Knee Health

The diagram below shows your skeleton. The major bones and joints in the leg are labeled, and you can see where these bones come together to form the knee joint. Your femur is the bone in your thigh, and your tibia and fibula are the two bones in your lower leg. Your tibia is often called the shin bone, and it’s what you can feel traveling down the front of your leg below the knee. Your fibula is the bone on the outside of your calf, and it ends in the part you can feel sticking out at your ankle, on the outside of your leg. 

As you can see, the end of your femur, or thigh bone, forms the top half of the knee joint. Your tibia, or shin bone, forms the bottom half of your knee joint and connects to the top of your foot at your ankle joint.

Your knee has several ligaments that connect and support the bones in this area of your body. Ligaments are made up of a fibrous tissue that is different from muscle tissue. The diagram below shows the four main ligaments of the knee, in addition to other important structures in this area.

It’s important to understand how your bones, joints, ligaments, and muscles around the knee work together. If you’re spending too much time in one position, doing repetitive motions, not getting enough physical activity, or wearing improper footwear, you increase the chances of strain or weakness. Because no part of your body works in isolation, it’s important to appreciate how other areas of your body influence your knee health.

The Hip Connection

The muscles around your hips play a vital role in supporting the upper half of your body when you are standing, and they help propel you forward when you are walking, running, or going up stairs. These muscles also help control movement and stability at your knee.

The Ankle and Foot Connection

If you have problems with the joints in your ankles or feet, you may also experience stress and pain in the knee. Appropriate footwear that provides proper support for your activity is also important to consider. 

The Balance Connection

Components of the knee joint play a crucial role in helping you maintain stability, steadiness, and balance when performing activities. Maintaining knee health also should include practicing safe yet moderately challenging single leg balance activities to ensure all systems are working together well.

Stay Active

Be sure to move every day. Even a simple activity like walking can prevent weakness and stiffness from setting in. Building strength in the muscles in and around your knees will help maintain healthy knees. It is also important to maintain the flexibility of the muscles in the legs and to have a good balance in strength between them.  

Lift and Position Correctly

Many people believe that allowing their knees to go past their toes, especially when squatting, will cause pain or injury to the knees. However, this is a natural movement for the knees and occurs many times throughout the day, such as when you go down stairs. This picture below shows the person’s right knee moving past the toes when squatting to lift an object. Allowing your knee to go past your toes does not need to be avoided unless you experience pain while doing it.

However, if you are lifting a heavy object, you might find it helpful to keep your hip, knee, and foot in optimal alignment. This will make the movement easier to perform! Keep your thigh parallel to the ground and do not let your hips sink lower than your knees. Keep your knee in alignment with your foot, and do not let it extend past your toes. This alignment will help distribute the load more evenly across all of your muscles and joints and help reduce pain and injury.

Another position that many people believe causes pain is knee valgus. This is when the knees tilt inward while the ankles remain spaced apart, and is sometimes referred to as “knock knees.” Knee valgus can be present in some people even when they’re standing with their legs straight. It can also happen when squatting, if one or both knees move towards the other.

In most situations, knee valgus is not considered proper form, especially if it occurs due to poor body control. The valgus knee position can put increased stress on some of the ligaments and cartilage of the knee, which can increase the risk of injury.

Don’t Wait—Get Pain Checked Out Early

If you have ever had pain in your knee, you probably walked with a limp until the pain went away. Limping when pain is present is natural—your body moves differently to prevent more injury or harm. In the short term, this is helpful because you can still move around and live your life. Gentle activities that do not increase the pain, such as walking or doing daily activities, can help keep the joint moving well and prevent stiffness from setting in.

However, if you continue to limp and move differently for a long period of time, it can put new repetitive stress on other parts of the body and cause new problems in those areas. In addition, if pain is present, you might start walking less and getting less physical activity, which can lead to a loss of strength and fitness.

So, if you have knee pain that does not go away quickly, don’t wait! Get it checked out so you can get back to feeling 100% and prevent problems in other areas.

Take Care of Yourself

There is a clear association between knee pain and obesity. There is also a correlation between diabetes and accelerated joint stiffness. The good news is that gradually increasing physical activity, improving fitness levels, and losing weight have all been shown to reduce knee pain and stiffness and improve your overall health.

Your body adapts to what you do. If you sit a lot and don’t get much activity, the “load” or physical demand on your body is low. Over time, your body will adapt to that low load and physical activity will feel difficult. 

But if you walk a little bit each day, your body will get used to it and walking will become easier. If you start slowly increasing the distance you walk, and add time to recover from those longer walks, your body will adapt and become stronger. This process of building strength slowly over time is called “progressive loading.”

Recovery is an important part of progressive loading. Recovery includes eating healthy food, drinking water, and getting enough good-quality sleep. It’s also important to have “rest” days, where you do low-intensity activities such as a shorter, slower walk, or just stretching. 

The key is to add a little bit to your exercise routine over time, keep including time to recover, and do both these things consistently. Remember, you can get strong and recover from injury with the right approach.

Your body is designed to move. Finding time for exercise can be difficult, but don’t think the only thing that counts is hour-long sessions at the gym. Taking short breaks to move or stretch and doing a few repetitions of an exercise during a break or while brushing your teeth can be a great way to fit physical activity into your day.

Schedule Movement Breaks 

If you sit for long periods of time, set an alarm for every half hour to remind you to get up and take a few steps around the room. If you stand for long periods, set an alarm for every half hour to sit down (if possible) or stretch. The key is to avoid long stretches of time spent in the same position.

Start Anywhere

Below you will find videos of strengthening and stretching exercises for your knees. Choose exercises that you can do without pain and do them in a way that feels right to you. If the movement doesn’t feel good today, don’t do it and try again later. The most important thing is to get started with whatever you’re able to do today. You can always adjust the exercises and/or intensity as you build strength and increase flexibility.

For a strength exercise, consider starting with a set of 5–10 repetitions. You can add more repetitions or more sets as you build strength. For the stretches, only stretch to a point that’s comfortable and doesn’t cause pain. Start with a 20–30 second hold for each type of stretch.

Quadriceps Stretch

If your quadriceps muscle is tight, it can limit how much you can bend your knee. This stretch will help improve flexibility of your quadriceps muscles and allow you to fully bend your knees.

Wall Sit

Step Ups

Air Squats

Squats are a foundational movement for many of the activities you do every day, from sitting in a chair to picking up items off the floor. Following the proper form when doing any exercise is very important to avoid injury.

These two videos demonstrate different types of squats you can do at home.

Stationary Lunge

Hamstring Stretch

This video shows two options for stretching the hamstrings. These will help improve your ability to straighten your knees.

Bridge

Single Leg Bridge

Hip Hinging

Deadlifts

Sidelying Clamshell

Sidelying Hip Abduction

Calf stretch

Heel Raise + Ball Squeeze

Single Leg Stance

Your Crossover care team is here to help. We have coaches who can make a plan so you know where to start. Our mental health team can talk you through your stress and anxiety. Your physical therapy team can help you recover from injury with safe movement. Or you can start with a physical for a full picture of your overall health. Wherever and whenever you’re ready to begin, just start a Conversation with your Crossover care team. We want you to be well.