Is there a stretch or exercise I can do to help correct this?

[xboxist]

Sorry for the vague topic. Here goes:

When I sit down on the floor with my legs spread out in front of me in a "V" (as if I'm about to do basic hamstring stretches), I cannot use the various muscles in the leg with my "bad knee" to press the back of that knee to the floor (achieving a leg flush with the ground). There is a full index finger width between the back of that knee and the ground. The healthy leg I can do so easily.

I bring this up because I think it's affecting other fitness activities. This condition (I think) causes my left leg to effectively be about a quarter inch shorter than my good leg because it doesn't stretch out fully. It causes the elliptical machine to feel awkward, which is a machine I depend on for cardio because of the bad knee in the first place (no impact).

In the meantime I'll be switching to a bike machine for my cardio, but I wanted to ask you guys if you thought there was something I could do to increase the flexibility in that leg to allow it to stretch out fully and lay flat upon the ground.

I hope this made sense... heh. Thanks.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

The best thing to increase flexibility is more stretching. You should have that knee looked at.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Well, this isn't quite an "un-eveness" in your legs because it can many times be fixed. I think of an un-eveness as more of a pelvic misalignment or genetic aiment. Anyhow, yes you can fix this. How long has your leg been like this? Some exercises to help with this are not going to be fun, but include straightening your leg and trying to press the back of your knee to the floor using your quad muscles; propping your heel under a pillow and doing the same; actively flexing your quad as much as you can to straighten your knee, etc. You can even put some pressure on your knee with your upper body if it doesn't hurt and the knee isn't stretching. This will take time, but it is usually fixable unless there is actual joint damage (it's usually just tendon and muscle inflexibility caused by nursing an injury). You could talk to your doctor about seeing a physical therapist, but I can guarantee you they will have you doing these exercises.

 

[xboxist]

Thanks, I'm going to look into some flexibility exercises and see if those help on their own.

 

[StageLeft]

There are some, but I think your problem is not quite common enough to just grab a few exercises of runnersworld.com and go to town for a few weeks (it may be, though. 🙂) I would advise you find a competent physical therapist. Personally, I would call your local running store or stores and ask, or even ask your physician (if you have one now) for one. Depending on insurance you may or may not need a prescription. Still, this may be a fairly common problem from a PT's perspective, so even randomly picking one should give you some benefits--just find one that deals more with athletes than, say, 50 year old fat women who just got a bilateral knee replacement.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
There are some, but I think your problem is not quite common enough to just grab a few exercises of runnersworld.com and go to town for a few weeks (it may be, though. 🙂) I would advise you find a competent physical therapist. Personally, I would call your local running store or stores and ask, or even ask your physician (if you have one now) for one. Depending on insurance you may or may not need a prescription. Still, this may be a fairly common problem from a PT's perspective, so even randomly picking one should give you some benefits--just find one that deals more with athletes than, say, 50 year old fat women who just got a bilateral knee replacement.

You treat them exactly the same when it comes to this injury so it doesn't quite matter. Just make sure to go to a place that actually stretches you and makes you do exercises. There are some places that just do heat, ultrasound, and massage and are royally useless.

 

[Jeff7181]

I'm going through the same thing and my physical therapist and surgeon both recommended slight hyper extension to stretch. What I do is sit on the floor with my legs straight out and my heel up on a pillow about 1-2 inches off the ground, then use a 10 pound weight, sometimes 15, on top of my knee to slightly hyper extend it before my workout. It's been helping... I'm almost able to lock my bad knee with no more effort than my good knee and I'm just 4 months out from surgery after a torn medial meniscus, chipped bone and ACL reconstruction.

 

[xboxist]

Nice insight Jeff, I appreciate you sharing your situation with me.

And yes, I know what you mean about the "useless" PT centers. I've had two surgeries on this knee, and thus I've had two stints of physical therapy afterward each time. They were both all about hooking me up to electrolysis machines and rubbing oils into the knee, alternating heat/cold, etc. The exercises almost seemed like an afterthought at times.

