How To Instantly Fix Knee Pain When Going Up And Down Stairs

hey are you dealing with knee pain when you're going up or down stairs well in this video today i'm going to show you how to instantly massively reduce your knee pain possibly even get rid of it with just what i'm going to show you in this video today now disclaimer there's more to it than what i'm going to show you today to solving your knee problem for the long term but if you've got stairs at home or you encounter stairs every day wherever you go work life things that you have to do this technique will reduce your knee pain pretty massively possibly even get rid of it completely my name is dr david middoff and i'm a specialist physical therapist at el paso manual physical therapy and this channel is dedicated to helping people on youtube get active healthy and mobile again while avoiding unnecessary surgery injections and medications be sure to subscribe and turn on your notifications so you don't miss any valuable tips that we share every week so i'm going to show you on a staircase in just a moment how exactly to go up and down the stairs but before we get there i just want to give you two knowledge pieces so that you can have a better understanding of how the stair climbing works both going up and down stairs the two biggest important pieces that you need to know number one you need to turn your foot all the way out and bring your knee out over your foot possibly even outside of your foot depending on where your foot is so every time you take a step up make sure that you land with your foot out your toes have to be pointed outwards and then when you step up with the other side also land outwards and then your knees can be going straight they have to be kind of outwards as well so it's going to feel awkward like you're moving your legs all the way out but that's what you need when you do that you will change the pressures that go through your knees and it becomes a lot less painful the second thing that you need to do is activate your glutes so it gets a little tricky um i've talked about glutes a lot on this channel it's so critical for knee problems especially but also hip and back problems and so i can't drive the point home enough but when you're gonna push through your leg to go up to the next step the push needs to come from the butt muscle from those glutes of course your foot's going to be out your knees going to be out but when you start to actually drive your body upwards to take the next step up you have to think about clenching your butt muscles so that that's the main muscle you're using to push up if you're not using the butt muscle then what you're going to be using likely is going to be your quad muscles the muscles that are on the front of your thigh if you fire those quad muscles too much repeatedly going up and down the stairs then you're likely going to increase the pressures inside your knee joint which causes the knee pain if you've already got an injured meniscus patellofemoral pain syndrome damaged cartilage arthritis any kind of those common knee problems it's going to increase the pressure on those injured parts of your knee and make it painful to go up and down the steps but if you turn your leg out turn your foot out turn your knee out and you fire with the butt muscle going up then you take pressure off the knee joint by firing the glutes which kind of shuts off the quads a bit and makes it a lot more tolerable possibly even pain-free to go up now when coming down the steps it's a little bit different i'll show you on the video here in a second but the the leg that you're descending with the one that you're gonna put down you're not too worried about it's the leg that stays up when you're coming down that leg that's the staying behind is actually the leg that's controlling the descents controlling your body sinking down to the next step so that leg has to be pre-positioned outwards your toes have to be out and the knee has to be out over the foot and then you have to think about using the glutes as you descend down so i'll show you on the video here in just a moment but just think about this before you actually go and do it if you've got stairs at home and you want to go try this step start with your feet out if you're at the top of the steps you're coming down and then bring a leg down and pre-position it outwards so that you kind of land with your foot out and then make sure you fire your glute on the way down and then you're doing the same thing on the other side as you're bringing your other leg down so you're always thinking about using your glutes throughout the steps so when you're on the stairs think about firing your butt muscle if you're going to go up the stairs that leg needs to be up turn your knee out and then i have my hand on my butt here so you can think about squeezing it then step outwards with the left leg turn your knee out over the foot and tension up the butt muscle as you come up to the next step and then you're going to repeat on the right repeat on the left always land with your foot and knee out and think about squeezing your butt muscle in order to come down the stairs pre-position your feet outwards turn your knees out as well and then when you when you descend that back leg is going to be the one that you really have to focus on pushing outwards with the knee and fire those butt muscles on the way down land with your other foot out turn your knee out and then think about firing the butt muscle on that back leg as you come down and just repeat always turn those knees out the feet out and use those butt muscles on the way down so let's see this in real time if you're going to go up the stairs make sure that your knees are going out and not straight forward and then when you decide to come down the stairs land with those feet out and the knees should be coming out and as you can see here in real time it doesn't look terribly awkward but it might feel kind of awkward when you start out so rewind that take a look listen closely play it a few times that's the way that you should always be going up and down stairs so that you take the pressures off your knees and make your glutes work the way that they're supposed to that's how you should be climbing stairs the rest of your life that's why you should have been climbing stairs before and you know if you decide to repeat this and kind of make it exercise just make sure that it isn't aggravating your knee if you've got a severe knee problem you don't want to go two stairs to do exercise you want what i'm trying to do here is just if you've got to encounter stairs because you have them in your home or at work or some place where you run into stairs consistently my goal is to help you make those stairs more tolerable now if you're recovering from a knee problem we get a lot of comments from viewers that have been doing our exercises and they're getting better if you're kind of in that position and you're looking now to do stairs for exercise it can be a good thing for you just make sure you do them just like this we've had people do the stair mill you know the the thing that looks like a treadmill but it's stairs and you're just climbing up stairs constantly and that's a great exercise if you're using your glutes properly and turning your knees in your feet out but if you're not used to doing that then chances are you're going to re-aggravate your knees and possibly make that arthritis the patellofemoral pain syndrome the cartilage meniscus issue worse over time because you're probably using your quad muscles which increases that pressure in the knee joints so take home points use those glutes make sure you turn your legs all the way out so that you take those pressures off the knee joints hey guys leave us a comment let us know if this helped you out i want to hear if it completely got rid of your knee pain that would be amazing we hear that from our patients here in the clinic all the time whenever we take them out to the stairwell and we haven't practiced exactly this what i showed you they're shocked to find out that they can dramatically reduce their knee pain even get rid of it completely in some cases and most importantly if they're considering selling their house they're relieved to know that they don't have to sell it for that reason for other reasons possibly but at least their knees aren't holding them back from enjoying their home if you're looking for help with walking regarding your knee pain because you're running into knee pain during walking go check out another video that we've got i put the link in the description right here it's called does walking help knee pain and it shows you exactly how to walk in such a way that reduces your knee pain this will help you be able to last longer on your feet be able to walk farther and if you're doing this for exercise it can actually benefit your knees so you can heal cartilage heal your meniscus and get back to enjoying the things that you love don't forget to give us a like if you thought this video was helpful and also subscribe and turn on the notification bell so that you can get notified whenever we release helpful new videos to help you on your health journey have a wonderful day guys bye

Channel: El Paso Manual Physical Therapy

Views: 2,765,868

Keywords: knee pain, knee pain stairs, how to climb stairs, stairs without knee pain, knee pain going up stairs, knee pain going down stairs, knee pain climbing stairs, knee pain treatment, knee pain relief, knee arthritis, patellofemoral pain syndrome, meniscus, meniscus tear, torn meniscus, knee pain stretches, knee osteoarthritis, how to fix knee pain, fix knee pain, physical therapy, physiotherapy, dr david middaugh, el paso tx, physical therapy el paso tx

Id: yZDUuwSDKfI

Length: 8min 19sec (499 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021