they determine if you have an ACL injury and how they do the ACL surgery.

ACL Injury & Surgery Information

I like this video because there is great information on what the ACL is, causes of an ACL injury, how they test for an ACL injury, how they determine an ACL injury and how they do the ACL surgery.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is part 5 of my knee pain and knee injury series.

If you missed part 1, you can see it here. If you missed part 2, you can see it here. If you missed part 3, you can see it here.  If you missed part 4, you can see it here.

Risk Factors and Incidence

It is estimated that the overall ACL injury rate in the United States is about 200,000 annually. This figure suggests that 1 in 300,000 individuals in the U.S. will sustain an ACL injury for the first time each year. ACL injuries commonly occur between the ages of 14 and 29 years, occurring in non-athletes and athletes. Those engaged in football, soccer, basketball, soccer and skiing activities are the most susceptible to ACL injury in the athlete group.

I have got a lot of great feedback from my last post on knee pain, knee injuries and ACL injuries.

If you missed it, you can check it out here.

Overview of Knee Pain

The knee is the largest joint in the human body. In the most recent report of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the knee is also one of the most commonly injured joints. Each year, more than 5.5 million orthopaedic visits are made due to knee injuries. The joint’s high susceptibility to injuries is mainly attributed to its intrinsic anatomical structure and its function during weight-bearing. Moreover, because of the increasing problem of obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, knee injuries are one of the leading causes of disability in modern society.

Read the rest of this entry »

I got a lot of great feedback from my last ACL Injury article.

I decided to do a bit of a video on knee pain and ACL injuries.

3 ACL Injury Exercise Mistakes

Read the rest of this entry »

ACL Injuries in Females

Over the last decade, torn and ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in female athletes have increased at an alarming rate.

5 Intrinsic factors that Lead to ACL Injuries in Females