 

[Titan]

A good hamstring stretch from tae kwon do that was my only morning hamstring stretch before running is the dynamic kick. Basically you maintain the posture of a front-kick and keep your leg straight the whole time and swing it up as high as you can. it works if you don't have a big gut to block your leg swing. 😛

I get in a good front-stance, feet shoulder width apart, kicking leg being at least 1 shoulder width behind and straight, and then you just swing your leg up. If you're really good you can get your knee to touch your shoulder. Keep your back straight, shoulders relaxed and arms to the side for balance. This is a smooth motion, it gets the blood flowing and doesn't strain anything. I would do 10 per leg before my run, you might try more on the bad leg, but I doubt that will fix the shortness of the leg. I would also recommend you stretch the hip as well, which I guess this stretch would do in a secondary way.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: Titan
A good hamstring stretch from tae kwon do that was my only morning hamstring stretch before running is the dynamic kick. Basically you maintain the posture of a front-kick and keep your leg straight the whole time and swing it up as high as you can. it works if you don't have a big gut to block your leg swing. 😛

I get in a good front-stance, feet shoulder width apart, kicking leg being at least 1 shoulder width behind and straight, and then you just swing your leg up. If you're really good you can get your knee to touch your shoulder. Keep your back straight, shoulders relaxed and arms to the side for balance. This is a smooth motion, it gets the blood flowing and doesn't strain anything. I would do 10 per leg before my run, you might try more on the bad leg, but I doubt that will fix the shortness of the leg. I would also recommend you stretch the hip as well, which I guess this stretch would do in a secondary way.

These are good dynamic stretches, but won't help his knee much at all. Part of the rehab is learning to flex the vastus medialus (the quad muscle on the inside of the leg) again since the body shuts it down and will not fire it optimally after a surgery or injury. The light hyperextension is solid and is pretty much spot on. Also, you may want to do some heel slides, laying down, pulling your knee as far as you can toward your butt. I'd venture to say that if you have limited extension, you also have limited flexion.

 

[xboxist]

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged

Originally posted by: Titan
A good hamstring stretch from tae kwon do that was my only morning hamstring stretch before running is the dynamic kick. Basically you maintain the posture of a front-kick and keep your leg straight the whole time and swing it up as high as you can. it works if you don't have a big gut to block your leg swing. 😛

I get in a good front-stance, feet shoulder width apart, kicking leg being at least 1 shoulder width behind and straight, and then you just swing your leg up. If you're really good you can get your knee to touch your shoulder. Keep your back straight, shoulders relaxed and arms to the side for balance. This is a smooth motion, it gets the blood flowing and doesn't strain anything. I would do 10 per leg before my run, you might try more on the bad leg, but I doubt that will fix the shortness of the leg. I would also recommend you stretch the hip as well, which I guess this stretch would do in a secondary way.

These are good dynamic stretches, but won't help his knee much at all. Part of the rehab is learning to flex the vastus medialus (the quad muscle on the inside of the leg) again since the body shuts it down and will not fire it optimally after a surgery or injury. The light hyperextension is solid and is pretty much spot on. Also, you may want to do some heel slides, laying down, pulling your knee as far as you can toward your butt. I'd venture to say that if you have limited extension, you also have limited flexion.

/takes notes

Will give this a try at the gym tonight!

 

[xboxist]

BTW:

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
Part of the rehab is learning to flex the vastus medialus (the quad muscle on the inside of the leg) again since the body shuts it down and will not fire it optimally after a surgery or injury.

This is exactly right. My first operation was 4 years ago now, and it was a fairly traumatic procedure. I was instructed to be "non-weight bearing" for 3 full months after the surgery. Three months of crutches and not using those legs muscles at ALL. My leg basically shutdown and I had to learn how to walk all over again through extensive rehab. The muscles in that leg are still smaller to this day as I haven't fully recovered from the severe leg muscle atrophy. It's tons better however, and I hope to achieve full parity in the coming months.

Now I just really want to work on the flexibility.