Will insoles help with knee pain? (Read 182 times)

My Pilates instructor says that most problems below the waist are a result of a weak core. You're body ends up overcompensating to make up for it and results in injury. Its a pretty generic statement, some situations are a result of medical condition. Try a core strengthening program and see if that helps your knee.

RA user JRMichler also said this "Another cause of knee problems is weak hip flexor muscles. It has something to do with certain weak muscles causing your knee to wobble sideways.

The remedy is cross training or specific exercises to strengthen the weak muscles. Good cross training might be tennis or soccer, where you work your hip flexors."

I'm no expert, but I believe most pain from running or any exercise is a result of stressing your body more than you body can handle. Just because you can run hard doesn't mean your body is ready. You may feel you're not running hard but you body thinks so since you are feeling pain. Slow down or shorten your runs. It takes time to build strength.

I was in pain the first year of consistent running. I was too stubborn to listen to any advice. As a result,  I had pain during most of my runs and eventually got injuried. After several years of consistent running, I am pain free. I will push myself at time and start to feel aches. At that point, I ease back a little and gradually increase so my body adapts.

There are many different causes for knee pain.  The only one that matters is the one that is causing your knee pain.  Like somebody said, one of the common causes is some kind of imbalance.  Your kneecap is pulled in various directions by many different chains of muscles/tendons. Very often, the cure is to strengthen whichever muscle is too weak.  When the kneecap isn't being pulled out of whack, your knee will be much happier.  For me, strengthening my medial (inner) quads by doing leg extensions totally eliminated my (once debilitating) knee pain.

My opinion : insoles/orthotics may be the best solution in some cases, but if you can adress the problem by correcting a strength imbalance, that is much, much better.  So just keep in mind that in some cases, a little bit of strength training can work miracles.

What part of the knee hurts exactly?  As the other comments suggest it's usually an imbalance between different muscles groups.  With my patients I often emphasize core stabilization and have to have good hip/gluteal strength.  Weak hip muscles will result in poor pelvic stability and often lead to more stress on your knees.

No one has mentioned shoes.  My "motion-control" shoes gave me lots of grief during my first year of running.

Hi mark bro

My experience with knee pain, not sure if its the same issue as yours of course, hope it helps.

After increasing my mileage a few years back, including the length of my longer runs, I suffered knee soreness. The tendon below the left kneecap was sore. I think it was patella tendonitis.

First off I suspected the increase in workload. Looking back at my log I noticed that leading up to and through the time I was having the issue, I had changed the model of shoe I was using. I had gone from Asics1100 series to Asics 2100 series. In the end this seems to have been the cause of my problem

To cure the issue I needed to rest. I rested a frustrating 3 to 4 months, resorted to walking and little to no running.

After resting the knee, I went to my LRS and had a gait analysis. The recommendation was a Mizuno Wave Inspire. Which looks to be pretty close to the old Asics 1100 series. So this leads me to believe I had inadvertently moved to a shoe too stable/restrictive for my gait. Anyway I went with the Mizuno, probably could have just gone back to the Asics 1100 though. By the way,  I ALWAYS replaced my shoes at what I thought was a reasonable interval maybe 800km so I can't blame worn out shoes.

Returning to running from that layoff, I gradually increased my weekly running from about 30km a week to 60 to 70km week, maxed out at about 83km, with my longest run getting up to 28k, whereas 16k was the longest previously. The knee pain has not recurred! Yay!!

So long story short, my 2 cents, if you haven't already, go to your LRS, (or somewhere that you could get a gait analysis done), take your current shoes with you so they can check the wear, get a gait analysis and an opinion from the expert there.

We are all different, but for me it looks like the wrong shoes knocked me out for ages, and the right shoes are keeping me healthy.  Sorry no experience with insoles :-)

Good luck I hope you get over the knee pain quickly whatever the solution!