2 Ways You Can Take Care Of Your Knee

Most people forget that, daily, our locomotor system is already subjected to joint overloads in gestures such as using stairs, driving, walking, and not obeying medical and coach guidelines. Following fleeting training tips on social media can push your knees over physiological limits, and overuse injuries can develop. To avoid some “traps,” prime care provide 5 tips for healthy knees for those who are returning or starting in the sport:

1. Get To Know Your Body Better

Popularly known as check-ups, it involves cardio-respiratory evaluation with laboratory tests to determine the functioning of the most diverse organs, hormones, and cholesterol levels. Cardiological tests, of paramount importance, in addition to detecting possible heart disease, also serve as a basis for the evolution of the individual in sport, such as, for example, in determining VO2 max.

The examination of the locomotor system involves the dynamic assessment of the step, also known as baropodometric, with the prescription of the insole, if necessary, alignment of the limbs and postural deviations, a discrepancy in the size of the limbs, known in the medical field as dysmetria.

For some years now, great importance has been given to Above The Elbow Arm (Transhumeral), the muscular balance of the muscle groups that perform the movement (agonists) and those that resist (antagonists). For this, we use the so-called isokinetic evaluation. The test can be performed on a machine coupled to a computer with its lever or on a mobile device that can be used in conventional gym machines such as the extension chair. The test measures muscle strength, power, and endurance and their eventual imbalances.

It can be used to monitor or direct the progress of training and rehabilitation or to assess the athlete before or after a training period. In professional athletes, it is usually used in the pre-season to correct any muscle imbalance that may predispose to a sprain or muscle strain, statistically proven by scientific studies.

2. Get To Know Your Knee Better

Lately, too, much attention has been paid to the stabilizing muscles of the hip, as their weakness or delay in muscle firing during movement would affect the dynamics of several joints, especially the knee. In a more didactic way, this means that, in a volleyball landing, for example, a “command” coming from the brain for the muscles to contract correctly would arrive “late” in some muscles, especially in the gluteus Medius and minimus in the hip. (Stabilizing muscles of the pelvis) and in the vastus medialis (inner thigh muscle), causing the femur to “rotate inward” and leave the patella more lateralized and in reduced contact with the joint surfaces. We call this dynamic valgus.

The smaller the area of ​​contact, the greater the pressure and, consequently, the greater the chance of chronic tissue injury, especially the patellar cartilage. In the last 5 years, some authors have proved the existence of dynamic valgus through the exam called electromyography and dynamic magnetic resonance (in motion) and postulate that the problem affects mainly women and is, in fact, functional and not only anatomical, as was previously thought. 30 years ago.