Making Exercise Healthy Medicine™

How To Fix Knee Pain
Sore Knees, Bad Knees, Pain with Bending, Squatting, Stairs, Walking, Running
Dr. Bookspan's scientific methods to fix injuries and improve training are used by military and top rehab centers around the world.
Pioneer of Functional Exercise, named "The St. Jude of the Joints" by Harvard School of Medicine clinicians

Copyright and Reprint Info

© Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
Director  Neck and Back Pain Sports Medicine
Director AFEM - Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine AFEM

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Hello, You're on the web site of Dr. Jolie Bookspan. This is a free, no-ad site dedicated to getting you back to your life, healthy, mobile, and happy. This is evidence-based primary source sports medicine. There are hundreds of articles here for you.

Don't Worry - Knee pain can be easy to fix. Surgery is not needed to stop pain or return to activity. This summary shows you how to stop common sources of knee pain and injury. Then you no longer will get the pain and your knees can heal. Not all exercise is medicine. Not all medicine is healthy. We change that.

No health insurance needed. Much of costs, time, and worry currently spent in medical treatments are unnecessary, and often unhealthful. It's not health care if it's not healthy. I have developed information through years of research in the lab, and put it here on my web site for the benefit of the world. Get better and the world will be better.

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Answers In A Nutshell

1. This is not alternative medicine. This is standard of care, evidence-based sports medicine techniques, applied to real life - where you actually need it.
2. Knee pain is not a "condition" that once you get pain, you have it for life. With changes to healthier movement habits much can heal and you can be better than before.
3. You do not need surgery or extended medical treatments or bed rest to relieve most knee pain or tears.
4. You do not need to give up impact activities like running or martial arts, give up weights or heavy occupational work, or activities you love to do - By changing your movement habits to healthy ones, you will get the built in exercise you need for health while you prevent causes of most pain
5. Not all knee pain is from what shows on an x-ray or other test or scan. You are not doomed by scan results.
6. Knee muscle, cartilage, or joint injury are not causes of the problem - they are RESULTs of what you are doing to hurt your knees - things you can fix yourself. Even when inflammation or immune response are identified, they are results, not causes. Understand and fix causes instead of using drugs and surgery for the results.
7. Common medicines and prescription drugs can cause knee pain. Un-needed treatments and surgeries are done - causing more pain and reduction in physical ability. Easy changes can stop the need for harmful medicines.
8. This article explains all the above. Make sure you understand the concepts (many highlighted in green).

 

We have found certain people like this information so much that they have copied entire sections and illustrations to their own web sites without credit or link to this site, sole author, Dr. Bookspan. You may ask to put this info on your site with full credit to Dr. Bookspan, but don't steal. See copyright reprint info at page end. We have begun embedding copyright info into graphics. 

 

Knee Pain - Why?

Most people know that bending and standing badly will cause a sore back. The same is true for knees. Legs have posture and position during movement. After years of bad habits they can begin to ache. Knee pain that comes on suddenly is often the result of gradually pressuring and straining over months or years.

Instead of doing a bunch of artificial rehab exercises then going back to damaging daily life movement, try living and moving in healthy ways. Here is how:

Knee Pain Fix #1 - How To Keep Cartilage Healthy

A common habit that pressures and eventually injures knees is letting your body weight sag inward on your knees and the arches of your feet. The result is an increased inward angle of your leg at the knee.  Knock-kneed position is often a posture that you can control, using leg muscles to hold knees in position.

Letting ankles and knees sway inward is a bad habit that damages knees.
It is not a "condition," it is something you can control using your own muscles
to hold your ankles and knees straight.

Letting your weight fall inward on your knee joint, instead of holding your weight up on your leg muscles strains and wears the cartilage on the side of the knee, and stresses the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Stretched ligaments don't hold your bones in line, allowing them to rub and grind at unhealthy angles. Letting knees sway inward also interferes with normal thigh muscle use and how your kneecap moves when you walk. When you let your weight slump on your knee joints instead of using your thigh muscles, the kneecap can start to move slightly sideways instead of up and down each time you move your knee to walk. This rubs the cartilage on the inside of your kneecap. The friction can eventually break down and wear away the cartilage. This is called degenerative change.

Many people are told to accept the degeneration as aging, along with all the pain and disability that accompany it. They may be told they are flat-footed, or have a problem called pronation (which roughly means turning inward) or "knock-knees." But often, the cause is avoidable. Letting the foot and knee roll inward is easily corrected by using your leg muscles to hold your body weight, instead of letting body weight sag onto the joints of your ankle and knee. It is the same as not letting your shoulders round forward. It is simple standing straight.

