How To Prevent Knee Pain: 12 Tips To Try
Learning how to prevent knee pain can be a complicated process. That’s because knee pain is incredibly common, and can be caused by a variety of factors – including arthritis or a recent or recurring injury. But there ARE ways to learn how to prevent knee pain.
Knee pain can flare up while carrying out simple tasks, so preventing this debilitating problem should be a priority; no-one wants to be limited from performing everyday activities. Further, as we get older, more of us face the threat of lack of mobility and may be looking for knee pain arthritis relief.
Whatever the reason you’re experiencing knee pain, it’s important to take action to help prevent it.
Today we want to pass over some great tips on how to prevent knee pain. It’s also important for us to touch on tips on how to prevent knee pain in old age. From home remedies for knee pain, to simple lifestyle changes, here are our top tips for keeping your knees pain-free.
1. Stay active
It’s important not to let knee pain get the better of us. Overuse is a common cause of knee pain, but underuse will also leave the knee feeling weaker than normal. Getting up and about can help you to keep your knees healthy, making it a great tip for how to prevent knee pain.
Try going on a walk outside, swimming in your local leisure center, or maybe even cycling. These activities can help with the strength and flexibility of your knee joints. Gentle strengthening exercises can also help prevent knee pain by improving the stability of your knees.
It’s always a good idea to build up your exercise routine slowly. Particularly if you’ve suffered from injuries in the past, or if you haven’t been exercising a lot recently. It’s important to slowly build up a routine so that you don’t overdo it or risk reinjury.
2. Avoid high-impact activities
Activities that include running or jumping are considered high-impact activities for your knees. This is because nearly the entire weight of the body is being transferred through the knee joint as you land on each leg.
Cartilage in the knee is preventing impact between the powerful, rigid bones in our legs, but this can wear down through overuse or with age. Jumping can be even worse, as again the knee is tasked with a lot of the job of cushioning the impact of any landing.
If running or jumping was a big part of your routine in the past, then you may be feeling more knee pain now and should diversify your exercise routine with alternatives that you can enjoy..
Walking and swimming are great, but perhaps you’re looking for something new. Tai Chi might be a great new hobby for you that you can enjoy while also helping to prevent knee pain.
Tai Chi encourages slow, focused movements and can be practiced alone or in groups. Regular practice can increase flexibility and strength, and improve cardiovascular fitness because it can instill a greater awareness of how your body moves.
3. Warm up and cool down
However you’re exercising, your knees have to be prepared for the strain that you’re about to put on them. This is true even if you’re only trying low-impact activities.
Before you start exercising, warm up your muscles and joints a little to prevent knee pain. A good warm-up should include stretching and some light cardio exercises. This raises your heart rate and prepares the body for what’s to come, but it also activates the flexibility of your muscles.
Just as important as warming up is cooling down. Your muscles and ligaments work hard when you are active, so you should slow down gradually rather than come to a full stop.
As tempting as it can be to just go straight to lying down when you return home after a brisk walk, you should stretch to cool down your knees. This is a great tip for how to prevent knee pain.
4. Enlist in professional help
Using proper technique when exercising is an important tip on how to prevent knee pain, and especially for how to prevent knee pain in old age. It’s also important to ensure you are working the right muscles to provide balance and stability to your joints.
If you are unsure about how to perform a particular exercise, there is help available. You can enlist in the assistance of a physical therapist or personal trainer to ensure you are doing the right exercises (and the proper form) to prevent knee pain.
5. Wear the right shoes
Your knees are continually working away while you’re on your feet, so it’s important that you support their work with good pairs of shoes. Wearing the proper shoes is a great tip for how to prevent knee pain.
Choose shoes that provide good cushioning and general support for your feet. If you’re fond of a particular pair of shoes but they’re not so comfortable, talk to your doctor about getting special orthopedic insoles put in.
If you’re trying to learn how to prevent knee pain, it’s probably best to leave high-heels behind – or at least save them for special occasions. This will avoid a daily stress on your knees caused by an unnatural standing posture.
Also, it’s important to stay away from shoes with narrow toes, as these too can put extra pressure on your knees.
If you enjoy jogging or power walking, choosing shoes that are specifically designed for it makes a huge difference. Many people taking up running for the first time believe that any sports shoes will suit a jogging routine, however this is not the case.
Wearing the wrong sports shoes is one of the easiest ways to ruin your knees – so make sure you avoid this by talking to people in store about the type of equipment that suits your exercise. Using the wrong equipment can put extra strain on your knees and increase your risk of reinjury.
6. Practice good posture
Maintaining good posture is a great tip for how to prevent knee pain.
When standing or sitting, keep your back straight and your shoulders back. Avoid slouching or leaning forward, as this can put extra pressure on your knees.
