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After having a painful knee for months, most especially going down steps, finally got it checked out. Ortho surgeon did x-rays, exams, diagnosed it as runner's knee. I've been having ankle pain on the same leg, too. He told me to lay off the treadmill, my cardio go to exercise. The elliptical hurts my knees as does the stairmaster.
He said I could try the bike after knee heals.
Bummer. I've been using the treadmill for years for cardio.
Still can do circuits at the gym and some weight-lifting (squats are out now). I'm wondering if ramping up the circuit training would be enough to get my heart rate up and serve as a cardio replacement?
Your suggestions are most welcome. Thinking about swimming laps?
Most of the posts so far have been good. As mentioned, "runners knee" is a pretty broad diagnosis for general knee pain so it can be hard to really pinpoint. Here's what I would do:
- Get the compression sleeve that another poster recommended.
- Give your knee ample time to rest. In the meantime, make sure you're taking chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine, chonodroitin and MSM (1.5 grams per day of each) and 3 grams of fish oil per day. The glucosamine/chonodroitin/MSM stack is good for joint/connective tissue health and the fish oil will help keep inflammation down.
Once you've done that, you can probably get back to the gym. The bike is a good option for cardio, but I'd want to focus on weights more for a bit. As mentioned, your body could have some sort of imbalance that needs correction through weight training, though I seriously question the logic of doing lots of compound exercises to try to correct such an issue since the body can employ all sorts of tricks to work around the imbalance. If I was doing it, I'd use lower weight and higher rep work on the leg curl machine and leg extension and/or leg press. Lower weight/high rep (10-15) is very beneficial to joint health, plus all three of those exercises can be performed one leg at a time to help correct any imbalance.
I also highly recommend the foam rolling that the other poster mentioned. I don't personally do it, but it's a very effective method of stretching.
OP I recently came to the hard conclusion that I had to put up my running shoes and find an alternative cardio exercise. As a cardio nut, this impacted me greatly because I ran exclusively for stress management and the "runners high." Luckily, there is an alternative and that is biking. To help "me" with this transition, I had to find a calorie calculator and miles translator...key factors to "my" running program over the years. I found 2 tools on the internet, via google "bike to running ratio" and "calorie counter." "My" most important win was that these equations helped me attain my daily goal of stress management and that gold medal that I loved the most, the "runners high." Its not the true essence of "runners high" but close enough to runner's euphoria for me to accept the reality that my running days are over. I hit the gym every day with these equations in mind. Good luck! I mean it, because to most people, they say "what's the big deal," but to a runner this is devastating.
I too have a terrible "runners knee"...I have cartilage damage and a bakers cyst going on with it, too. My ortho gave me a cortisone shot, had me stay off it until that kicked in...and said if that didn't work, surgery. That was in June.
Knee has still been in pain on and off since...but I've incorporated (as others have suggested) more yoga and hip excercises. This really does help with my knee pain.
Otherwise...swimming, biking, and maybe sloooooooow (13 minute miles?) jogs?
After having a painful knee for months, most especially going down steps, finally got it checked out. Ortho surgeon did x-rays, exams, diagnosed it as runner's knee. I've been having ankle pain on the same leg, too. He told me to lay off the treadmill, my cardio go to exercise. The elliptical hurts my knees as does the stairmaster.
He said I could try the bike after knee heals.
Bummer. I've been using the treadmill for years for cardio.
Still can do circuits at the gym and some weight-lifting (squats are out now). I'm wondering if ramping up the circuit training would be enough to get my heart rate up and serve as a cardio replacement?
Your suggestions are most welcome. Thinking about swimming laps?
I took up swimming after a bunch of running injuries. Also, biking. Having three things that I alternate has really helped - no injuries for a long time, because as soon as something hurts, I switch to another sport for a few days. Swimming and biking are good cardio. Circuit training not so much, even if you do it fast, it's just not the same.
I've had good luck with off-the-shelf active inserts like Dr. Scholls. I find it really minimizes the impact to the joints. Shin splints and runner's knee disappears. The only drawback to using them is it changes the inside of your shoe by lifting you a just a little bit higher, so I end up getting bad heel blisters from time to time.
A follow-up...after a month of no treadmill, my knee is 95% recovered..I've been replacing the treadmill with an elliptical bike ride of 30 45 minute every other day and doing the machines and some weights...so far so good.
Your advice really helped...my doctor told me both sides of our body's--and our knees--can be uneven and my one knee may be performing differently than the other...that makes sense....regardless, it's nice being able to go down the steps without wincing with each step...
I totally feel your pain right now.....except my injury is a 4th and 5th metatarsal foot fracture from running. I am an outdoor runner... i have been off running for 2 1/2 months because of this stupid injury...I also have knee pain from running for so many years but never where it kept me from running....I started back on cardio the last two weeks using a recumbent bike until i can run again which is another 3 weeks....I noticed more knee pain while using a bike so im not sure how that would work for your situation....i think most machines will aggravate it right now.....try walking outdoors for awhile. Im probably going to start doing that till i get stronger to get back to running.....being injured sucks!
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