Backman!™ is trademarked and copyright Dr Jolie Bookspan

Just like tires that are crooked, knees that tilt inward will wear out too soon.
The cure for tire wear is not to stop driving (give up activity) or change the tire (wear orthotics or have surgery). It is simple to check why the tire is crooked and fix that.

Alignment work is the same for bad knee and foot posture. Learn how to hold your leg in healthy straight position by using your muscles, not just letting your weight sway and slump onto your knee joints.

Look in a mirror. See if your kneecaps face inward or your arches flatten downward. Notice if it from letting your body weight sag at the knee and/or flatten the arch of your foot. Straighten your stance by using leg muscles to lift your weight off your arch, gently, without rolling too far to the outside of the soles. Like any new habit it may feel strange at first. It should not hurt to stand straight. Don't force. Many people are given orthotics or told to never walk barefoot. This is usually unnecessary. Your own muscles can place you as correctly (or more) than using an artificial shim or orthotic. Practice correcting your own leg position until you can walk with healthy, straight, comfortable leg positioning that keeps weight on your leg muscles, not on the cartilage and joints of your knee.

Many people are told that turning ankles in and letting arches sag cannot be fixed or that if you try to hold straight you will cause harm. Think of a beginning skater. They let their ankles sag inward until they learn to hold their feet and ankles straight in healthy position. It is just practice in holding position, not something that cannot be changed. Another myth is that you need "supportive" shoes or boots to hold your ankles. You can hold your own position using your own muscles. By relying on a shoe, you can atrophy your muscles, making you less able to stabilize and balance. Sometimes the shoes hold you in wrong positions. All over the so-called third world, mountain guides walk the uneven paths in flip-flops.

 

Knee Pain Fix #2 – Check for Duck Feet

Walking with feet turned out can contribute to knee pain, tightness of the foot and leg, to hip and heel pain, and predisposes to bunion because you push off each step on the side of the big toe, pushing the toe inward. "Duck-foot" can result from letting weight fall inward, from tight Achilles tendon, tight side of the leg (ilio-tibial band or IT band), tight bottom of the foot (plantar fascia), even tight big toe (hallux rigidus) that doesn't bend and allow normal foot motion.

Turning out when you walk wears on the knees, just like tires that are crooked.
To fix tire wear, you don't stop driving or change the tires, and you don’t just keep driving that way.
You check why they are crooked and fix that. Alignment work is the same for bad knee and foot posture –
learn how to hold them straight by using your muscles, not just letting them sway and slump.

Find the source of your turned out position, sometimes nothing more than bad habit. Use your muscles to walk straight. This keeps body weight on your muscles and off the joints of the hip, ankles, foot, and knee. There are some who say that straightening bad ankle and knee posture will just cause pain in the hip. If you only turn feet in without correcting the source of the problem, the rest of the leg turns in with it, making more stress. There is no need for that. Keep your entire leg position healthy and there will be less pain, not more.

Knee Pain Fix #3 – How To Keep Knees From Hurting When Bending, Exercising, and On the Stairs

Many people don't "lift with the legs" to prevent back pain, because it hurts their knees. Bending knees properly should not hurt, but help heal and strengthen. A major cause of knee arthritis is weak thighs. Good bending will save your back and exercise your legs in healthy ways at the same time:

Healthy squatting for daily life strengthens legs, hips, and knees. Bad squatting can hurt. It is no mystery. Instead of thinking of squats as an exercise to "do" 10 times, use it for real life. Real built in exercise, both back AND knee pain prevention, and knee strengthening.

Bad bending, with knees forward, shifts weight to the knees	Good bending with knees back and heels down puts weight on your muscles, and off your knees. It's good exercise, and healthy for your back and knees.

How to bend using a half-squat:

• Bend both knees with both heels down on the floor. Don't let your heels come up when squatting.
• Keep both knees far enough back when you bend that you can see your toes.

  Check if you bend by letting your knees come forward. Body weight is shifted to the knee joint. Instead, whenever you bend or lift, even to pick up a towel, keep heels down and knees back, over the ankle. Shift your weight to the heel, off the toes. Feel the difference in thigh and hip muscle use. Done right, pressure should disappear from the knee. Don't let your back arch; keep hip slightly tucked. Use a mirror to practice healthy knee position. Or put the front of your knees against a bench or other object to train yourself to keep them from slouching forward.

