Knee Cap Pain Treatment (Phase 2)

Knee Cap Pain Treatment (Phase II)
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🦵 In yesterday’s post, we talked about the acute management of patellofemoral pain syndrome or knee cap pain. In today’s post we’re going to highlight the importance of training the glutes for knee cap pain as well as what to do after the pain settles down a bit!
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📝 When it comes to knee cap pain, you have to think of treating both the knee cap and the thigh bone underneath it to get the best outcomes. An analogy I like to use is to think of the knee cap as a train and the thigh bone underneath it as the train tracks. The train is powerful, and can move as much as it likes - but only where the tracks will lead it. The way our knee cap moves on our femur is very much like this train and train track!
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💪 We absolutely MUST strengthen the quadriceps muscle. But in addition to that, we must also strengthen the GLUTES as these muscles control the position of the thigh bone or train tracks. The glutes have the ability to control how much rotation or inward/outward motion the thigh has. Try moving your thigh from side to side to inwards and outwards and you’ll feel that your glutes are moving your thigh!
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🍑 Thus, performing gluteal exercises that strengthen your ability to move your thigh into abduction and external rotation are huge for controlling the tracks that our knee cap rides on. Furthermore, integrating core strengthening is also highly recommended as the core can control hip motion, which controls knee motion - it get’s tricky! The body is a kinetic chain and movement at one area will undoubtedly affect another.
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💥 This is why there are so many gluteal and core exercises in today’s and yesterdays post. The biggest difference between Phase I and Phase II is that in Phase II, you are now performing more standing exercises and able to tolerate some degree of knee bend in your training program, which is important for strengthening the quadriceps!