Did you have a play? Did you feel how the knees adapt to where the feet and hips are? Let us continue…
Elle X
The body is sooooo clever! It just gets stuck in shrinking comforts zones due to compensations from past injuries this then creates wonky timings in the body.
If your pelvis lives in a duck bum position (anterior tilt) this closes the space at the front of your hips rolling your thighs in. This causes the knee to gap on the inside. The joints on the inside have moved further apart. This gapping puts increased pressure on the inside knee muscles and ligaments to work harder. Linking in with bent knees. Traveling further down the leg this hip thigh position allows the ankle to roll in allowing the bones of the bottom of the foot to open. This arch of foot flattening puts stretch and length to the muscle on the bottom of the foot. Can you guess what might happen next? Yep lets do the opposite.
If the pelvis moves into a scooped position (posterior tilt) the opposite should happen. The front of the hip opens allowing space for the hips to open. The thighs roll out creating a locking and straightening in the knees. The inside of the knee joints are now closing and the muscles are contracting. Further down the ankle is now lifting and rolling out opening up the outside of the ankle. And funnily enough this leads to closing of the joints on the underside of the foot contracting the muscles and raising the arch.
Wonky timings mean unbalanced joints and muscles meaning some areas have to work too hard others don’t work hard enough.
Compensations come about from past injuries, habits, work positions and many more ways. A classic example could be a duck bottom sitting at a desk all day which can tighten up the fronts of the hips, put pressure on the inside of the knees, flatten the arches of the feet and lower back.
So next time you reach for the knee support, some funky coloured tape or are told you will need a knee replacement as yourself is it actually a symptom or the root cause of the problem. I know what I would be thinking now.
Remember knowledge is power when action is taken!
Elle x