  Avoid a lot of squatting on the balls of your feet (heels up). Toe-squatting shifts your weight forward onto your knee joint. Instead, to sit or crouch in a full squat to rest, to do chores, or to go to the bathroom in the woods (or wherever else there is no "sit-down" toilet as in much of the world) keep your heels down on the floor. Heel down squatting is a customary sitting posture in much of the world. This reduces pressure on the knees and is a great stretch for your Achilles tendon. Keep knees and feet facing the same direction so the knee does not twist. Keep your knees over your feet, not drooping inward.

  Go up and down gently, a small amount at first. Done properly, it should feel like exercise for the thighs and hips, not pain in the knees. If you do squats in a gym, don't prop up your heels or stand on your toes. Stand flat on your whole foot, rocking weight back more to the heel.

 

Another healthy way to bend for things during real daily life is the lunge, with one leg in front and one in back. With healthy knee position you can bend without knee pain and have a daily habit that strengthens knees rather than hurt them. Keep the front knee over the ankle, with your body weight toward your heel, not sliding forward to the front of your foot. Shifting forward transfers your body weight through your knee joint, instead of keeping it on your leg muscles.

Bend properly using the lunge for all the many dozens of times you bend to reach things every day.
Keep front knee back toward the ankle (left) not forward (right).

Using the lunge strengthens legs, hip, and knees. Keep your body weight evenly between the front and back leg. Bend both knees to dip straight down, and up again, gently.Use good bending, shown in the left hand drawing above. Done properly, it should feel like exercise for the thighs and hips, not pain in the knees. Instead of thinking of lunges as an exercise to "do" 10 times, just use it for real life. Real, built-in exercise, back and knee pain prevention, and knee strengthening. Imagine how many times you bend for everything during a real day. Imagine doing that many bends in damaging ways. No wonder things hurt. Now bend right and get real exercise and pain prevention. No gyms, therapy, or pills needed.

When going up stairs, keep your weight back toward the heel of the foot that is stepping up. Most people don't step this way because their leg muscles are too weak. They throw their weight forward, stepping up onto the toe. This transmits body weight onto the knee joint in a vicious cycle of weakness and pain. Keep weight back and knee pain will disappear.

Retrain your bending habits to help your back and knees at the same time, and give you free leg exercise too. You can become more mobile and strong while reducing your knee pain, by using your muscles instead of throwing your body weight on your knee joint.

 

Knee Pain Fix #4 – Your Own Body's Shock Absorption

Do you walk, run, exercise, jump, and step heavily, letting each foot flop down without muscle use to decelerate? Shock transmits to the joints of your ankle, knee, hip, back and neck, and can strain your calf muscle and Achilles tendon.

Instead, when going down steps or a hill, for example, use muscles to step down lightly. Use the leg still on the upper step to decelerate. Instead of just falling onto the lower step, keep weight on the upper leg to lower yourself lightly, then add shock absorption from the leg that steps down. Bend the knee and use thigh muscles as you touch the ground. You will get free leg exercise, burn more calories, and reduce shock and wear on the knee.

Use the same principles for normal walking and running. Use it for exercise classes using a step bench or balance platform. It's no mystery when people hurt "even though they are doing their exercises" when they are slouching, flopping, slamming, and straining knees and Achilles tendons, and calling that an exercise class.

 

Knee Pain Fix #5 – Don't "Lock-out" the Joint with Hyperextension

Some people stand and move while "locking" the knee out straight, even pressing it backward. This posture is sometimes called "splay-legs," or "splayed knee" and makes the leg look more crescent-shaped than straight. It puts body weight onto the joint while pressing the joint slightly out of place, putting damaging forces on the cartilage. Many people push their knees into hyperextension when standing and walking. Others "bang" the joint into straight position in exercise and aerobic boxing classes. This locked out position is sometimes taught in yoga and dance classes. It is unnecessary and injurious over the long run. Pain is commonly felt after long sitting or upon waking. Instead, stand and move without locking the joint straight.

"Locking" the knee out straight, or pushing it back in hyperextension damages the joint.
Stand, walk, and move without banging the joint straight.

