How I fixed my “runner’s knee” …
I hear it allllll the time…
“Isn’t running bad for your knees?”
“I would love to try running but I have bad knees and running will just make it worse.”
“My joints just aren’t made for running.”
“I’m scared I’ll get ‘runner’s knee’ !”
Here’s the thing - there’s no such thing as “runner’s knee.” Let me tell you why…
If you are feeling pain in one or both of your knees when running, there is an underlying problem likely unrelated to running that is causing you pain.
Let me give you some background on my story…I tried running competitively for the first time my sophomore year of high school in 2013. I had been a competitive swimmer prior but had to stop due to a shoulder injury. I figured running would be the next best thing so I joined the cross country team. I loved it and was pretty good at, but it didn’t last for long…
I lasted just one season before I started to get excruciating pain in my right knee which prevented me from running my junior year - I think I was able to run in maybe two races.
I was devastated and convinced I simply had “runner’s knee” as many people claim to have.
I figured I just wasn’t meant to be a runner.
Still - I wanted to see if there was something I could do so that one day I could run again, even just occasionally. There was ultimately a myriad of things that I ended up doing that changed me from someone who couldn’t run more than 3 miles without knee pain to the pain-free Boston Marathon qualifier that I am today. Here are the 5 things I did to get RID of my knee pain:
Saw an orthopedic specialist and got the right shoes
The first thing I did when I wanted to get to the root of my knee pain was I a saw an orthopedic. He was able to analyze my gait and observe the tracking of my knees as I walked and stood. He also assessed my foot anatomy and structure. I have very narrow feet with high arches and he told me that my right knee was internally rotated due to the arch in my foot starting to collapse. Basically I was trying to run with a system that was flawed from the ground-up. When there’s a kink in the chain, it travels all the way up.
From there, he told me what inserts to buy to put in my shoes to support my arches and he told me what kinds of shoes I should be looking for that would work best with my foot anatomy.
2. Identified muscular imbalances & started to strength train
The second thing I did was I booked a session with a strength & conditioning coach. He put me through an extensive assessment where he identified significant weakness in my glutes and glutes medius. More specifically, he also identified muscular imbalance in my right glutes medius - my left was stronger than my right.
After seeing my orthopedic, this assessment started to make a lot of sense. Not only was my right knee internally rotated due to a collapsing foot arch, but my right gluteus medius (which helps externally rotate your leg) was not strong enough to prevent this collapse from happening.
He was able to show me some exercises that would strengthen my glutes medius and my posterior chain in general.
3. Fixed my running form
In high school I was taught to take biggggg strides in order to conserve energy and run faster. For some people, this technique works just fine. The thing about overstriding, is that it often results in a strong heel strike. For me, who already had imbalances and problems all the way up my kinetic chain, striking my heel hard every step was exacerbating my knee pain significantly.
I started to train myself to run at a faster cadence (strides per minute). By increasing my cadence, I was able to decrease my stride length, negate some of the heel strike, and help prevent any jarring of my knees. This took a LONG TIME - a point I will get to shortly.
4. Learned how to foam roll and stretch appropriately
I was always one to turn up my nose at the importance of stretching and foam rolling. But if you are serious about running pain free - it is ESSENTIAL. Just as weakness in my glutes was causing problems, tightness in my quads and hamstrings was causing problems. Having tightness in certain muscles can cause unwanted pulling on your joints and tendons which WILL cause pain and WILL lead to injury. Do not sleep on this.
5. LEARNED TO BE PATIENT
This cannot be understated. What you need to understand is that while all of the afore mentioned things were absolutely necessary in getting me to where I am now, they did not all happen at once and each one took a very long time to implement. It literally took me YEARS to get to where I am now. Correcting imbalances takes years. Strengthening your muscles significantly takes years. Changing your stride takes years. Developing a habit can take years. You need to be patient with yourself and trust that the process will get you there. I started the journey to pain-free running in 2015. It wasn’t until 2022 that I was able to confidently go out for 10+ mile runs consistently and know that I wouldn’t have knee pain.
Your journey will be different from mine, but what I hope you get out of all this is that having knee pain is NOT a death sentence. You CAN run pain-free if you want it badly enough and if you are willing to take the right steps and be patient.
There is no “runner’s knee.” You got this 💕
