Smarter: How to Prevent Knee Pain

First of all, what causes knee pain?
The most common causes of knee pain are associated with aging, injuries, or overuse, according to the website for Johns Hopkins Medicine, a hospital in Baltimore. 

For instance, knee problems can come from osteoarthritis, a wear-and-tear condition that occurs when knee cartilage deteriorates with age and use. You can also have knee pain from rheumatoid arthritis, a disease that causes inflammation of the joints, including your knees. 

Injuries that can cause knee pain include a sprained or strained knee ligament or muscle, or torn cartilage. It can also come from tendonitis, the overuse and inflammation of your tendons during certain activities such as running, jumping, or cycling, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. 

What factors could be contributing to the risk of knee pain?
Weakness and underuse of the muscles that support the knees are common causes of inflammation that can result in pain, says Ashley V. Austin, MD, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

When our core muscles, glutes, quadriceps, and hamstrings are weak, we make compensatory movements that put abnormal stress across our joints, including the knees, says Cody C. Wyles, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

High-impact activities, such as running or high-intensity interval training, which is short bursts of intense exercise alternated with brief recovery periods, can also contribute to knee pain if they’re done without proper training, Ashley says. 

That’s especially the case if those high-impact activities are coupled with shoes that don’t support you, inadequate nutrition, and repetitive stresses from the same activity over time without sufficient rest periods. 

What are ways we can help prevent knee pain?
Exercise. Staying active is crucial for knee health. You can try exercises such as glute bridges, single-leg deadlifts, and eccentric sideboard leg curls, which can strengthen and stabilize your lower body and the areas around your knees, says Dan McGinley, a coach at Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning, a fitness and training facility in Woburn, Mass.

You should listen to your body and avoid doing exercises that hurt your knees, Dan says. And in addition to strength training, it’s important to engage in various activities that involve cardiovascular fitness, stability, and mobility, Cody says. 

Cardiovascular exercise involves anything that elevates your heart rate. Stability work with balance exercises and core strengthening are easy to incorporate at the end of a workout. Also, don’t forget to stretch, because tight muscles fatigue easier and can lead to injuries around the knees.

Knee pain can arise from increasing the load on your knees faster than your knees can adapt, for example, running too often or quickly without adequate recovery time. Therefore, make sure your exercise program gradually increases activity in a manner that’s safe and effective, says Kelcie Wittman, PT, a specialist in sports physical therapy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and spokesperson for the American Physical Therapy Association.

If you’re already experiencing pain, avoid high-impact activities such as running, jumping, deep knee bends, and squats. Instead, try low-impact activities such as walking on soft surfaces like a track, grass, and trails, Ashley says. Other options include swimming, aquatic exercise, tai chi, modified yoga, recumbent biking, and exercising on an elliptical machine. 

If you’re looking to purchase an elliptical, here are the best ellipticals of 2023, according to our tests (available to CR members).

Use proper form. When you’re doing activities such as squatting, lunging, and going up and down stairs, make sure you’re not leaning forward too much on your toes with your upper body bent forward, says Jeremy A. Alland, MD, a sports medicine physician at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush, an orthopedic clinic in Chicago. 

Instead of putting all the pressure on the front of our feet, we should position ourselves more toward the middle of our feet or our heels, and keep our back upright, Jeremy says. 

Wear supportive shoes for daily activities and exercise, Ashley says. For your running shoes, you want to make sure they fit well and have good cushioning, according to Penn Medicine. And if you have flat feet, you might want to try special shoe inserts and arch support. 

Maintain a healthy weight. Excess pounds is one of the most common reasons for knee pain and can contribute to arthritis. To track your fitness progress or body weight better, check out our ratings of the best fitness trackers and bathroom scales (available to CR members).

Physical therapy treatments. If you’re already experiencing knee pain, physical therapists can provide personalized information on the best ways to relieve it as well as identify habits that may be contributing to the pain that you’re unaware of, Kelcie says. 

Bonus reading: How to treat pain in your knees, feet, back, and head. And if you’re looking to do some strength training, here are four easy strength training moves.