 

 

 

Knee Pain Fix #6 - Good Range of Motion Without Twisting

Your knee joint is shaped to bend and straighten. Unlike your shoulder or hip it is not supposed to "swivel" or twist much. Check and see if you twist your knees without knowing it. One common way to twist your knee is to plant your foot, then turn your body in a different direction without also moving the foot. People often do this going down stairs where the stairs turn. Or when changing direction in sports and running. Some people even do this walking and running, by stepping down, then letting the heel swing to the side while the foot stays planted on the ground.

Twisting can wear away at the cushiony cartilage in your knee, called the meniscus. You can strain or tear your meniscus (and cruciate ligaments) suddenly from a big twist, or gradually by letting your weight fall inward, or by moving with your feet and knees pointing in different directions. The leg bones twist, step after step, day after day, year after year.

People often injure their knee by twisting deliberately, doing common but bad stretches. They are stretching, but it is not a healthy or needed stretch. Twisting stretches the ligaments that hold the knee together. Overstretched ligaments can make the joint unstable, allowing the bones to rub and grind. That hurts and also slowly injures the joint.

Your knee joint is not shaped to bend and twist to the side at the same time.
That can overstretch the joint and make it too loose, so that it rubs and wears out sooner than it should.

 

 

Knee Pain Fix #7 - Ilio-tibial Band or "I.T. Band"

Your I.T. band is a fibrous band that attaches from the side of your hip (your ilium, which is the top of your hip bone) to the side of your knee (tibia bone). That's why it's called "ilio-tibial." Tight I.T. bands can yank on the side of your knee, leading to knee pain, and even change the way you walk. When a tight band pulls and rotates your leg to the outside, it can add to walking "duck-footed" with your feet and legs turned out instead of facing straight forward, which leads to other pain and problems.

A commonly taught stretch for your I.T. band is done standing sideways at arms-length from a wall, crossing the opposite leg in front of the leg nearest the wall and leaning toward the wall. A more effective stretch is done lying down: Lie face up on a floor or bed, or wherever you're comfortable and flat, with legs wide. Cross one ankle on top of the other with both legs far to one side. Keep both legs straight and make sure you lie flat with both hips touching the floor. Hold for a comfortable stretch - at least for a few breaths - then switch sides.

The most common IT band stretch is the standing stretch (left) but a more effective stretch is done lying down (right).
A properly done IT stretch will feel good and help your knee, hip, and other things

 

 

Knee Pain Fix #8 - Stop Bad Shoes and Medicines That Cause Pain

Hard, "supportive" shoes are a frequent cause of knee pain, documented in studies to contribute to knee and lower limb arthritis. No need for shoe "straight jackets." Soft, flexible shoes that let your feet breathe and stretch when walking are healthier for your feet, knees, and hip. Expensive, engineered shoes are not needed, and may even be causing your pain. Your own muscles can be the support needed, as explained above. When some people hear that engineered shoes are bad, they automatically assume the opposite must be true - that no shoes have to be automatically health. Going barefoot will not automatically make you walk and run well. If you run and walk badly barefoot, you can still hurt. Make sure your feet get air and light every day for health, and you use good and healthful lower limb mechanics and habits so that you can go barefoot in healthy ways when you want to.

Many medicines are known to cause body aches - statin drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, cholesterol drugs, stomach acid drugs, and more. Stop the causes of poor health instead of taking medicines that cause new problems. If your diet is poor so you take cholesterol and heart medicines, it is likely your diet is too poor for you to feel good or be healthy. Use my free web site DrBookspan.com for many articles on getting healthy again, come take classes, plus almost 800 articles on my Fitness Fixer™ Index.

Vitamin D is needed for pain free living. Better than taking pills and vitamins, get active again in healthy ways out in the sunshine.

 

 

Knee Pain Fix #9 - Knee Pain That Does Not Come From Your Knee - And Why Some People Are Told Stretching Fixes Knee Pain

Your quadriceps muscles are attached around your knee. Sometimes, people have tight thigh muscles (quadriceps). When these tight people try to lunge, or stretch their quadriceps, or do activities that need to lengthen the quadriceps like running, the tight muscles pull and yank instead of stretch on the place where they attach - around the knee. People are given stretches in rehab or PT and told that stretching fixes knee pain. They never really had knee pain - there was nothing wrong with their knee, so it is a of misleading idea. These same people will often not use the lunge to bend properly because they think it is hurting their knee. It may be that the tight quads were the problem, and lunging (gently and not so hard that it yanks the tight muscles) is what they needed.

