With Runners’ Knee Pain there are various ways to look at it and try and help the runner.
So many times I see a young runner running with kinesio-tape or a knee strap. Young girls especially….
Now of course ideally we want to run pain-free because long term health and success as a runner depends on consistent training. If a runner needs to take a week or two or more off because the injury got too intense then of course there is no training happening.
So I understand why a coach or trainer would tape a runner up or put a strap on the knee. But here’s the thing, you wouldn’t just duct tape your race car if it had a problem… Of course not! You’d look to find the problem and fix it. Performance dictates finding and fixing the problem.
With runners I find the same principle applies. If a young runner is wearing a knee strap or using kinesio tape then something has gone wrong. Maybe the training load or intensity is too much for the young runner and more days off or less intensity would result in better performance.
Or maybe there is a biomechanical issue that needs to be handled and then the knee is not being injured with running.
I had 3 young runners recently who had knee pain with running. One hadn’t run in a couple. years despite surgery and rest and a lot of phsio and chiropractic care. Another one was struggling with pain and had given up his goals of competing because of knee pain and another had a recent 2 week history of knee pain.
The key is to find what is the root cause. And many times the cause is not where the problem is. In these cases the cause was in the pelvis and hip. There were limitation in motion at the hip and pelvic bones.
One of the 1° root cause can be the colon. Crazy as it may seem all of these runners had a similar cause. The Cecum or right side large colon had some disruptions in membrane wall integrity. We call this DOM’s and with a simple DOM integrative manual therapy technique the hip motion returned to full and the alignment in the leg and knee improved.
With right sided colon issues Gluten can be the culprit.
In the runner with a 2 year history of not being able to run and surgeries that didn’t fix up the problem, going gluten free resulted in his hip and pelvis remaining good and the knee pain clearing. He got back to running with a 100% gluten free diet!
With the other 2 runners they left my clinic with better biomechanics and a recommendation of going gluten free. I think they are both going for it.
Because to get your running back is so good. And when it can be a simple fix of going gluten free I say “Let’s Go!”
The cause of knee pain of course is not always gluten and the colon but in these 3 cases it was clear. Getting off gluten meant getting their running back.
Reach out to me if you want me to do a myofascial mapping assessment and we can find the root cause of your knee pain or other running injury.
Let’s get out there and run!
Ralph Havens PT IMTC
Beyond Limits Physical Therapy
Fairhaven – Bellingham, WA
www.RalphHavens.com
and email at Ralph@RalphHavens.com
360.599.2217
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