Maintaining good posture helps to keep your body in alignment. We often like to consider individual parts of our body as islands; independent of each other, however this isn’t the case. As your body, especially your muscular and skeletal systems, is connected, then when one body part isn’t functioning properly, it can put pressure on the parts around it.
For example, knee pain can be caused by incorrect posture that stems from the ankle or hip. Although the ankle or hip itself may not be in pain, the poor posture can pull on the ligaments of the knee in a way that it isn’t built to withstand over time.
Thus, the ligaments in the knee can lose their strength due to an overwhelming demand caused by bad posture.
7. Maintain a healthy weight
Excess weight can put stress on your knees, which inevitably leads to pain and discomfort. Maintaining a healthy weight can reduce the strain on your knees and is a top tip on how to prevent knee pain. It’s a particularly useful tip on how to prevent knee pain in old age.
Your knees carry the strain of all the body weight above it. Even 1lb of weight loss transfers into 1lb less strain with every step. Considering how many steps we take even in just one day, we can see how even small amounts of weight loss can dramatically reduce the load that your knees bear.
8. Stay hydrated
What’s one of the fastest tips for how to prevent knee pain? Pour yourself some water.
Water, and good hydration, helps your body in a remarkably wide variety of ways. One of the benefits of good hydration in the body is how it can help our joints.
Hydration is important for maintaining flexibility and overall health in our joints. Drinking enough water throughout the day, especially when you are exercising, is very important.
9. Take breaks
Next on our list of tips for how to prevent knee pain – taking breaks!
Standing or sitting for extended periods can put extra pressure on your knees, leading to pain and discomfort. So it’s important to take a load off your knees.
When you’re taking a break, stretch out your legs slowly and move around a little to help prevent knee pain. Movement encourages blood circulation around the body and also ensures that individual ligaments in the knee aren’t overused.
10. Practice R.I.C.E
On top of taking breaks, having dedicated rest time is an important part of preventing knee pain. When you don’t get enough rest, your body doesn’t have the time it needs to repair and regenerate, which can lead to not only knee pain, but other health problems.
Rest reduces inflammation, which is often the cause of knee pain. Getting good rest reduces inflammation throughout your body. When you sleep, your body produces anti-inflammatory cytokines that help reduce inflammation, which makes good rest a top tip on how to prevent knee pain.
As well as reducing inflammation, good-quality rest promotes muscle recovery and healthy joints. After exercise, tears in muscle fibers need to be attended to. The collagen protein strands in ligaments and tendons need to be reinforced and rebuilt.
Rest is also important because the body produces synovial fluid, which lubricates your joints and helps prevent friction and wear and tear. Adequate rest can help ensure that your joints remain healthy and functioning properly.
Of course, rest is just one component to consider after injuring or aggravating your knees. It’s important to utilize the entire R.I.C.E method, which stands for rest, ice, compress, and elevate.
If you feel pain in your knees during or after activity, icing your knees may help reduce swelling. You can also try applying a compression bandage, and elevating your knee above heart level. With all these practices combined, you can greatly reduce inflammation and pain in your knees.
11. Don’t risk a fall
One of the best tips for how to prevent knee pain? Preventing knee injuries!
As we age, one missed step can spell larger and larger disasters. Sometimes, it seems that simply sleeping wrong can put us in a world of hurt for weeks! As such, taking a tumble is a big no.
You can curb your risk of falling by using handrails on staircases, ensuring any ladders or stools are sturdy, removing trip hazards, and ensuring your home is well lit.
You may also wish to use a walking aid like a crutch or cane to give your knees the stabilization it needs while working with a physical therapist to build up strength and stability in your joints.
12. Take collagen protein supplements
If you’re looking for a knee pain supplement for pain relief, consider collagen. Collagen is a protein that is found in the body’s connective tissues, including the cartilage in your knees and the tendons and ligaments that help hold the knee together.
Taking collagen supplements ensures that your body has the nutritional resources to build back tendons and ligaments after they get damaged. The benefits of collagen for ligaments and collagen for joints include strength resistance training, as well as enhanced recovery from injuries.
Can collagen cure knee pain? We don’t like to go as far as saying it’ll cure it, but it certainly provides the resources to help your body to heal itself. In that sense, it can go a long way to alleviating (and even eliminating) pain in your knees.
When choosing a collagen supplement, it’s important that it’s high-quality, hydrolyzed collagen. Hydrolyzed collagen has been broken down into smaller pieces that are more easily digested and utilized by the body.
Nano-hydrolyzed collagen supplements, like ProT Gold, contain even smaller molecules than hydrolyzed collagen, so you can fully digest your supplement in just 15 minutes or less. ProT Gold is also a medical-grade collagen, which means it is FDA regulated and trusted by doctors across the country.
If you are looking to reduce and prevent knee pain, taking a daily collagen supplement may be one of the simplest ways to do so. In conjunction with proper exercise and careful lifestyle choices, collagen supplements may help you make knee pain a thing of the past.