 

Knee Pain Fix #10 - Not All Pain is Orthopedic

Pain From Your Medicines: Common prescription and non-prescription medicines cause much musculo-skeletal pain. The pain is not a rare effect as previously thought. Are you on medicines for lowering cholesterol? Sleeping medicines? Drugs for depression and anxiety? Irritable bowel drugs, stomach acid drugs (a large contributor to osteoporosis and thinning bones, too) drugs to concentrate, to help wake up, to calm you, for allergies. Increasingly, drugs are found to make more pain as side effect, even drugs you are taking for pain. Trying to stop them causes rebound and withdrawal pain - good for drug companies to keep you on them, but bad for you and your health.

Stretches and exercises do not fix this kind of pain. In a worsening cycle, side effects are "treated" with yet more drugs with effects that lessen and degrade your health. That is not "side effects" and that is not health care. Many of these drugs are not needed. Some, like stomach acid drugs, cause the problem in the first place. Others have even more serious consequences.

A top health priority is to stop the need for these drugs so that you can lessen, then stop the need to take them. If you are in pain, so don't exercise, then get cholesterol and other health problems from not moving, can't sleep, then take cholesterol and sleeping medicines that cause dependence and more pain, use the healthy principles in my free summary articles and all my books so that you can move again, and be healthfully tired at the end of the day and sleep well at night. Not exercise is good medicine. Healthy exercise as healthy medicine will stop the pain and need for medicines that cause more problems.

When you reach for anti-inflammatory medicines and pills (even foods) remember that most knee pain and other pain from bad habits is not inflammatory in nature, and may be why all those pills aren't working. Change the bad habits that are the cause. Reduce inflammatory foods for all the conditions with inflammatory components like heart disease. Unhealthful fad diets are increasingly recognized for joint and muscle pain effects, specifically Atkins and other low carbohydrate diets that restrict fruit rather than junk sugar. People will stick to these diets no matter how unhealthy; they'd rather lose weight through a fad diet than through healthier ways (low carbohydrate diets reduce water in your muscles - water weight loss - making muscles susceptible to pain, weakness, cramping, and other health troubles).

Pain from Orthotics. An extremely common scenario is someone who goes to the doctor with a little pain from bad or foot knee mechanics. They are prescribed foot orthotics, which a rigid molds mistakenly believed to "hold" the foot in proper position. However, consider this - orthotics are molded sitting or lying down, not when the person is standing where they need it and when foot position changes. Or the orthotic is "custom shaped to the person's foot" which was in the wrong position to begin with. Often the orthotics are rigid and hard, which would cause pain in any case. The person get new pain in the leg, hip, which can increase to numbness, then they are told to further reduce activity and pay for PT or give up and live with pain. Forcing an arch to change, especially over a rigid painful device isn't healthy or correct. A moderately low or high arch may be perfectly healthy with no "support" needed except what you can do yourself using your own muscles. Orthotics are usually  not needed in the first place. You can hold your feet and knees in healthy position.

More on medicines, orthotics, and other causes of pain is in the books and eBooks. 

 

Body Weight and Knee Pain

Some people are told they have knee pain because they are overweight. When I check them, I often find they stand, bend, and walk with weight poorly distributed on the joint. When we change that, the pain diminishes. I have seen patients, some greatly overweight, who say that retraining gait and stance stopped their knee pain, so that they can go out and walk and exercise for the first time. People who are not overweight, but walk with poor mechanics, poor positioning, or poor shock absorption can put more weight on their knee joint than a heavier person who walks in a healthy manner.

 

Why Common Knee Exercises Don't Help Knee Pain

Like weight loss alone, strengthening alone doesn't fix knee pain that comes from poor mechanics. Plenty of muscular people have pain. They may do knee exercises, but although movement is needed for health, strengthening is not what changes leg posture or bad walking and moving habits. Many people are not strong enough to bend properly, so they bend with weight on their joints instead of their muscles.

The best exercise is functional - how you bend and move all day in real life, not doing sets and reps of artificial knee exercises then going back to the other 24 hours a day of injurious movement mechanics. Bend properly for all the many dozens of times you bend for things every day. Use the squat and lunge described in #3 above to strengthen while you retrain healthy ways to move for all your regular life activities. It will strengthen and retrain your knees, save your back, and give you free, built-in, real life (functional) exercise all day.

Letting your knees, hip, and ankle joints to sag under your weight instead of using supporting muscles to stand in healthy position loses the benefit of any rehab exercise, and slowly wears joints. Keep knees in healthy positioning during walking, standing, lifting, and moving for better healthier, exercise. You'll get exercise and free knee rehab without going to the gym.

