Ladies–I have heard from so many of you that one of the biggest reasons why you feel like you can’t lift heavy weights or do high-impact training is because of how your knees feel.
They ache.
They hurt.
They feel tender and sore.
Well today I am here to tell you that the knee issues you are experiencing aren’t actually issues with your knees…
Or, at least, they aren’t ONLY issues with your knees.
The great news is this means you can do something about how your knees are feeling, and I want to lay out a plan for you to follow below.
First things first, though.
Your knees are made up of passive structures and tissues. These are tissues in your body that don’t have the ability to contract or generate tension on their own.
For your knees, they are made up of your thigh bone (femur) and your shin bone (tibia). There are two thick pieces of cartilage between these two bones, each of which is called a meniscus. And there are four main ligaments that connect your thigh bone and shin bone together. These are the components of your knee joints.
You also have a kneecap or patella that sits on top of your thigh bone. This is often lumped in with the knee, but it is actually a different joint altogether, called the patella-femoral joint.
So, out of the different tissues that make up your knee–your bones, your cartilage, and your ligaments–all of them are passive. In other words, they are completely subjected to the different stresses and forces that are placed on them.
Fortunately, there are active tissues that help to control and protect your knee, and these active tissues contribute to both the knee issues you are experiencing as well as the resolution of the knee issues.
In other words, they are the reason you are having knee issues in the first place, but they are also the solution to your knee issues.
What are these active tissues?
Your muscles!
Your muscles have a HUGE influence on how your knees feel and function every single day of your life. When your muscles are strong, your knees feel great and move well. However, as your muscles get weaker, your knees begin getting stressed more and more, causing them to feel painful and not move well.
So what can be done about this??
There are two things that I recommend ALL women start doing immediately to help their knees feel better:
1. Strength training specifically for the muscles that control your knees (your quads, hamstrings, and calves)
You need to build strong muscles if you want your joints to feel well and stay healthy. Too many women only do exercises that focus on their hip muscles–like deadlifts, clams, and hip thrusts–while often neglecting doing exercises that specifically target their quads, hamstrings, and calves–like knee extensions, leg curls, and calf raises.
Worse yet, many women don’t even do ANY strengthening exercises at all and only stick with walking or other forms of cardio. If there’s one way to make sure your knees hurt, it is skipping out on doing strengthening exercises and only doing cardio…
There’s nothing wrong with doing cardio and there’s nothing wrong with doing exercises that focus on your hip muscles. The problem is when the other exercises for your knees aren’t added in, the muscles that support and control your knees just get weaker and weaker.
So start adding in knee-focused exercises at least one to two times a week to help build the strength of the muscles that support your knees.
2. Muscle Activation Techniques®
Many women are scared of making their knees feel worse when they workout because doing exercises for them in the past has hurt. That is totally understandable!
This is why Muscle Activation Techniques®, or MAT®, is such a powerful thing to add into your workout routine.
MAT® finds the muscles that aren’t working well in your body and gets them working better, so when you go to use those muscles when you workout, they can be strengthened efficiently without hurting your joints.
When you have muscles that are weak and aren’t working properly, your joints will constantly feel stressed and painful. However, by getting your muscles working better with MAT®, you can start using your muscles and joints more and build their strength up without the pain and discomfort you were feeling before.
Many women notice significant improvements in how their knees are feeling when they workout and throughout their life after about five weekly sessions of MAT®. Having practiced MAT® since 2012, I can confidently say that there is nothing as effective as MAT® at helping to make sure your joints are feeling well and are supported properly by your muscles.
If you would like to have an MAT® assessment for yourself, you can find a time in my schedule to come in for your initial consultation and assessment by clicking here.
Knee issues can be extremely uncomfortable and can prevent you from not just exercising, but from enjoying life overall. Fortunately, I have seen firsthand that many knee issues can be resolved from strengthening the muscles that support the knees and making sure the muscles are working properly.
Between consistently doing strengthening exercises for your knee muscles and getting your muscles contracting well with Muscle Activation Techniques®, the knee issues you are experiencing can be a thing of the past!
In strength and health,
Julie
Julie Cates is an experienced, certified, and insured National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) Certified Personal Trainer and mastery level Muscle Activation Techniques® (MAT®) Rx Specialist (MATRx).
She is one of 88 certified mastery level Resistance Training Specialists® (RTSm) in the world. This combination makes her style of training impactful and still preventative and restorative of joint and muscle issues and pain that are common with exercise.
Julie specializes in working with women 50 and over. Specifically, her main focus is working with women with bone density loss, muscle loss, Osteopenia, and Osteoporosis.
Julie has incredible experience working with brand new exercisers. Very specific types and styles of exercises are needed for restoring and maintaining bone density, and Julie guides her clients through these in a pain-free way.
She is also well experienced in helping women exercise even with various joint, bone, systemic, and neurological diagnoses. Julie is definitely your go-to personal trainer for women with Osteoporosis!
Julie graduated cum laude from the University of Florida. She earned her degree in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology with a specialization in Exercise Physiology.
Julie is the co-owner of Muscle Activation Schaumburg in Schaumburg, IL. She is a wife and mother of two.
Julie can be reached via email at julie@matschaumburg.com. Follow her on Instagram at @julcates!
