Knee Pain - How do you bend?

Image from www.urbandictionary.com - Don't even click on that link unless you're prepared to laugh uncontrollably and waste about 2 hours reading that stuff!

During Hard Style Hanguk, one of the participants cautioned me strongly that he wouldn't be able to do much because his knee was injured. I asked him about the mechanism of his injury, and the history he gave me sounded like it had nothing to do with his knee.

What he did say was that after he'd go running, his knee would balloon up and be sore for days afterwards. He also demonstrated very obvious valgus tendencies just as he stood talking to me. The foot on his affected side was rotated externally to 90 degrees from the centerline.

While there are certain pains that are undeniably caused by structural misalignment and shock-based displacement, most such knee pain is simply the result of long-standing faulty movement patterns, as taught by FMS founder, Gray Cook.

Those people who tend to walk with their toes turned outward also tend to allow their knees to collapse inward when they bend. That allows the muscles on the lateral aspect of the leg to get too strong and the muscles on the medial aspect of the leg to get too weak. Some of the external rotators of the hip are also turned off, as the person in question has figured out how to move without engaging those muscles for proper leg stability.

As a result, the connective tissue along the inner part of the knee (near the MCL) gets strained, and the lateral meniscus has to bear more pressure.

What's the solution?

I've called it the "3 Prys" and it's one of the teaching tools we use at KBLA.

While squatting down or bending, think of prying 3 parts of your body open simultaneously. The trick here is that you MUST keep your feet flat on the floor the entire time and in strict parallel position. If they rotate, slide, or tilt, start over again! The best thing to do is to train this in bare feet so that the mechanoreceptors of the feet can "hear" the differential pressure information coming from the floor without the muffling effect of cushioned shoes.

1. Pry the knees apart and pick your toes up off the ground. That forces you to load your heels properly while you push your knees outward until they're tracking in the same vertical plane as your feet.

2. Pry your butt backwards & downwards. That, too, forces you to load your heels and engage your posterior chain instead of wallowing in quadricep dominant movement patterns. It also strengthens your lumbar muscles by forcing them to engage in a strong extension pattern.

3. Pry your chest open vertically. Keeping your head pulled upward and your eyes looking forward, squat down with the feeling of lengthening your neck and prying your chest forward. That helps create thoracic spine mobility that you may have lost, as well as adding to the stability in the lumbar region.

If you can't go down very far without losing form, DON'T go any further. Work back & forth in the region in which you get stuck to create the simultaneous mobility and stability needed to re-pattern your squatting movement.

Once you've done that, then go back & revisit the Hard Style Lock. We did this with the guy who was certain that his knee wouldn't hold up during the kettlebell workshop, and he excitedly told us after a 7 hour day of training that his knee no longer bothered him.

You may well find that your chronic knee pain wasn't so unfixable after all!

What do I get if...?

For some reason, it seems like for the past 2 or 3 weeks, I've been repeatedly answering questions like "What do I get if I want to strengthen my back?", "What do I get if I need to keep my knees from collapsing in when I squat down?", or "What can I use to make my rotator cuff stronger since my shoulder hurts all the time?"

I guess it's been a while since I've posted answers to these things, so here's your abbreviated Back-To-School shopping list for items & resources that'll take your training, your treating, and your personal evolution into overdrive.

If you don't have some of these items, that's understandable. We're not made out of money. On the other hand, if you train your brain to stay in poverty mode, you'll never make some of the best investments possible for your professional development and your freedom from pain. I can confess to you publically that every hard-earned dollar I've spent on these items has been worth TEN TIMES as much in returns to me with patients and clients, nevermind my own physical performance.

You blow tons of money every week on bull$h!# like a double mocha venti primo frappolatte'chino that you're just going to slam down, p!$$ out, and get fat from. Why not spend that on resources that will increase your understanding of your field, improve your ability to give your people real lasting results, and take your earning potential to the next level???

I'll try to categorize these as best I can, so here goes...

Functional Movement Screen Technologies
Most all of you know I'm a huge proponent of Gray Cook's Functional Movement Screen Technologies. The FMS has changed the face of physical culture and orthopedic medicine, so there's NO reason at all why a trainer, physical therapist, or any sort of primary care physician worth his or her salt wouldn't be versed in any of these screening methods.

If you're an RKC reading this, stop procrastinating! Register for the next CK-FMS workshop. It's Thursday, May 28 - May 31, 2009 in St. Paul... 4 DAYS of the highest quality and most information-packed time of your life! It's September 6th as I'm writing this, so don't use the "I don't have enough lead time" excuse. Gray Cook, Brett Jones, Danielle Cook, and I will be on hand to teach you the ins and outs of what is perhaps the most brain-numbing & revolutionary stuff you'll ever come across. Not one single person that I spoke to during the inaugural CK-FMS workshop this past August came away feeling like they didn't get enough highly applicable information. No fluff here, Baby!

In fact, as of today, I'm going to make the CK-FMS a requirement for any RKC in the KBLA family who's running a satellite group. Within 2 years of you earning your RKC, you're required to attend the CK-FMS, where you can re-cert your RKC with your Snatch Test numbers. Nobody should be training someone else if they don't know how to identify movement problems and can't provide some sort of solution. That's why the old-time Chinese martial arts masters all knew some degree of Chinese traumatology. If it got injured under their roof, they had the responsibility to fix it. KBLA's all about skill & responsibility.