 

 

How Long Does It Take To Stop Knee Pain?

If your pain comes from mal-positioning your knees, hips, ankles, and legs, you should feel the pain stop or lessen when you reposition to healthier ways. If you're not feeling better right away, check what you are doing compared to what is presented above. Are you over compensating? Are you pushing too hard the other way? Are you walking heavily instead of lightly? Are you tightening or clenching any muscles? Are you doing bad exercises that lean on or twist the knees? Are you going back to bad movement habits during the day? Check my free article on Bad Exercises, this one on bad stretches, and this one showing better health and understanding what abdominal muscles really do with The Ab Revolution. All show better movement that helps the whole body including knees. Make sure there is not something else contributing to your pain.

 

Some Research on the Topic

Some of my work in this area is summarized in my Lower Body Revolution Class Syllabus.

 

For SMARTER PROGRESS Fixing Your Knee Pain and Keeping it Away:

• All methods here are intended to decrease pain and improve function starting as soon as you begin using them.
• Each technique should make an obvious positive change right then. If it does not make sense or help, you may not be applying it as intended (you are doing it wrong).
• Do not do anything that makes more or new pain. Don't fix one pain and cause another (that's traditional medicine, not this method).
• Understand each thing presented and why it is done - before using it.

 

Putting It All Together
For healthy knees during all movement activities:

• Knee pain can stop and knee injuries can heal, if you let them, through good body mechanics (ergonomics, healthy movement, etc.). Studies show that components of knee cartilage increase in volume with exercise. Doing knee exercises alone won't make sure you use your knees in healthy ways. bad mechanics can wear at knees and cause pain. Keep knee cartilage, joint, and soft tissue healthy with healthy movement habits.
• Keep knees and feet facing forward when walking and running, not tilted in or out. Keep the whole leg lined up, don't just yank one segment straight, straining the rest.
• Keep body weight distributed over the sole of your foot, not pressing downward and inward to flatten your arches.
• When stepping up stairs or an incline, put your whole foot down, not just toes. Press through your heel and keep your knee back more over the heel than forward toward your toes. Then your thigh and hip muscles lift you, not just your knee joint.
• When stepping down stairs, step toe first, bend your knee gently when making contact with each next step and lightly on contact for shock absorption. Don't clomp down with a straight knee.
• When stepping down each stair or step, step down lightly keeping your weight supported on the leg on the upper (higher) step. Notice if you let your weight crash down unsupported with each step. Change to using your muscles instead. Better mechanics and better exercise.
• Walk, run, jump, and land lightly with shock absorption, instead of stomping. It's better for balance too.
• To walk and run lightly, maintain normal heel to toe roll. Stepping lightly doesn't mean walking only on your toes.
• Watch other people’s gait and movement habits. It helps remind you to avoid unhealthy habits - knees swaying inward unsupported by muscles, feet and knees twisting in opposite directions with each step, stomping without shock absorption. People may move that way because it's easier than using muscular effort, but it is not healthy.
• Notice injurious knee positioning for "fitness and health" moves in fitness magazines
• Notice your own habits.
• Check if you take medicines that cause pain. Many commonly prescribed medicines have joint and muscle pain as effects. Do not take this lightly, or just assume you can take more drugs to suppress the new symptoms. This is unhealthy, and often leads to a cascade of unhealthy new side effects and expensive pills and medicalization. Multiple prescriptions are a large and serious health and economic situation. Stop the need for these medicines through healthier habits, rather than harming your health more through more medicines and their unhealthful effects.
• Check for other causes of pain - infection, Lyme disease, medical conditions, and so on,
• Use principles learned to identify and eliminate the cause of your own pain.
• Don't "do knee exercises" 10 times then go back to harmful use and positioning habits that cause the pain. Fitness as a lifestyle means the healthy ways you move all day.
• Do send me photos and success stories showing the principles in action. Prizes for best ones.
• Please do not e-mail saying you are "doing the exercises 10 times" and want me to tell you how to fix your knee pain when you bend, and from bad walking and running. Here is the answer now: If you stop hurting your knees with bad bending and bad movement and standing habits, and bad exercises, then a major source of pain will stop. It is not the exercises that fix things, it's you.

Start feeling better right now and get your life back. Don't wait.

 

He had no legs that practised not his gait;
– LADY PERCY. In William Shakespeare's KING HENRY IV, PART II

 

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