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Physiotherapy strengthening exercises are not the right solution for a knee injury if its main cause is biomechanic overload.
Biomechanic overload of the knee means that there is excessive stress on its musculoskeletal structures such as muscles and tendons. In this case, doing physio-strengthening exercises is counterproductive and can activate a vicious circle of chronic inflammation of the knee.
Generally, knee injury from biomechanic overload occurs when the quad or hamstring muscles of the related knee are overdeveloped in confront of the other leg or when there is a general overuse of that group of muscles.
The best physiotherapy for a knee injury or knee pain where the main cause is overuse or overdeveloped muscles is that one using a combination of different physiotherapy techniques such as:
The most important goals of hands-on physiotherapy are:
The main goals of physiotherapy machines are:
The main goals of physiotherapy stretching exercises are:
In our sports injury clinic, when we treat a knee injury, we include into the rehabilitation protocol sports therapy too.
Sports therapy for knee pain such as a sports massage, can be beneficial for knee injury rehabilitation in many ways.
A deep tissue sports massage can have many benefits to knee pain such as:
The easiest way to understand if a knee injury or knee pain comes from overuse or weakness is through an anthropometric assessment of the musculoskeletal structures of the knee.
The simplest anthropometric measurement is the quad’s circumference. It is easy to measure with a body measuring tape.
We have to measure both quad circumferences to check if the thigh affected by the injury is bigger or smaller.
If the quad affected by the injury is bigger than the other one, it would be likely that the main cause of the injury or pain comes from biomechanical overload.
If the quad affected by the knee injury is smaller than the other one, is likely that the main cause of the injury is the weakness of the muscles involved with the knee biomechanics.
But be aware, even if the underlying cause of the knee injury is weakness, we advise do not to start as the first step of the rehabilitation protocol with strengthening exercise. The weakness condition of the musculoskeletal structures of the knee creates a condition of overuse even if only for the weaker leg and knee. In this case, knee pain or injury occurs because the weaker leg is not able to sustain the same load as the stronger leg.
In our sports injury clinic, we use a more advanced high-tech postural assessment for knee injury through a gait analysis system.
This type of assessment, through a 3D foot pressure scan, allows us to gather dozens of analytical data about the patient’s body posture and gait parameters.Â
These data are very important to understanding the underlying causes of knee injury related to bad body posture or bad gait technique.
If the patient is a runner, we advise our specific service of running analysis for knee injury because we can find out the underlying causes of knee injury by analyzing the running technique and body posture.
Even if the knee injury or knee pain is caused by muscle weakness, we do not advise starting the physiotherapy rehabilitation protocol with strengthening exercises.
The knee injury and or knee pain has been caused by a condition of overuse or overload even if only for the weaker leg.
It creates an initial status of knee inflammation and starting with physiotherapy strengthening exercises can aggravate the inflammatory process.
So we advise you to plan the physio strengthening exercise as the last step of the rehabilitation process.
In our sports injury clinic, we follow this physiotherapy protocol for a knee injury caused by muscle weakness:
