Good Ole knee injury

[sin_goodfellow]

Knuckledraggers,


I guess as an athlete it's bound to happen eventually. I believe the event that triggered my current knee problem was the 10 mile beach run I participated in recently. I thought it was all healed up, but I had not engaged in any sort of similar running until my jog tonight, where I ran a few laps and it sprang back into existence with a painful hello.

I'm 6' 2", 205 pds, I've never had any pain in my knees that lasted more than a few minutes until this incident. The pain is localized around my left knee, on the outward facing side. It's a sharpish pain, not debilitating but definitely present. It doesn't hurt when i'm just walking around, though i've felt a twinge after morning practice when walking down this certain hill. It feels like it's a muscle or tendon that stretches along that side of my knee.

I have access to Body Flow, a gym with free weights and plenty of varied terrain for running/walking. I'm very interested in any advice as the healthy functioning of my knees is critical for crew performance.

Respectfully,
Jesse Wells

[cobb]

Jesse:

While our usual "it's impossible to diagnose over the Internet" applies here too, it sounds as if you have a very typical strain type of injury. Generally speaking, after a good long sandy run, resultant knee pain of the type you describe is due to inflammation of the insertion points of the iliotibial band.

Best bets for fixing this are opposite leg foot and ankle mobilizations, same side hip and knee circles and infinities, plus some direct ITB stretching. Also, as you have body flow, you may want to just work some slow alternating shinboxes with stretching.

Obviously keep us informed of your progress...

Good luck,
Dr. C

[sin_goodfellow]

Dr. C,


Thank you for the response and advice. I will work on those exercises and apparently there is a sports doc on campus that will look at athletes, so hopefully I can get some hands on diagnosis. Unfortunately I am unsure of what an infinity is? I think my next athletic purchase will be warrior wellness tapes, but it will be a bit. :(

Respectfully,
Jesse Wells

[sin_goodfellow]

Well, I had a pretty good scare yesterday. I went to my appointment with the General Doc on campus and his diagnosis was a cruciate ligament injury. This was horrible news as that would generally require surgery to fix and I have no medical insurance. However, he stated that he was not an orthopedic specialist and referred me to the training room where specialists could look at it.

To my immense relief, they stated after looking me over for a good while, that it is most likely a ITB strain. They gave me some stretches to do and advised me not to run for a week or so. I am also trying to get some running shoes as the cross-training shoes I was using are apparently not acceptable.

I have been applying your advice as regards to the knee circles ect. My ego got me into this mess and hopefully the price paid will not be counted in years.

[Scott Sonnon]

My ego got me into this mess and hopefully the price paid will not be counted in years. This could be the institutional credo for people coming to CST.
Glad to hear that it's not a major injury yet. Keep us advised on your progress.