Weak at the knees? Cure chronic joint pain with these simple tips

Joint pain is a common clinical complaint from people of all ages. Non-contact joint pain could be the result of bad posture and here a few tips and tricks to help alleviate that pain.

Maintaining a structurally inline posture for your body is important - when engineers construct and build the huge sky scrapers in the city of Dubai, they would always make sure that each floor is stacked evenly onto on each other.

Scroll down for a step-by-step guide to relieving knee pain

But if the sky scrapers were built with floors that did not stack correctly, then the structures would lean to one side, which would make the base unstable. Eventually the building would collapse. Our bodies also require our joints to be stacked accurately, and the correct muscles must be used to support certain areas.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes

In short, our shoulders should stack above our hips; our legs should then stack above our knees and then our knees over the ankles.

If we don’t stack ourselves correctly, we will bend like a leaning sky scraper.

The main threat to good posture is the almost constant sitting position many people find themselves in. Over time, certain muscles in the body become overactive and shortened.

To help us achieve good posture, and as a result reduce joint pain, Myofascial release therapy is key for the overactive/shortened muscles which are tight and lack blood circulation.

Step-by-step

Here are a few tips on how to apply Myofascial release therapy to your thigh muscle, helping to alleviate pain in the knee.

1) Lie face down with your thigh on a PVC pipe, available at any hardware store.

2) Try to keep the thigh you not rolling on, out to the side

3) Bend your elbows at 90 degrees – they will be used for support throughout the exercise

4) Making sure to get the full spectrum of the of the thigh muscle, start to roll along the PVC pipe, beginning from the top of your thigh to just above your knee for 2-5 minutes

5) Be sure to NOT roll on the knee joint itself

6) Switch to the other leg and repeat the process

The Rectus Femoris muscle, or thigh muscle, inserts directly into the patellar tendon, or knee joint. Therefore, any shortening of the thigh muscle causes it to pull on the knee joint, leading to pain and discomfort. You can use a PVC pipe as illustrated above, or even a bar to roll out your muscle with your hands, as shown in the video below.

To ease constant knee pain, rolling out the thigh muscle must be worked into your weekly routine or even your daily routine if you can find the time.