Could Changing The Way You Walk Help Get Rid Of Pain In Your Replaced Knee?

Could changing the way you walk help get rid of pain in your replaced knee joints. Many who have had a knee replacement have knee pain during walking even though it’s been months or even years since finishing the rehabilitation after having a knee replacement.

One of the main reasons for having knee pain during walking is because your walking form is wrong. And no one has ever told you. In this video, I’ll be giving you three ways to improve your walking technique so that you can decrease the knee pain while you walk.

Tip number one is use your glutes chances are that you have not been coached to use your glutes correctly during walking. So I’m going to show you exactly how this is supposed to look.

So if you look at me from the side view, whenever I go to plant a foot down like that, and I’m putting my weight through my right foot, my weights off my left leg just a little bit for balance.

The glute on that right leg should tighten up a bit not 100%, but some maybe like 25 to 50% tighten up that glute muscle, then as you progress to step onto your other leg and you put weight onto that left foot.

Now the left glute should tighten up a bit 25 to 50% while this side relaxes. And this is how you should be walking alternating, tightening up your glute. So every time you take a step, you should feel like you’re leaning on the one foot tightening up the glute there than leaning on the other foot and tightening up the glute there.

Now this is how we should be walking all the time, whether you’ve had a knee replacement or not. But the problem is if you’re not doing this walking form, then you’re going to be substituting with other muscles in order to progress your body forward. And over time that muscle substitution begins to create problems usually pain in the knee.

The second tip is using your foot muscles actually along with the glutes. Let me just show you on my hand before I show you my foot. When you take a step, Your toes should curl down just a bit, not curl under your foot. But they should come down enough to where your toenails will blend slightly.

Like when you put pressure on your fingertips, the tips of your nails and your fingers here the skin turns white, that’s called blanching. The same thing happens on the tips of your toes when you put slight pressure through them.

When you go to plant down your foot and you put weight through that foot, your toes should slightly grab the ground of course inside your shoe, or if you’re barefoot on the floor, so that you can use your foot muscles to support your knee joint from the foot and ankle up into the into the knee.

Let me show you what this looks like. Every time you go to stand onto that foot and you plant it down your toes should slightly grab the ground and not so hard that it’s hurting your foot hurting your toes, it should just feel like you’re pushing down a bit as you plant your foot and then of course, engage the glute.

And then you doing the same thing with the other side. And every time you go to grab every time you go to step you should be grabbing the ground slightly with your foot and you’ll feel the muscles in your arch here in the bottom of your foot work. You may even feel some of the muscles in your calf work.

When you grab your toes like that. It helps to create a better arch in your foot so that it supports your shin bone, which puts your knee joint in proper alignment. If you’re not using your foot muscles, then your arch is more likely to collapse which is going to make your knee joint want to collapse inwards and put bad pressures through your knee joint.

And this is what can feed into knee pain. If your knee collapses inwards, every time you’re taking a step to walk every time you take a step if your knee is moving inappropriately, you’re stressing the joint, you’re stressing the tissues that the tendons or ligaments where the bone interfaces with the implant that was surgically installed.

All of that can be negatively affected if you’re not supporting your knee joint properly by giving good support from the foot and from the glute. Number three is to line up your kneecap with your second toe.

The reason for this is because when the surgeon installs the parts in your knee the replacement parts, they usually will line up the parts so that when you bend your knee in lines up with your second toe, let me show you what I mean. When you bend your knee like this, your knee should bend right over your second toe.

And if you tend to step with your foot inwards like this or too far outwards, and your knee is not lining up with that second toe, then you’re going to create some bad forces inside your knee joint. So the best thing to do is to default over the second toe.

Now if you’re worried that your surgeon maybe aligns you any differently, you can talk to them about it, ask them have them examine you and give you feedback on if it’s first toe better or third toe but probably 95 I would even venture to say 99% of the time. They’re trying to align your knee joint with your second toe.

Make sure that to point your toes directly forward so that when you take a step you got to bend your knee, then you’re lining up with that second toe, you’re setting yourself up to take the best step possible mechanically, for your knee, ankle, foot and even into your hip.

Many people have a habit of stepping with their foot inwards, because they have weak glute muscles and not enough support from the arches of their foot. So thinking about lining up your foot straightforward, so that kneecap lines up over your second toe helps tremendously to normalize the pressures inside your knee joints.

Now if you’re looking for more help with chronic pain in your knee after having had a knee replacement, if you suspect that you might be getting a failed knee replacement, then I have a program for you called the Failed Knee Replacement Recovery Program. There’s a link for it in the description below.

Go check that out so you can learn more about the program. I’ve also got a playlist of all our failed knee replacement videos, videos to help with people that are having pain after knee replacement. Link’s down in the description too. Hey, share this with somebody you think needs to see this video.

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