Knee pain is one of the most common complaints in any sports injury clinic let alone a running clinic. But its rarely ever the knee’s fault when they get sore.
Usually its the foot or the hip that places increased strain on the tissues around the knee which become irritated and inflamed.
Treating the symptoms may be needed in the short term but long term the underlying cause has to addressed. if any real progress is to be made.
One major cause of knee pain is the Knee Valgus force placed on the knee. Knee valgus is simply the action of the knee collapsing inwards when you squat or when you land i.e. when you put your weight on that leg.
It is mostly associated with excess movement at the hip and poor glute medius strength but as we can see in the picture below collapsing the foot (over pronation) can also cause or make knee valgus forces worse
Once the true cause of the knee valgus motion is diagnosed then its the cause that needs to be addresses. If we can rule out the foot as the cause a great place to start treatment at the hip is to increase the anti rotation strength at the hip and pelvis area.
The 3 exercises below can be used to start this though it is also worth noting correct movement training might also be needed to erase the bad habits causing the knee pain.
To begin try 2 sets of 4 – 6 reps of each exercise during your strength sessions