Knee Valgus Rehab in NYC
A lot times, I’ll see at the gym a lot of people, as they’re at the bottom of a squat, as they come up, their knees will fall inward. A couple of studies have suggested it’s over-activation, and the ad doctors with lack of mobility in the ankles. So the inner thigh muscles activate too much and there’s lack of mobility in the ankle. The reason this is concerning is there is some evidence or some thought to the fact that people who have a valgus collapse with jumping activities. And if you squat and you valgus collapse, there’s a really good chance during your jumping activities you’ve secured or got the same horrible motor pattern going. And if you have a valgus collapse, you’re more likely to have injuries to the knee such as the ACL. There are some studies that refute that, but most say that it is more likely. Keep in mind, ACL injuries are pretty significant recovery.
There’s a lot of recovery time for post-surgical care, and most people, as much as 50% of the people who had post-ACL reconstructive surgery reported early osteoarthritis development from the surgery and the injury as early as their 20’s. It’s also important to understand that 70% of ACL injuries are non contact injuries. So that would suggest that a plant and turn or a landing position and pushing off is the main reason a person would have an ACL injury. So how do you prevent this?
Well, going back to what they found with the increased activity with the adductors and lack of mobility of the ankles, the first thing you wanna do is make sure that your ankle mobility is better. The ability to dorsal reflect or bring your toes up toward your knees better would be more important. So that’s things like stretching out the calf muscles, and then in both the leg straitened legs bent position. And keep in mind the leg bent position is important way to increase ankle mobility too, because you’ll be stretching out the soleus as the deeper muscle in the calf group that needs to be more pliable so that you have better ankle flexion when you’re bending your knee. If you just try to stretch your calf out in a leg locked position, you’re not hitting all the muscle groups. And that could create problems of ankle mobility as you flex and squat downward.
Another thing is to work on increasing strength of the upper glute muscles so that when you’re on the bottom of a squat or a jump, that as you drive up, those muscles will engage and hold the legs out instead of collapsing inward. A good way to check your athletes at home, your kids, if you don’t want them squatting yet is to have them do a box drop. You take a 24 inch box, and you just have them fall off the box or step off the box, land on two feet, and drive upward. You wanna see how they absorb the fall. If their knees fall inward, it’s a good indication that they will have that motor pattern that makes their knees come in or collapse. And the exercises that I just mentioned and the mobility would be a good idea to start incorporating. As sports come to the spring season, now would be a good time over the next several months to help develop that strength and motor pattern to avoid those injuries. If you have any injuries or any questions about rehab for knee injury, please give us a call.
