Dodgy knees

[NevereverrunB4]

After suffering some knee pain during last nights W2R2 I followed the advice from another post and did the knee strengthening exercises recommended with this programme. My leg muscles must be almost non existent! During all the exercises my legs were wobbling and the muscles shaking, the sweat was pouring off me too 😳

Has anyone else experienced this?

[mrrun Graduate]

Well, you must have run as a child but clearly not since, hence the current experience common to many. There are essays written about it but, simply, all you need to do is get good shoes through gait analysis with insoles (if needed), work on your muscles during resting days (leg exercises through squats, then planks for your core, loads of stretching), hydrate well, eat sensibly, rest up and run as slowly as you humanely can. That's pretty much it. Do you think all that will be easy? Absolutely no way. You will suffer at times. But do you think that progress will be made? If you persevere then absolutely yes. My first series of runs were so laboured that if had been a horse in that condition somebody would have probably put me out of my misery but what do you know, some years later l completed a marathon. Things do happen if you want them to happen and work on it. Just go for it!

[NevereverrunB4 Graduate in reply to mrrun]

Thanks! I’ll keep at it.

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

Well done you... this is all new for your body and will take time to adjust to

Just expect normal aches and pains and do try to keep up those leg exercises.

Pop across to Strength and Flex where there are great ideas for strength and stamina work, which is essential and exercises which will be useful on some of your rest days.

healthunlocked.com/strength.......

This is the knee link... and if you check out the pinned posts there is advice for all parts of your running body!

[Barmingmag Graduate]

Hi! I know what you mean.

I assume you mean these knee exercises nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/k... ? Very useful but I also found that I needed to pace myself with these too, as they were sometimes a stretch too and made me feel a bit wobbly. I was surprised how much of a stretch they felt initially.

I returned to running after a loooong break cos of dodgy knees from rugby days. I thought to return to running (which I don't really enjoy, tbh) to help strengthen my knees, rather than just cycling or rowing (machine) to avoid the impact on my knees.

For a while doing C25k, I began to put ice on my right knee after returning from a run and also use a knee brace (which I found better to use for some hours after the run, not during the run). The knee exercises also, I think, need you to build up to doing them fully and effectively. Some days I just did one or two reps, if my body felt that was enough.

I "finished" C25k a couple of weeks ago. On returning to doing a bit more cycling and rowing, I realised that I had strengthen one area but weakened another. My body (at the time of following the C25k programme) didn't have the bandwidth to do much of anything but the C25k programme (I've posted previously about "overdoing it").

I am now on more of a mixed exercise economy. Running 1-2 days per week, rowing 1-2 days per week, cycling 1-2 days per week, doing about 4 days of good 30 min exercise a week, with some reasonable walking on other days. In terms of managing impact on my dodgy right knee (which is improving but still needs tlc after all these years), I have found running (with some knee exercises), then next day rowing (some knee exercises), next day cycling (with full knee exercises), back to running seems to be a reasonable rotation at this point. I will continue to monitor and amend as I feel strength and stamina changing.

So, take heart. It is often about learning about your body and keeping a focus on pacing yourself. One of my biggest takeaways from this all the excellent people on this forum is "find your pace". Hope this helps.

[NevereverrunB4 Graduate in reply to Barmingmag]

Thank you!

Yes, it really has surprised me how much I’ve struggled with the knee exercises but I’m persevering.

I used to do a lot of cycling too as I found it easy on the knees but I also want to strengthen my knees and legs. There is a history of osteoporosis in my family and I’m hoping doing some more high impact exercise will help me.

I ran yesterday and made a real effort to run more slowly. I didn’t experience knee pain during the run just some stiffness and aches afterwards as you would expect.

I’m looking forward to finding my pace and fitting more varied exercise in to my life! 😊