My Knee is Stiff and Tight. What Can I Do?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions in our clinic. It can be difficult for a person to know the right way to alleviate stiffness in the knee if they don’t know what is causing it.
The most common causes of knee stiffness are pain, weakness, disease and injury. This covers a wide range of possibilities for your tightness, so it is important to know the way you treat it is safe and effective.
Episodes of stiffness can vary in length from thirty minutes to the duration of the day which can reduce mobility, increase pain and decrease your confidence with normal activities.
That is why we have listed a few helpful points on how to manage that frustrating tightness will not go away.
Stretch
Stretching will help to improve the flexibility of your joint which increases its ability to move through its full range of motion; in other words, how far it can twist, bend and reach. The best time to stretch is when the muscles are warm and pliable. This could be during a pilates class or just after exercising.
Here are a couple of ways you can stretch your quadriceps muscle. It is important to target this muscle because it can often become overworked and cause tension in the knee.
Strengthen
It is a common misconception that resting a stiff knee will help it get better. Strengthening your knee can give it the support it needs to manage a day of walking, commuting and training without getting as stiff.
Moving your stiff knees can be tough but they won’t improve unless you try moving them. Try some of the exercises below to get started. Movement might be uncomfortable to begin with but if you avoid movement it will make the joint stiffer. Remember, hurt does not mean harm!
Heat
Think about how your stiff joints feel after a warm shower in the morning or after a long day of work. Do you feel rigid and sore or comforted and soothed?
Heat can be very effective for chronic pain, stiffness and muscle stress. It works by relaxing muscles, stimulating blood flow and improving circulation. This can help increase your range of motion and get your ready for activity.
Using a hot water bottle, heat pack or having a warm shower for 20 minutes can be a quick and easy way to relieve stiffness in the knee.
Treatment
You might read this and think “I’ve tried this and it’s not getting any better” or “I still have so many questions”. We hear this a lot at our clinic and having a talk with one of the physiotherapists can help move you in the right direction.
Hands on treatment, exercise programmes, pilates and education are just some of the services we provide to help give you the confidence to manage your pain and stiffness.
If you would like a free consultation with one of our physiotherapists to help answer some of your questions, click the link below to get things started.
Or if you would like to download our 100% FREE knee pain report then please
click here
. Find out more about how we can help with your knee pain, click
here.
