Court Rules: Dealing with Knee Problems and Strengthening the Legs

I have never personally had knee problems but have learned about them secondhand through some of my teammates.  A somewhat oversimplified but helpful explanation of some types of knee pain: problems are often related to weakness and tightness in other areas, such as your hips, that cause the muscles attached to your knee to overwork.  This causes inflammation and pulling on the knee, which is why an inflamed IT band is often a major contributor to knee pain.  It is important to stay on top of every muscle group even if you only feel the pain in a localized area because you never know what the root cause of the problem is.  I think it would reduce the occurrence of many injuries if everyone used a foam roller (or some type of ball like a lacrosse ball, softball, or golf ball) for 5-10 minutes every day.  This is something easy to do when watching TV at home or talking with friends after practice.  Try to pay attention to which areas are especially tight and maybe spend a little extra time there.  This is a good way to be proactive before injury strikes.

Photos by Eliza Rego

Once something starts bothering you it is important to address it in two ways.  The first step is following your trainer's advice to treat the symptoms of the pain itself so that you can get back to training at 100%.  This often includes resting, icing inflammation, or heating something tight.  In this phase your focus should be on getting yourself healthy, not stressing about "needing" to run or staying in shape if doing so will make the injury worse.  Stay patient and smart!  If approved by your trainer a great way to stay in shape when you can't run because of injury is to cross train (discussed more below)!  The second part of treating an injury is to find the root of the issue and work towards fixing that.  This is important because if you don't change anything for the future than most likely the injury will just return!  Usually this involves finding areas of weakness or tightness and doing specific exercises to fix them.

My hips tend to get weak if all I do is run so I try to do hip exercises every few day.  For instance I often do clam shells, lower leg lifts, and hip drops.  I also do some type of hip mobility after my longer runs such as hurdle exercises.  One pretty comprehensive strength routine we do at Harvard that works everything from core to adductors to abductors to glutes is called "bunkies."  It is basically single leg planks on an elevated platform.  I have included some photos of myself doing the exercises.  We start off at about 30 seconds for each leg for each exercise and over time progress to longer times.  The most important thing to remember during every strength routine is maintaining form.

To answer your question about cross training: yes I cross train a couple of times a week!  I like to use it as an extra aerobic stimulus without the additional impact and thus additional injury risk of running extra miles.  I cross train even more frequently when I am injured.  I have found it can also help you continue to experience some of the things you might miss when you aren't running such as feeling accomplished after a hard workout and the enjoyment of exercise itself.

Whether you are healthy or injured, it is always important to take care of yourself as best as you can.  This means getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods, listening to your coaches, and running on soft surfaces whenever possible!

Thanks for your question and good luck with states!

Courtney