Knees!

Discussion in 'Tae Kwon Do' started by Jane Lane, Apr 7, 2005.

  1. Jane Lane

    Jane Lane New Member

    I haven't been doing TKD for that long but I'm starting to find that my knees are getting a bit achey and stiff.

    Is this a sign that I'm doing something wrong, or does it happen to most TKD-ers? If so, is there anything I can do to help them on their way? I'm too young to be having joint problems!
     
  2. Haduken

    Haduken Valued Member

    be careful! make sure you are turning your standing foot when you do round kicks... or pretty much any round techniques... otherwise you could damage the ligaments (bad) or tear the cartilige (v.v. bad)... i know this because i have done both... if you are sure you are performing kicks corectly... maybe try not to force the turn on the standing leg so much... rise to the ball of the foot before you turn the hip and standing leg etc etc
     
  3. KickChick

    KickChick Valued Member

    Generally pain felt in the joints, most particularly the knees, is caused by poor technique.

    You say that your lack of doing TKD for very long .... well, could be the very reason why you are experiencing this.
    You see as you progress in your training, repetitive kicking will in fact strengthen your legs and muscles in order to protect those ligaments surrounding those joints.

    As Haduken pointed out, performing roundhouse kicks without rotating your supporting leg can contribute to your pain....When you do not pivot, (having your supporting foot face forward or at most sideways) you'll notice that the patella of your kicking leg is pulled to the side. If you do a roundhouse kick with your supporting leg fully rotated so its foot points back, the patella of the kicking leg should be in its normal position.

    Another cause of joint problems is kicking “the air” rather than bags or shields. You do have better control of the path of the kick, especially its final phase whereas without a solid target joints are often overextended (what you call “snapping out” of the leg to full extension).
     
  4. wynnema

    wynnema Valued Member

    Power High Kicks video shows how you can kick without hurting your joints or using your full range of motion. I found it useful.
     
  5. d33pthought

    d33pthought New Member

    I'm having knee trouble, too, but not from TKD. Make sure you stretch enough. I like to take a half hour for stretching and warmup before class, or I'm absolutly sore and horrible.
     
  6. wynnema

    wynnema Valued Member

    Me too, I stretch before class alone as the warm up in class is static stretches. :eek:
     
  7. Haduken

    Haduken Valued Member

    make sure when you stretch that you don't feel the stretch at the back of the knees... just in the muscles... if you are bend your leg a little - otherwise you stretch the ligaments and tendons... which you don't want to do!
     
  8. gaz shaw

    gaz shaw New Member

    i've always bin told to go onto the balls of your feet when performing kicks, with the heel off the floor.
     
  9. Mark_Campbell

    Mark_Campbell Valued Member

    when your in stances make sure your knee isnt too bent. if you look down at your rear leg in L-stance and you cant see your toes, your bending just too much.

    i agree with most of the other advice, if your not pivoting the back leg when doing a turning kick then its not your knee but your pelvic joint your hammering.
     
  10. Haduken

    Haduken Valued Member

    "if your not pivoting the back leg when doing a turning kick then its not your knee but your pelvic joint your hammering."

    no - it is your knee... there may be some 'trapping' of hip joint/pelvis - but the knee will absorb the twist - and it is not supposed to twist - believe me i have found this out the hard way... and surgery convinced me.... if you don't believe me - keep doing kicks with your standing leg facing forwards :D
     
  11. KickChick

    KickChick Valued Member

    well actually, insufficient range of rotation in the hip joint while executing the kick does lead to stressing the patello-femoral tracking.... so the end result is indeed stress on the knee casuing undo pain.

    Kurz explains this condition in this way....
    When you spread the legs wide such as when standing in a straddle stance, the patellae (kneecaps) move away (to the outside) from their original position. This happens because in the straddle stance the thigh bones are made to face mostly forward while the outside part of the quadriceps pulls at the kneecap.

    This same similar thing happens during a kick if the kicker does not have enough range of motion in the hip joint for the required amount of outside rotation of the supporting thigh and the outside part of the quadriceps of the kicking leg is tight. During kicking the quadriceps pulls the patella firmly against the thigh, and if the patella is in the wrong spot then that is where it will rub.