Now, if you're not an RKC, you're allowed a little more room to procrastinate.

TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC: If you don't want to be "bothered" by getting to learn the Functional Movement Screen, buying the FMS Screening kit, and all of that, no problem. Unless you're a fitness, athletic, or medical professional, there's really no need for you to buy the toys and take the courses.

However, you DO need to know how to move from your "core". How do we address that? - The DEADLIFT!

Wait.... not crunches??? Not rolling around on my Swiss Ball??? Not using the electro-stim Bruce Lee ab-shocker thing??? No, Dude.... the DEADLIFT!

The Deadlift is one of the MOST OVERLOOKED weight-training exercises and fundamental movement patterns. It serves as both a screen and a correction for many individuals with a plethora of pain syndromes and movement problems. If you're a kettlebeller, then the Deadlift should have been the FIRST movement you learned to execute properly with a kettlebell in your hand. If you didn't, go back to your trainer and ask for your money back. The hot, sexy, showy lifts are nothing (and in most cases, dangerous) if you don't have ROCK-SOLID mastery of the Deadlift.



Secrets of Core Training: The Backside by Gray Cook & Master RKC Brett Jones deals with all of the stuff I just discussed, but in crystal clear detail. You get not only the best explanations of what the core is all about, but also a clear cut progression of how to find your weaknesses, discover their component parts, and shore them up into an ironclad body.

Once you've mastered the info on Secrets of Core Training: The Backside and you're moving with more power, ease, and posture, you're ready to move on to Secrets of the Hip & Knee. Here, you'll get even more corrective exercises to shore up even the tiniest issues with your lower body movement patterns.



TIME OUT:
- "Why are you talking about movement patterns so much? I don't have problems with movement. It's just that my knee hurts when I squat down!"
- "The problem's not my core! My abs are strong and I do hundreds of crunches a day! My lower back hurts!"

Yup, I heard you the first time, and you'd be damn shocked how many of you out there with these sorts of aches and pains actually have those aches and pains because of allowing your body to employ $h!##y movement patterns. You think you know how to sit, stand, walk, run & all that, but your body's been compensating for heinous habits by piling on one cover-up after another. And that pain that you're feeling now? It's your body's way of telling you that your cover-ups aren't going to cut it any more and you've gotta deal with the underlying neurological issues. (Wow, sounds like something that you could extrapolate easily into a psychotherapy session, don't it?) Now let's get back to the discussion at hand.

After you've addressed the "root" of your body by learning and applying all of the information in the first 2 DVDs that I discussed, the next thing you're going to need is command, control, and comfort in your upper body. That's where Secrets of the Shoulder comes in. Brett & Gray pulled the door right off the hinges with this 2-DVD set.

Got shoulder, neck, or mid-to-upper back pain? Get Secrets of the Shoulder, study it like a nerd on speed, apply it like a mad scientist, and then resurface feeling like a new person!



What's so great about this stuff and why the sales pitch? Simple... The quality of information that Gray & Brett are doling out for you is SOOOOO good that most of your doctors won't have a damn clue about this, and they're the people you're going to see for solutions when you have an ache or pain! The problem is that the prescription meds and most of the rehab exercises you're being given are USELESS. So you're wasting money and time and NOT getting any real relief for your rotator cuff tendonitis, your achy shoulders, your tight neck, or the numbness and tingling that's going down your arm.

Now if you've handled all of that with panache and poise, gone through each DVD at least 3 times to pick up all the details you missed during your 2 previous viewings, and you're pushing into the real essence of functional movement, then you're ready for the last installment in the Secrets of series.... Secrets of Primitive Patterns.


Now while there's a ton of other stuff I could recommend to you, any of the info on even the first 3 DVDs is MORE than enough to keep you occupied for a LONG time. Get it, open it, watch it, study it, apply it, and BENEFIT from it! Once you've done all that, share the benefit with others!

Spilling Clinical Secrets

Don't be fooled by the title of the post. It's not like I'm going to tell you some juicy confidential patient information or post pics of some of the celebs that hang out here. This post is about some of the BEST information that I've seen in clinical medicine.

Man, it's amazing how when you find something really good, you just can't stop talking about it and can't help expressing your enthusiasm about it.

I've been watching Gray Cook & Brett Jones's Secrets of the Hip & Knee DVD, and it's absolutely excellent. I can't tell you how many priceless insights I got just from the Introduction section, let alone the rest of the DVD. This just rocks.

"But I'm not a doctor or a clinician. Why do I need this DVD?"

Simple. If you train yourself as an athlete and want to understand the workings of your body and how to train it with maximum effectiveness and safety, this is perhaps the closest thing to a user's guide that you're gonna get. If you train others, work out with others, or even teach a grade-school PE class or coach a team, this info is PRICELESS!

If your old PE teachers or coaches or workout buddies knew the proper way of training in a way such that you'd almost never complain of a lower back problem or a knee pain, wouldn't you consider that valuable?

How many times have your lower back or knees bothered you after training?

And finally, how much money have you spent on treating those issues?

Compare that for the price of a 2 DVD set that'll open your eyes and your mind to how to best train the hips & knees in ways that'll preserve the stability and mobility of your problem areas in ways that keep you pain free, and it's a no-brainer.

Just awesome. I wish that Gray & Brett were my professors for orthopedics during my medical education, but thank God I've got access to them now!