Once More: Proper Exercise Won’t Damage Your Knees

One thing that exasperates me is the all-too-common belief that, once you develop chronic knee pain, you have to stop exercising completely or else the condition will get worse.

So I’m always happy to hold up a study (or in this case even better: many studies) that disprove this wrongheaded attitude.

Here is the opening paragraph of a summary of the research:

A study by scientists has discovered that therapeutic exercise does not harm articular cartilage of the knee in people with osteoarthritis, a leading cause of disability worldwide associated with pain, impaired mobility and quality of life. It may, in fact, benefit articular cartilage.

It turns out that this conclusion was reached by a research fellow at the University of Aberdeen's Institute of Medical Sciences. He didn’t examine a single study either, but rather 21 of them that were conducted in countries from China and Holland to Turkey.

The two main findings: (1) Therapeutic exercise doesn’t damage the articular cartilage in the knee joint. (2) Also, that kind of exercise doesn’t increase inflammation.

All great results, and they should give knee pain suffers confidence to embark on an exercise program.

Now, what’s important to remember though: therapeutic exercise is good. Any old exercise may not be. Even if you think you've found the perfect exercise that's not too stressful on the knee, you have to be careful and monitor any symptoms closely.

On Stretching and Knee Pain

I was thinking about stretching recently. My mother was in town for a few weeks. She’s edging toward her late 70s, is in great shape, and was talking about her yoga class.

She mentioned all the stretching she does for class, and I just kind of nodded absently.

It’s no secret I’m not a big fan of stretching. Most of my life, I never bothered to stretch, and I was fine. Then, when I developed knee pain, a physical therapist advised that I stretch, and at that point, hell, I was willing to try anything. I even thought to myself, “Of course. Stretching. Never did it and look where I am now. Stretching is what I need to do!”

I learned a stretch for my quads that brought me some temporary relief, but the knee pain would soon come back. What’s more, I never got the sense that my knees were really getting better on account of the stretching. So I started to look into stretching, and what I found went into Saving My Knees and also became this five-part series below:

To Stretch or Not to Stretch, Part I
Can Stretching Really Help Fix What Ails Your Knee?
Stretching, Part III: A Critical Look at the Biggest Pro-Stretching Claims
On the Real Benefits of Stretching If You Have Knee Pain
Why Is Stretching So Darn Popular, If Its Benefits Have Been Greatly Oversold?

Still, a lot of people love stretching. It’s like this unquestioned, ingrained thing, and the belief in stretching is really hard to dislodge. Frankly, I doubt it’s worth arguing about. I think you could cite clinical studies that disprove the benefits of stretching until you’re blue in the face, and any diehard stretcher would listen impassively, then go off and start doing some stretches.

I think it’s almost reached the level of religious belief. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s good to take a benign view on such matters. I’m sure some of the things I do now, that I think are helping me in some way, actually aren’t making any difference at all.

My thinking now is, if stretching helps with your knee pain, great, keep doing it. I’d say the same about taking glucosamine (unless you’re diabetic of course).

I’m not sure stretching does any good. But most stretching – if done gently enough, without any strange, hard, twisting forces being put on joints – seems harmless enough.

So if you want to stretch, go for it. Me, I just prefer to warm up. I think that works better.