    I didn't mention warming up before kicking because by now I would assume that is a given .... best not to assume I'm afraid ;)
     
  12. Mark_Campbell

    Mark_Campbell Valued Member

    enlightened :D
     
  13. Omid24

    Omid24 New Member

    reasons

    knee problems night be due to the following:
    1. reckless kicking technique. make sure u r ok. :confused:
    2. back problems. have it checked. :eek:
    3. balance between the mussles on your legs (quadscep and satorius). when u kick u use the outer side of the quad muscle(quadsceps) in your leg. when you bend down, the inner side is used (satirius). aching kneed may result from imbalance of muscles. so all u have to do is work the in innner side of these muscles - make them stronger. :D
    4. improper warm out. work the the muscles (under the knees) , in hebrew we call them twins. i believe the name is gastronemius. and make suer the achiles tendos is also warm before u start. :eek:

    here is a list of the muscles, pulled from google:
    http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/images/446/musclesatlasside.jpg

    i can assure you that if you make sure what i wrote down is taken care of - u will feel no pain unless you suffer some other medical problem i am not aware of.

    hope this help.
    :Angel:
     
  14. NaughtyKnight

    NaughtyKnight Has yellow fever!

    Go to your doctor, thats the only advice I can give you.
     
  15. Omid24

    Omid24 New Member

    i went to alot of doctors, none of them understand what it take to do martiarl arts, they will send u to do xray and say stop doing sport. it is not good for you. trust - been there. i had to stop for 2 years my practice beacuse of knees.
     
  16. NaughtyKnight

    NaughtyKnight Has yellow fever!

    Well then its very important to build up the muscles in your legs. Do squats, but make sure you USE CORRECT TECHNIQUE!!!!! I saw some muppet doing squats today with his heels raised with wood.

    Make sure you walm up enough, I screwed my knees by kicking all the time at home without warming up, I learnt the hard way, but my knees have recovered.

    Run on the sand at the beach.

    Take Glucosemien and that should help repair the damage you have done.
     
  17. Omid24

    Omid24 New Member

    it is not neccesarily damage! it may very well be just muscle ake.
     
  18. NaughtyKnight

    NaughtyKnight Has yellow fever!

    True, thats what mine was.
     
  19. nicolethai1

    nicolethai1 Valued Member

    I have got arthritis in my left knee, but I find that exercise (including kicks) actually helps a lot. The worst my knee gets is around Christmas and such like times when I haven't done anything for a week or two!

    It is always a balancing act though - overtraining, bad technique or insufficientwarmup/cooldown/stretching can also make it go really bad again.

    I would just like to pass on a tip regarding squats which I got from an excellent stretching book by this Russian guy ("Beyond Stretching, Russian Flexibility Breakthroughs" by Pavel Tsatsouline). What you really need if you have knee problems is to strengthen the quad muscles; they provide a lot of support for the knee joints and will really ease the pressure there. Obviously, squats are great for the quads, but I find that they put way too much pressure on my bad knee, causing pain and doubtless more damage. Catch 22!

    What you need is to do the squat "backwards", ie instead of doing it either unsupported, or holding on to a barre,etc in front - what you need to do is to have a barre behind you (or you can stand in a doorway and holding on there).

    Keep your heels on the floor and your weight on your heels. Keep your shins nearly vertical. Don't let your knees move forward even in the bottom position. You should be able to do this exrecise wearing stiff ski boots! Your knees should point in the same direction as your feet - forward, or slightly out. Don't let them buckle in. Sit back, rather than down. If you squat correctly, your centre of gravity will be behind your feet and you wil hold on to something for balance. A doorway works well. Hold on to the doorway at your waist level, no higher. Stand almost inside the door.

    This has really helped me. Two other tips from the book are to do mobility drills a couple of times every day, standing with your knees together, making small (important!) circles in each direction; and also to avoid that kind of stretch where you kind of sit or lie back against your heels whilst kneeling down - it can badly stretch your knee ligaments.

    Hope this helps! :)
     
  20. Goat

    Goat Valued Member

    It's not always "bad technique" it could be alot of things. I didn't develop any knee problems untill 2nd Dan and after I started cross-training in Kung Fu. I went to several doctors thinking it could be any number of things. Finally aftera an MRI I was told there is nothing wrong with my knee just plain wear and tear.. I then got the "knees are like tires on a car they eventually wear down" speech and then he said I shouldn't worry though as he felt I still had a couple of good years left on them.. to which I replied "then what? you toss me in a tire dump?!!!!"

    that was four years ago and I'm still going strong... if your having pain after a good workout it may be that you are having some swelling inside the knee.. (this type of swelling is not evident by looking at the knee) A new Rx drug called Naproxen seems to do the trick as I am not ready to re-tread my knees quite yet![​IMG]
     

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