Everything You Know About Knee Therapy Is Wrong

A few years ago there was an article written in Men’s Health Magazine titled “Everything You Know About Muscle Is Wrong.” by Christopher McDougall

The article talks in detail about what scientists have discovered as being the secret to healing long time sports injuries, improving posture, and building a stronger, faster more athletic body is actually hidden within you.

What essentially they are talking about is the patterns that develop in the connective tissue of the body. Just think of the ruts in an old dirt road that no matter how you try to drive your tires still end up in the ruts…

Connective tissue also know as fascia surrounds our muscles, organs and bones. This connective tissue or fascia is what needs to begin to change in order for knee therapy to be permanent and long lasting. So back to the comparison of the ruts in the dirt road, if the ruts are not smoothed out you are always going to fall back into the old patterns in your body.

So what does this article have to do with your knee pain and how does it tie into your knee therapy?

Well I’m glad you asked!

The patterns your body takes on as a result of a long time period of stress, trauma or injury are functional patterns for the stress, trauma, or injury however these same patterns become dysfunctional when they continue to present problems for your body resulting in chronic knee pain.

The key is to begin doing your knee therapy exercises slowly and with conscious awareness. The more awareness you bring to the table the more your mind is able to connect with that part of your body, namely your knees and begins to re-pattern the dysfunctional tension patterns in your body reducing the pressure going to your knees.

One drawback on the article is it only covers how to actively re-pattern these dysfunctional tension patterns through modalities of body work like Rolfing and Feldenkrais. At the end of the article they also talk about how doing this yourself can take a very long time…

This is partially true however there is a much easier and much quicker form of knee therapy I refer to as “passive stretching” that I cover in my Virtual Knee Pain Clinic. This approach works with the tension in the nervous system that builds up as a result of the body tensing up to protect itself. By teaching our body to understand what comfort is you avoid the entire tension mechanism and allow your body to “reset” itself.

When your nervous system is reset…It is much easier to go in and do the slow controlled knee therapy exercises that hold longer with better faster results…