Since last April my knees, especially my right knee, have been rubbish. This began when I used to fall over like a chump during ice hockey practise, mostly my fault as I had awful old shin guards. Then after some sweet advice I had two sessions in the gym where I did the good stuff - jumping squats using about 90kg - I was determined to dunk, only needed to improve my vertical jump about 20inches! Seemed fool proof.
I realised this was bad when I told someone I had some new pains in my knee and there look of shock when I mentioned what I'd done in the gym to achieve this.
I soon discovered during the night the dull ache behind my knee and the sharp jabbing pain around the lower front of my knee cap kept me awake unless I got up and did some stretches and walked around for about 10 minutes. Another cool thing was in work where sitting at my desk or standing in the lab resulted in prolonged aching all around the knee cap and a lot of clicking when I walked.
After this had gone on for a month or so I decided to reduce my dunking plans and stop jumping when playing basketball, I also told the doctor. Eventually I got to go to the physio.
Now I've rambled on about my sob story (with no dunking) I better briefly go over my treatments (I usually did these while brushing my teeth):
- Balancing! Initially just normally, then with eyes closed. Meant improve my body's appreciation of where my knee is to aid my posture. Awesome photo below..
- Squats. Standard squats without weights, making sure my knees only just went past my toes. This was meant to strengthen my glutes.
- 1 legged squats. Another sweet photo below. These were to help posture to reduce stress on the knee.
(Be sure to note the awesome posture)
- Core strengthening. I had to sit on a gym ball with one leg raised and stretch a physio band (green then blue when I got good!) To improve posture again, this did result in much mocking in the gym.
- Stretching. I was told I had tight tendons and muscles around my knee. Sat on the ground, touching my toes.
- Lunges. Onto the old half ball thing to improve balance and stabiliser muscle strength.
So that's it. I did these for 2 months and now I can sit or stand or sleep and generally get no pain, except Sunday nights. I just have to wait until the sun comes back now so I can start slamming again, or at least run around and shoot sweet j's without moaning like a wimp afterwards.
Remember these are just my experiences and aren't recommended for anyone else, a proper physiotherapy assessment is needed if you ever want to dunk like me!
A few links with some information
Knee Pain Symptoms
Dunking tips ;)
