It is not uncommon for runners to suffer from knee pain. Complaints can occur in very different places of the knee joint. One of the possible causes of the pain on the inside of the knee (medial) can be a muscular imbalance in the foot and leg muscles. The experts Heidi Sessner and Silja Pfeiffer know how to remedy the situation.
As always, before training begins, you should warm up carefully. Begin the unit with the fascia roller and first work on the front of the thighs. Start in the prone position. Roll up and down along the muscle from kneecap to hip.
It continues with the lateral thigh muscles (tractus): Lie on your side, lie down on the roll with your thighs. Place the upper leg in front of the body and roll up and down lengthwise.
It continues with the MovementPrep. The aim is to mobilize the knee and hip joints and stretch the leg muscles.
Go into one leg stand. Grab your free leg with both hands below the knee, pull it towards your chest with both hands and straighten your upper body.
Stable arch of foot as the key to freedom from pain
The be-all and end-all for an optimal leg axis when running is a stable foot arch. The physiological leg axis is a straight line from the ankle over the knee to the hip. The cause of medial knee pain, i.e. the pain on the inside of the knee, is often a weak longitudinal arch of the foot and an insufficiency of the vastus medialis, the inner part of the front thigh muscle.
A foot arch that is too weak can lead to a deviation of the leg axis (knock-knee / bowleg). If the longitudinal arch of the foot is too weak, for example, the foot tilts inwards and causes the knee to be knock-kneed.
The vastus medialis ensures that the knee does not bend inwards during the standing leg phase. If this is too weak, the knee deviates inwards and the structures on the inside of the knee joint are overloaded. Pain in the knee can be the result.
First exercise: straightening / stabilization of the arch of the foot
Build arch of foot: Start sitting down and pay attention to the load on these three points: outside of heel, ball of little toe, ball of big toe
5-10 times, hold for 8-10 seconds
Second exercise: leg axis training with a stable arch
Start sitting down and, as in the previous exercise, make sure to build up tension in the arch of the foot in a stable manner. Now stand up slowly and then sit back down. Attention: keep the tension in the arch of the foot! Also make sure your knees are stable: There should be no evasive movements inwards or outwards!
Increase Variants:
- Bareback squat: Make sure you do the movement slowly and cleanly. Only squat as deep as you can maintain tension in the arch of your foot
- Arch stability control with resistance band: Clamp one end of the resistance band under the outside of the heel, the other under the big toe and hold the tension. If the band snaps upwards, the arch of the foot has not been correctly loaded.
Third Exercise: Vastus Medialis Strengthening with Theraband
Fasten the Thera-Band at the bottom (e.g. with a knot under the door). Stand to the side of the band. The leg to be trained is on the outside. Hold the Theraband with both hands. Go into the lunge: The front knee should be bent at a right angle and should be perpendicular to the ankle. Now pull the Theraband diagonally from the inside and bottom outwards and up. Attention: The front knee remains stable and does not deviate either inwards or outwards.
3 sets of 25-20 reps
Cool down:
- Stretching the anterior thigh muscles while lying on your side or standing
- Mobilization of the plantar fascia (sole of the foot) with the fascia ball/tennis ball
