Knee Injury Advice

A friend of mine has recently taken up running aiming for a marathon at the end of the year. He is a fairly fit guy having played lots of sport for many years but is suffering at the start of runs with a painful inner knee.

It has been just the one knee (right) so far although today's run affected the other knee (left). He finds it painful for the first 5 minutes or so and he adjusts his stride to lessen the pain. Once he is five minutes in to the run he feels ok but is worried that he may be doing some damage and is wary of increasing his mileage as a result.

I have no experience on this and wondered if anyone else had heard or felt this when starting out running?

I have never personally had this running although I did attend a physio last year for a knee problem which was caused by a weaking of my quads! 2 of the muscles were weaker than the other 2 caused by a football injury.  Because I didnt work on this and strengthing it, the muscles weakend and started pulling my knee cap very slightly out of place and caused a rubbing pain on my knee.  It felt like bone on bone and wasnt pretty... It eased off if I went running though as I was working the muscles harder and making them work which pulled it back into place

Im not sure if this is a similar injury but it very well might be, if your friend finds that his knee weakens after walking for about 30-45 minutes and he starts feeling like he has a slight limp then it could be.... cross trainer is a good help for this one! Oh and my pain was my left knee

I have just read the previous post and this is my first on the forum. I have been reading all of the knee related injury topics with interest but this one seemed to be identical to mine.

 Last November I was running with some guys from work and we were running 4 or 5 mile runs at lunchtime (rough 8:45 per mile). Prior to that I was doing 5Ks on my own without any problem. After the runs with the guys at work I started having pains in my knee which really hurted going up and down stairs. I have been told I have servere Over-Pronation and was already running with Nike + Motion control trainers. I was told that they can wear so did buy another pair and the pain eased - although combined with resting for 2-3 weeks. I went to a Podiatrist in Letchworth and was told I needed Orthotics and would coukd over £300 for my normal shoes but more for my trainers. I felts this was excessive but also went to a running shop in Bristol, Easy Runner, who I have to say were brilliant. They advised me not to waste my money and take it easier on the runs. Back off the distance but most importantly stretch at least 3 times a day (even when not running). In addition they advised exercises to increase leg strength which I've been doing. The result is that I am still getting a bit of pain - it's nowhere near as much. I am concerned that I may be causing more damage to the kneecap but at present it is not sore enough to stop me running. So there does seem to be benefit in stretching quads and hamstring 2-3 times a day.

 I hope this may help you. I need to start training for a half Marathon so will increase the mileage soon but no more than 10% every 2 weeks !

All the best

Hello

This sounds very similar to my left knee discomfort. What exercises do you do to help your knee? I will definately take onboard what you said about stretching three times a day. Every time I stretch after a run it feels great on my knee when I stretch my quads.

Yeah the strecthing is a big thing... 1 strecth is to lie on your front and pull ur foot towards your bum.. It should be able to touch your bum.

I find the best way to strengthen your quads is the cross trainer! Worked wonders for me, in a couple of months I went from level 12 to the top level 20!!! I did this on top of  the excercises my physio gave me! Lean against a wall and go to a sort of sitting position hold for 5-10 seconds and back up, do this for maybe 10 times twice ot 3 times a day and that should also help

Thanks Michael! I'll start the extra stretching today....

I am actually in the process of buying a crosstrainer, so I'll put that to good use as well.