Suffering from knee pain without any obvious reasons? The relationship between hip weakness and knee pain works like this: The hip is a ball and and socket joint and is a major weight bearing joint in the body. There are many ligaments and muscular attachments around the hips that help control motion of the joint itself and also your leg. One of the major muscles involved in hip stability is the gluteus medius muscle. This muscle pulls your leg to the side (abduct). It rotates the thigh outwards when sitting and helps other muscles to rotate the thigh inward when you are standing. Whilst walking or standing, the gluteus medius helps to keep your hips stable to avoid that “swaying” walk that is considered sexy in women. Because of all of this the gluteus medius is very important in keeping the muscles in your legs aligned properly. When you throw into the mix that the patella (the knee cap) is actually a free floating bone inserted into a tendon you can begin to see that muscle imbalances can cause tracking problems of the knee cap and thus irritation and pain. If you have regular knee pain that is not directly linked to an injury, you definitely need to see a physio who will look at your gait, analyse your lower body strength, range of motion and flexibility. There is also a link between tension in your hip flexors and gluteus medius inhibiton (muscles not firing). So generally keeping your hips flexible through stretching is a good thing, too. Want to read more about
- Patellofemoral stress syndrome
- Iliotibial band friction syndrome
- Patellar tendonitis
- Pes anserine bursitis
http://physicaltherapy.about.com/od/humananatomy/a/Hip-Weakness-and-Knee-Pain.htm